How to Maintain Optimal Hearing Aid Fit Over Time

A hearing aid that fit perfectly when you first got it may not fit the same way a year or two later, and that’s not a sign that something went wrong. Your ears change over time.

The tissue shifts, your hearing can change and the device itself experiences the kind of wear that comes with being worn every day. Any one of those things on its own is enough to affect how your hearing aid sits, and how it sits has a direct effect on how well it works.

Most people don’t think about fit until something feels noticeably off, but the effects of a gradual change in fit tend to show up before the discomfort does.

A device that has shifted even slightly can let in feedback, reduce how clearly you hear speech or make certain situations harder than they need to be.

That phone call that feels harder to follow than it used to, or the end-of-day irritation that you’ve been attributing to a long day, can sometimes be traced back to something as simple as a fit that needs a small adjustment. Staying on top of that is a lot easier than most people expect it to be.

Understanding the Fitting Process

A hearing aid fitting involves more than putting a device in your ear and adjusting the volume. The appointment starts with a physical assessment of your ear canal, since the shape and size of the canal determines what style of device will work best and how it needs to be shaped or molded to sit correctly.

For some devices, this means taking an impression of the ear canal so the hearing aid or earmold can be custom-made to match your specific anatomy. For others, it involves selecting and fitting a soft tip that creates the right amount of seal without causing discomfort.

Once the physical fit is established, the programming side of the appointment begins. Your specialist uses your hearing test results to program the device to amplify the specific frequencies your hearing profile requires, and that programming gets refined based on your feedback during the appointment.

You’ll typically be asked to listen to different sounds and speech in the office and report back on what feels right and what doesn’t.

Real-ear measurement is often used as part of this process, which involves placing a small microphone in the ear canal alongside the hearing aid to verify that the sound being delivered matches what your hearing actually needs.

What is a Proper Fit So Important?

The physical fit of a hearing aid and how well it performs are more connected than most people realize. A device that isn’t sitting correctly in or around the ear isn’t just uncomfortable. It’s not doing its job properly.

Sound that leaks around a poorly fitting earmold or tip causes feedback, that whistling sound that hearing aid wearers know well, and it also means the amplified sound isn’t being directed where it needs to go.

Comfort plays into this more than people expect as well. A hearing aid that causes irritation, pressure or soreness is one that people take out, and a hearing aid that isn’t being worn isn’t helping anyone.

Beyond physical comfort, fit affects how naturally sound comes through. A proper seal in the ear canal is part of what allows the device to separate speech from background noise effectively, which is one of the main things people rely on their hearing aids to do.

When that seal is compromised, everything the device is trying to do becomes harder, and the situations that are already challenging for someone with hearing loss become more difficult than they need to be.

Common Reasons Hearing Aids May Not Fit Properly

Fit issues with hearing aids are more common than most people realize, and they don’t always have an obvious cause. Sometimes the fit changes gradually enough that you don’t notice it happening until something feels consistently off. There are a handful of reasons this tends to occur, and most of them are completely normal parts of owning and wearing a hearing aid over time.

Some of the most common reasons a hearing aid may stop fitting the way it should:

• Natural changes in the shape of the ear canal over time
• Weight changes that affect the tissue around the ear
• Earwax buildup that causes shifting
• Changes in hearing that affect how the device needs to be programmed
• Earmolds or tips that have degraded or no longer fit correctly

How the Ear Canal Changes as You Age

The ear canal is not static. Like other parts of the body, it changes over time, and those changes can affect how a hearing aid fits even if nothing else has shifted.

The tissue and cartilage that make up the ear canal gradually lose some of their firmness with age, which can cause the canal to change shape in subtle but meaningful ways.

A custom earmold or tip that was made to match your ear canal at one point in time may not match it as precisely years later, and that difference, even when it’s small, can show up as feedback, reduced sound quality or a fit that just doesn’t feel as secure as it used to.

The Impact of Weight Changes on How Hearing Aids Sit

Weight changes affect the body in ways people don’t always think to connect to their hearing aids, but the tissue in and around the ear is not exempt from those shifts.

Even moderate changes in weight can alter the shape of the ear canal enough that a device that used to sit securely starts to feel loose, or one that was comfortable begins to create pressure it didn’t before.

The change can be gradual enough that you adjust to it without realizing the fit has drifted, but the effects on comfort and sound quality are real. If your weight has changed and your devices feel different, don’t hesitate to bring it up with your hearing specialist.

How Earwax Buildup Can Change the Way Your Devices Fit

Earwax is a normal and necessary part of how your ears function, but buildup can interfere with how your hearing aids sit and perform. When wax accumulates in the canal, it can shift where the device rests, altering the fit or pushing the device out of position slightly.

Beyond the fit itself, wax can work its way into the receiver or other small components of the device and affect sound quality in ways that are easy to mistake for a bigger problem.

Keeping up with regular ear cleaning and having your devices checked and cleaned by your hearing professional on a consistent basis goes a long way toward preventing these issues before they affect your daily experience.

When Your Hearing Changes and Your Device Hasn’t Kept Up

Hearing aids are programmed to match your hearing at a specific point in time, and hearing doesn’t always stay the same.

For many people, hearing loss progresses gradually, and a device that was calibrated accurately at the time of fitting may no longer be delivering what your ears actually need.

This can show up as conversations feeling harder to follow than they used to, or situations that your hearing aid used to handle well starting to feel like more of a struggle. The device isn’t necessarily failing.

It may just need to be reprogrammed to reflect where your hearing is now rather than where it was when you were first fitted.

When Earmolds and Tips No longer Do Their Job

Earmolds and ear tips are the parts of a hearing aid system that make direct contact with your ear, and they take on a lot of daily wear. That material can harden, shrink, crack or lose the flexibility that allowed them to create a proper seal in the first place.

When that happens, the fit changes in ways that affect both comfort and performance.

A tip that has degraded may let sound leak out, cause feedback or sit differently than it used to, none of which are problems with the hearing aid itself, but with the component that connects it to your ear.

These parts are replaceable, and swapping them out when they’ve run their course is one of the more straightforward ways to restore a fit that has gradually gotten worse.

Noticing Signs Your Hearing Aid Fitting is Off

Most people don’t realize their hearing aid fit has changed until they’ve been compensating for it for a while. The signs tend to be gradual, which makes them easy to attribute to something else entirely. Knowing what to look for makes it easier to catch a fit issue before it becomes a bigger source of frustration.

Some signs that your hearing aid fit may need attention:

• Feedback or whistling that happens more frequently than it used to
• The device feeling loose, shifting or falling out more easily
• Discomfort, soreness or pressure that wasn’t there before
• Sound that feels less clear or harder to follow than usual
• Needing to adjust or reseat the device throughout the day

When You Can Troubleshoot and When You Need a Specialist

Some fit issues are simple enough to address on your own. A dome or ear tip that has come loose can be reseated.

A device that feels slightly uncomfortable after a long day may just need a break. If your hearing aid is producing feedback, sometimes repositioning it in your ear is all it takes to resolve it.

Basic cleaning can also clear up issues that present as fit or sound problems but are actually caused by wax or debris blocking part of the device. These are the kinds of things that are reasonable to try before picking up the phone. When those steps don’t fix it, that’s when a specialist needs to be involved.

Consistent feedback that doesn’t resolve with repositioning, discomfort that has been going on for more than a few weeks, sound quality that has noticeably dropped off or a device that won’t stay in place the way it used to are all things a hearing professional needs to look at directly.

They can determine whether the issue is physical fit, programming or component wear and address it properly. Most of these problems are faster to fix than people expect once they’re actually being looked at by someone who knows what they’re doing.

Keeping Your Hearing Aids Fitting Comfortably for the Long Term

Hearing aid fit isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it thing, and checking in on it periodically is just part of getting the most out of your devices.

If something has felt off lately, or if it’s simply been a while since anyone has looked at how your hearing aids are sitting and performing, that’s enough of a reason to come in. Small adjustments made at the right time prevent bigger frustrations down the road.

At Niagara Hearing and Speech Clinic in St. Catharines, ON, we work with you to make sure your hearing aids are fitting and functioning the way they should, not just when you first get them but as things change over time.

Give us a call at (855) 797-8002, and we’ll take a look at where things stand.