Today I’d like to explain exactly how hearing aids can help you hear better.

How do hearing aids work?

Hearing loss reduces stimulation to your hearing nerve pathway and can make your hearing system ‘lazy’. You can actually ‘forget’ certain sounds exist, and the longer you leave your hearing loss untreated, the harder it is to get those sounds back.

Good quality hearing aids help give your brain the hearing information you’ve been missing.They retrain your brain to identify and interpret sound.

Most people will find that good quality hearing aids give them back the important parts of music and the higher pitched sounds of speech associated with children’s and female voices.

More technically, a hearing aid has 3 basic parts; microphone; amplifier and speaker. But not all hearing aids are created equally. The ‘smarts’ differ considerably.

How do Blamey Saunders hearing aids work?

Our hearing aids contain five key technologies, including technology found in the bionic ear — that’s our background, that work to make sound extremely natural and comfortable and bring the right sounds into focus, while reducing distracting background noise.

Our hearing aids have been made to be simple and flexible; you can adjust them yourself with our IHearYou system on your smartphone or computer

You can adjust the hearing aids to exactly how you want them to sound and even create special programs for specific listening situations

So,  how do we know when it’s time for a hearing aid?

The best way to screen for deteriorating hearing is to simply ask yourself: “are there situations where I really struggle to hear?” If the answer is yes, then you probably do have a hearing loss. You can also take a screening test, like the one Blamey Saunders provide online.

You might have a hearing problem if you’ve had trouble following a conversation in a group or in background noise.

You might feel that people always mumble.

You might struggle to understand high pitched voices. Or you might frequently argue over the volume you’d like the TV to be.

It’s best to seek help for hearing loss as soon as you notice you’re having problems day to day, so you can avoid the secondary complications of hearing loss — like depression, dementia and social withdrawal.

Do hearing aids help with tinnitus?

A hearing aid usually takes the intensity out of tinnitus, but doesn’t always solve the problem. Hearing aids help people with tinnitus in several ways;

• they make external sounds more audible and comfortable so that the tinnitus isn’t noticeable (greater hearing activity often stops the tinnitus);
• they lessen the effort it can take to listen, reducing stress and fatigue – which can trigger or worsen tinnitus;
• they make communication easier by helping stop the sounds you want to hear from being masked by unwelcome noise.

If tinnitus interferes with your daily life it can be beneficial to investigate sound therapy or seek assistance from a specialist audiologist or a psychologist who specialises in tinnitus.

What can we realistically expect from a hearing aid?

While hearing aids can’t make you hear what someone with ‘extra good’ hearing wouldn’t in extra tricky listening situations, hearing aids are very sophisticated and can make sound quite natural.

When people get good quality hearing aids for the first time, they often experience a whole word of sound that they have forgotten. You will find it easier to have conversations with people, and be able to participate more socially.

That said, when it comes to hearing aids, you get out what you put in;

Hearing aids help you access the sounds you’ve been missing, but you need to wear them as much as possible to help your brain relearn to identify and interpret the newfound hearing information.

What advice do I have for someone thinking about hearing aids for the first time?

The thought of hearing aids may be a bit daunting, but once you take the step and get on with it , you won’t look back. Hearing aids make life so much more enjoyable.

So, if you think you have an issue go and get tested. Your hearing professional might tell you you’re fine or they might point you in the direction of a solution that will make your life so much easier.