How to Stop the Whistling in Your Ears

For many people, accepting and dealing with the truth of hearing loss is difficult to accept. Nevertheless, you pushed on and visited a hearing specialist for a hearing aid fitting session, because you recognized that's what is best for your health. Most likely, you quickly realized the benefits one receives by wearing a hearing aid, including the ability to treat tinnitus, hear speech (even amidst the buzz of background noise), and the possibility of recovering from mental decline. But on occasion you get a loud, piercing, shrieking negative among all the life altering positives. Your hearing aids squeal. Feedback is the more common term for this whistling. It's like what happens when a microphone gets too close to the sound system, the only difference is this time it's directly in your ear. This, fortunately for you, is an issue that can be fixed fairly easily. Stopping your hearing aid from squealing can be accomplished using the following guidelines:

1. Modify The Fit of Your Hearing Aid

Probably the most prevalent reason for feedback or whistling in the ear concerns the placement of your hearing aid in your ear or the earmold connected to it. If the hearing aid doesn't fit securely inside of your ear, sound can escape and reverberate through the hearing aid's microphone. Depending on how poorly the fit is and how much sound has escaped, the result of the leakage can be either a continuous or a sporadic whistling. A plastic tube connects certain hearing aid models with an earmold. After a while, the earmold can become unseated from its correct position due to hardening, cracking and shrinking. If you switch out the plastic piece, you can correct the whistling which is caused by this movement.

2. Excessive Earwax Should be Removed

It's strange to think of something like earwax, which is perceived by many people to be foul or unwelcome, as beneficial to our bodies, but it actually is. Dirt and other substances are prevented from entering the ears by this gooey substance which acts as a defense. Actions, like talking or chewing assist your ears to limit the amount of earwax they produce but there can be a negative effect if too much earwax builds up. When you place a hearing aid on top of an excessive amount of earwax, you're bound to get feedback. The reason for this is that the amplified sound has nowhere to go because of the blockage from the wax. The sound circles back into the microphone because it has no clear exit. There are a few ways to remove an abundance of wax from your ears like letting a warm shower run into your ears. In order to avoid undue buildup, however, the best idea is to have your ears properly cleaned by a hearing care specialist.

3. Make Sure The Microphone is Uncovered

Sometimes the most successful solution is the most obvious. Have you ever noticed someone attempting to take a picture which didn't come out, only to find that the lens cap was still on? The same concept applies here. Whistling can occur when something is covering the device. If you cover the microphone with your hand or something else, you get the same outcome, like if you give someone a hug and bury your ear into their shoulder. This problem should be easy to correct simply by uncovering the hearing aid.

Here's a bonus tip: Think about purchasing a new hearing aid. Some causes for concern are being alleviated by modern hearing aid models and manufacturers are integrating new technology all of the time. If you're having problems with whistling from your hearing aids, or you're interested in learning more about new hearing technology, give us a call.