Maintenance and Troubleshooting
While cleaning your hearing aids daily is essential, there are a few other maintenance requirements to keep them performing their best.
Simple steps to enhance hearing aid performance
Maintaining your hearing aid through daily cleaning and regular service is extremely important. Proper care helps retain optimum hearing conditions, extends the life of your hearing aid, and ensures proper hygiene.
Troubleshooting
Before taking your hearing aids in for servicing, check this list of symptoms and possible solutions. If the problem persists, we can help you find a professional.
For help pairing your hearing aids with Amazon Fire TV Cube, download this guide.
How to care for your hearing aid
- Handle your hearing aid with care.
- Store your hearing aid in a safe place that’s dry and cool.
- Change hearing aid batteries often so they don’t suddenly run out of power.
- Switch off your hearing aid when you’re not using it. If you don’t use it for a long period of time, remove the battery.
- Battery contacts should be cleaned regularly. Use a cotton swab, taking care not to bend the contacts. Dirty battery contacts can cause improper device function.
- Remove earwax from your hearing aid to prevent temporary malfunction or permanent damage.
- Clean your hearing aid using the small brush or the soft cloth that came with it. Never insert tools into the sound outlet. Doing so could damage the receiver. If you can’t clean the hearing aid completely, ask your hearing professional for help.
- Change filters often so they don’t collect wax or dirt.
- Accumulated earwax may prevent sounds from traveling from the hearing aid into the middle ear. Contact your doctor regularly to have your ear canals cleaned. Never remove the earwax from the ear yourself. Doing so could damage your ear.
- Don’t wear your hearing aid
- in the shower
- swimming
- when using a hair dryer, hair spray or other types of spray
Wax Guards
Your devices are fit with a HearClear wax guard system. At the very tip of your devices (sometimes under the silicone cap) there is a white wax guard. This device keeps wax from entering your device and causing damage. These guards need to be changed out every month. Click video to the right for a quick how-to.
Quarterly Check-Ups
Cleaning your devices at home each day is great, but you should regularly come into the office for a quarterly check-up. Wax can easily build up in your ear and we have found that a quarterly checkup is the best way to stay proactive in avoiding damage to your devices and keeping your ears clean. At this quick appointment, your hearing team will also perform diagnostics check and deep cleaning of your devices.
How to Perform a Self Check inside the Thrive App
If your hearing aids don’t seem to be working like usual or there is a sudden change in your devices, the first thing you should try is turning your devices off and then back on. If your hearing aid uses a disposable battery, replace the battery. If the issue persists, you can run a self-check through the Thrive App. We recommend contacting one of our clinics so we can get you in for a maintenance check. Watch this how to video.