Common Faults With Hearing Aids
My hearing aid is whistling or buzzing
Feedback, the technical term for the noise a hearing aid makes, is normal with many types of hearing aid and is not usually a sign of a faulty aid.
To try and rectify this problem, please check:
- The aid is in your ear correctly
- The tubing is not loose, split or kinked.
- The aid is on the correct setting
- Your earpiece is not damaged, cracked or loose
If after you have checked all of these possibilities, you are still experiencing feedback from your hearing aid, it is quite possible that you may have a build up of ear wax. Too much ear wax in your ears can mean that the ‘feed’ of sound into your ear is prevented, sending the sound ‘back’ into the aid causing ‘Feedback’. We suggest you make an appointment with your GP or practice nurse to ensure your ear is clear.
Once you have had your ear/s checked and cleared of any wax, if you still experience problems, please contact us to arrange an appointment in one of our Adult Hearing Aid Repair Clinics on 0113 5181823
My hearing aid has stopped working
To try and rectify this problem, please check:
- You have changed the battery in the hearing aid
- The tubing is not blocked with ear wax, debris or water
- The tubing is not loose, split or kinked.
- You have cleaned through the tubing
- The hearing aid is on the correct setting
If you are still experiencing problems after checking all of the above, please contact us to arrange an appointment at one of our Adult Hearing aid Repair Clinics on 0113 3926300
Signal Tagging The Next Feedback Reduction Technology
Manufacturers then started tagging acoustical signals so that they could tell if something had already been amplified or not. Essentially, a very high pitched sound would be added to whatever sound was played in the ear canal.
At a high enough frequency that the hearing aid user would never notice it or hear it. If the computer chip heard or picked up that added high pitched signal back in the microphones, the hearing aid knew that feedback could be occurring and that it needed to limit the volume in sound to stop the feedback.
This was effective but still was solving feedback by limiting volume. Limiting volume is not what a hearing-impaired persons needs to understand.
Your Hearing Aid Is Not Fitted Correctly
If you are experiencing hearing aid feedback, try pressing the aid tighter into your ear. If the feedback ceases when the hearing aid is pressed further into your ear, it is an indication that the lack of proper fit is causing the feedback. Always make sure your hearing aids are in your ears correctly. If they do not stay in place, make sure to visit a Registered Hearing Aid Practitioner as soon as possible.
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Change The Piece That Fits In Your Ear Canal
Another way that feedback can be reduced or eliminated is by switching the piece that holds all of the sounds inside of your ear. If you are using a behind the ear style of hearing aids it would be the dome that is on the end. If you have a custom fit mold, please skip to the next section.
There are generally 3 different types of domes that can go on the end of your hearing aids and then multiple different diameter sizes of each of those 3 styles.
The most common one is called an open dome. It is the most popular because it is natural sounding. It allows un-amplified sound to enter and escape your ear. The reason that it is called open is that it doesnt plug up the ear. No one wants a plugged ear sensation but no one wants it to whistle either. It really depends on your amount of hearing loss if changing to a closed or occluded dome will make you feel plugged up. But if the whistling has become a truly bothersome problem then its definitely worth a try. So the next style of a dome to try is called a closed dome.
If you have already cleaned the wax out of your ears and are ready to find some other permanent solution, switching to a closed dome is the next step. It could be the same size as the open dome you had before but will keep more sound in your ear canal.
A closed dome will keep more sound from leaking out of the ear canal causing the pesky whistle. It will, however, also change the acoustic properties of the system.
Why Does Your Hearing Aid Squeal Or Whistle
e fit in your ear. Here is a portion of the explanations behind a whistling listening device:
Not in Properly
Put Your Damn Hearing guide tip in your ear individuals! As a rule, when we see input issues it is on the grounds that users are not setting the tip of the listening device sufficiently profound in their waterway. Once in a while, Users arent getting their molds into their ear properly when they are wearing BTEs.
Terrible Mold Fit
Sometimes with molds, the ear has changed throughout the years which implies they simply dont fit appropriately any longer. An irregular fitting ear form can enable a lot of sounds to spill out making the hearing aids whistle. If so, you have to see your expert to get another ear gear.
A Build Up of Wax
A development of earwax in your ear trench implies that a greater amount of the sound being exhibited by the portable hearing assistant bobs or breaks out of the ear. The expansion in the sound being forced back and changes the set feedback path. The element cant adapt and you get a piercing whistle. The only way to get rid of that is to remove earwax.
Increasing The Volume
This is to a lesser extent an issue than it used to be a feedback management systems. They are more intelligent and superior to anything they ever were. The expansion in the sound being forced back and changes the set feedback path. The element cant adapt and you get a piercing whistle. Turn down the volume and contact to your expert
A Cap or a Scarf
Vents
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Adjust The Fit Of Your Hearing Aid
Perhaps the most prevalent reason for feedback or whistling in the ear involves the positioning of your hearing aid in your ear or the earmold connected to it. If the hearing aid does not fit properly within your ear, sound can escape and reverberate through the hearing aids microphone. The result of that leakage can be a whistling thats either intermittent or constant, depending on how much sound has escaped and how poorly the fit is. With some hearing aid models, a plastic tube will connect the actual device with the earmold. Over time, this piece can harden, shrink, or crack, which unseats the earmold from its proper position. This movement can cause whistling, but you can correct the issue by replacing the plastic piece.
Oticon Tried And Failed With A Binaural Feedback System
So with the simple phases inversion or cancellation feedback method there were a lot of problems of true sounds being distorted, canceled or an echo of the sound being played. This was unnatural to the hearing aid user and did not make a great user experience.
Oticon came up with the idea of using the wireless functions in the hearing aid to prevent this. The idea was basically if one hearing aid thinks that it is having feedback, it is going to wirelessly communicate with the hearing aid on the opposite side of the head and see if the other hearing aid hears that same noise. If the opposite hearing aid didnt pick up that sound, the hearing aid would assume it is feedback and stop it from occurring.
However, if both hearing aids heard the sound, it would assume the sound came from the environment and would not stop it from being amplified in the hearing aids. While this was a novel idea, it had a lot of downfalls. If you ever only wore one of the hearing aids you effectively didnt have a feedback system.
But when would you ever just wear one hearing aid? Well consider if you have only hearing loss on one side or if one hearing aid was broken and in for repair.
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Why Do My Hearing Aids Whistle
- Date: August 9, 2018
The disturbing whistling or squeaking noise coming from your hearing aid is caused by feedback. Feedback occurs when the sound coming out of your hearing aid loops back around and goes into the hearing aids microphone. This sound is annoying to you and to those around you, but you should be able to reduce or eliminate the noise by taking a few simple steps.
Solving Feedback With A Custom Fit Mold Or In
With a mold inside of your ear, it should be fitting nice and comfortable. However, each mold generally has a vent going through it. The vent is intended to allow the sound to feel more natural to you.
However, this vent is also a path in which sound can leak out of your ear canal and reenter the microphones creating the feedback that we are trying to eliminate. So a method to reducing that feedback is to plug up the vent hole.
Each hearing aid is generally shipped with extra vent plugs. They are little rubber pieces that can be shoved into the hole of the vent. These, however, are often thrown away at the fitting appointment, as they are typically not used. If you are wanting to try this out, cover that vent hole with tape, silly putty or anything else that can slip inside of the hole.
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No Feedback Systems In Hearing Aids
Before digital circuits in hearing aids, the only methods to use to prevent feedback are the methods that I discussed above with making the earmold or dome tighter in the ear canal. But the feedback was commonplace and made it so many people could not get the volume they needed out of their hearing aids. Unfortunately, some cheap hearing amplifiers dont implore any feedback system still.
Why Do My Hearing Aids Whistle And How Can I Fix It
Most hearing aids come with a feedback cancellation option, but this won’t always prevent hearing aid feedback from happening.
Here are some of the most common reasons why hearing aids whistle and how you can fix it:
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Not the right fit – Even if your hearing aids were a perfect fit when you first received them, over time, they might have loosened in your ears because our ears change.They can even change shape! If they no longer fit properly, then the earmold will be loose, and sound will escape. To fix this, you should get new earmolds fit to your current ear. If you have recently lost or gained weight, this can also cause your ears to change shape and size. You always want to make sure that your hearing aids are sitting nice and tight in your ear, and if they aren’t, then you should make an appointment to see your hearing care professional.
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Increased volume – While specific environments require you to turn the volume up on your hearing aids, but at certain times this can also cause your hearing aids to whistle. If the sound is so loud then it will cause it to escape your ear and enter back into the hearing aid microphone. Avoid this by making sure your volume isn’t too loud.
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Broken tubing – There are times when the tube that connects to the earmold can harden or shrink, and then it can pull on the earmold, and it wont be snug in your ear anymore. To fix this visit your hearing care professional to get a new tube.
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Why Do My Hearing Aids Squeal
There are many reasons why hearing aids may squeal or whistle. Tune in to understand why it exists and what to do about it.
Hi, I’m Jim Cuddy and this is Ask The Hearing Doctors. And I’m joined today by Dr. Jenna Valania, doctor of audiology with Hearing Doctors. The Washington DC area’s highest-rated audiology practice with over 1500, five-star reviews. Jenna, as always great to see you. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely.
So my hearing aids are squealing, why do my hearing aids squeal?
What a phenomenal question that you have, as do a lot of our patients. So sometimes we have patients that they’re just like Im sitting at my kitchen table, I don’t hear anything but my wife is hearing this high-pitched squeal or Im sitting there and I’m trying to have a conversation with my husband or my partner and all I’m hearing is squealing as I’m talking, what is going on? Is this an easy fix? Are the hearing aids broken? Let me tell you the hearing aids are not broken. There are a lot of reasons why the hearing aids could be squealing and the best place to start is by scheduling a quick visit with us.
Okay now are there things that you should be looking out for on your own before maybe you make that visit?
Are there specific types of sounds that are likely to feedback? Say high and low frequencies?
Is there ever an instance where that squealing or whistling sound is normal?
What Is Hearing Aid Whistling
Whistling is just one of the many sounds you might hear due to the feedback loop. You could also hear squeaking or squealing sounds at the same time. This hearing aid noise is not just annoying to you, but to those around you as well. Feedback loops occur when the sound leaving your hearing aid circles back around and hits your hearing devices microphone. That crackling, whistling, static sound is feedback in action. Thankfully, there are simple solutions to stop that hearing aid squeal. But why do hearing aids whistle?
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Reasons Why Your Hearing Aids Are Whistling And What To Do About It
by Widex
Hearing aids whistle sometimes, just like your phone sometimes does when its too close to the radio. If you wear hearing aids, youre going to experience whistling at some point. It can happen through something as simple as putting on a scarf. The whistling is called hearing aid feedback. Heres what causes it and what you can do about it.
Common Causes Of Hearing Aid Feedback Problems
A high-pitched screech or squeal from an electronic device is called feedback, and it can happen for a number of reasons. The most effective way to fix the problem is to determine the source of the problem, which might be:
If you are unable to determine the cause of feedback, our hearing care specialists can examine your device and advise you on how to correct the problem. We perform repairs on many hearing aid makes and models, and offer hearing aids equipped with feedback cancellation if your device is beyond repair. Call or visit us today to have our technicians get to work on restoring your hearing aid.
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Todays Hearing Aids Can Provide More Power With Less Feedback Than Ever Before
Different companies manage feedback differently, and that affects patients hearing.
In my patients case, her feedback was the result of too much wax in her ear. Once this was removed, the problem was solved and she was thrilled to be able to hear again. Her family was even happier that they did not need to listen to that annoying sound. Next time you hear eeeeeee, consider the possible reasons, and then call your audiologist for help!
Why Does My Hearing Aid Buzz
You started wearing hearing aids because you want to improve your ability to hear sounds . But sometimes, hearing aids themselves generate buzzing or whistling sounds. This can range from annoyingwhen its quick and low-volumeto downright painful if the noises are loud or sustained.
Assuming youve checked the batteries and theyre fine, youre probably hearing feedback. Yes, just like a grade school principal awkwardly stepping up to the microphone to make an announcementand making everyone wince as the sound is accidentally re-amplified. Sound is rebounding within your ear and going through your hearing aid twice. Here are four of the most common causes of feedbackand how to fix each one.
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What Could Be Happening
One of these is a poor fit. If your hearing aids earmold does not fit in your ear correctly, the sound may leak out and then travel back into the devices microphone, causing a whistling sound. If you do not have custom earmolds, this problem will probably continue. If you did have earmolds made to fit your ear, you should return to your hearing care provider to check the fit. If he or she determines that poor fit is the cause of your feedback, the earmold will have to be remade.
Another cause of this whistling may be the wax in your ears. As many may know, our ears produce wax naturally to trap and expel foreign substances. But, when you have wax build-up in your ears and insert your hearing aids on top of the wax, the sound coming out of the amplifier will be blocked and returned to the microphone, causing a loud whistling noise.
Unfortunately, a quick swipe in your ear with a cotton swab will probably not solve this. Actually, it may make your problems worse. It is best to see a hearing specialist and schedule an appointment for some professional ear wax removal.
If the hearing aids microphone is covered with any sort of substance such as wax or debris, it will make a noise. Gently cleaning the holes of the microphone with a wax pick or hook should solve the problem. However, some hearing aids are more sensitive to feedback than others. If feedback is an ongoing problem despite taking these steps to eliminate it, schedule a visit with your hearing professional.