Switching From An Analogue To A Digital Hearing Aid
If you've always used an analogue hearing aid in the past you'll probably find yourself switching to a digital hearing aid at some point if for no other reason than that analogues are now becoming very much superseded by their digital counterparts.
Availability is not the only reason that you should consider switching. You'll find that the sound produced via a digital hearing aid is a lot clearer and has less background noise as well. Analogue hearing aids simply take the sound coming in through the microphone and pass it unaltered straight into your ear.
Digital hearing aids will clean up the sound and then passes it to an amplifier where it calculates how much amplification is needed for you to hear it properly. The sound is then clean again to remove any feedback before it is passed to you. And all this happens in a split second so you'll never notice it.
So that all sounds wonderful but changing from an analogue to a digital hearing aid can sometimes take a little bit of getting used to. The main problem is the actual sound. If you've been using your analogue for awhile you'll have got used to the way things sound through your analogue device. Change to digital and it can sound very different.
When you first start using your digital hearing aid the thing you'll notice most will be the volume. Things may seem a little on the quiet side. That's because the digital processing has taken out much of the noisy background sounds. However if it's not what you're used to you may think that the sound levels have been set to low. But before you reach for the volume controls just listen to someone talking to you against a noisy background and you'll find that you can hear them much more clearly than you used to.
The other big difference will be the tone and pitch of the sound you're now hearing. Familiar voices can sound quite different from what you heard when using an analogue hearing aid, and that includes your own voice as well which can be very disconcerting. On the plus you'll hear what they're saying more clearly but it can take awhile to get used to the way people now sound.
Some people also find the general clarity of digital sound is somewhat overwhelming and uncomfortable. If this is the case you can have your hearing aid altered to tone down the sound and then gradually build it back up again.
This is the other thing about digital hearing aids. You will mostly likely need to have the aid adjusted several times when you first start to wear one. This will ensure that your comfort and ability to hear as much as possible is maximised. So if you are struggling with any aspect of your new digital hearing aid then go and let the experts have a look and sort things out for you.