Profound hearing loss and earmolds

highlands

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I have severe/profound loss around 90 decibels and I am not comfortable with my earmolds. I have gotten a lot of earmolds so far but none of them has fit well :( and hard earmolds were worse than soft ones for whatever reason :|

Earmolds are very important to me , cuz if they are not fit good enough in my ears then I can't hear at the 'real' loudness level , sounds seem like a bit softer as if I hear them at a distance and sometimes I can't hear as if my ears are blocked :pissed: I can't get enough from my aids since my loose earmolds prevents the hearing aids(Bernafon win 112 btes ) properly functioning ( meaning at lower loudness ) I did go to ENT and they couldn't find anything wrong in my ear canals and they said there is no earwax problem in my ears ,either :stupid:

:hmm: any advice will be appreciated :) since I will be going to my audiologist to talk about new earmold impressions and re-programming of my hearing aids after a new hearing test .
 
I'm profoundly deaf. I understand you want "perfect" ear molds. I had to pick the right type of ear molds. Some of them are allergic to my ears and produce red sores. I avoid pink shade and hard ear molds. I usually apply oil all over ear molds everyday before I put them on.

I have TMJ condition. When you open your jaw, it can produce movement in the ear canal. When my audiologist fills molds in my ears, I have to close my mouth and do not move an inch until the ear molds become firm. I do not recommend it. Your ears are as not same as mine. Just stick your finger in the ear and open your mouth at the same time, you may feel the movement. If I do move, and create a glitch in the mold, it would produce the feedback. Go figure.

The audiologists send ear molds to the companies and some of them did poor job making ear molds. You need to talk to your audiologist to tell the company aggressively to make exact ear molds. My audiologist wrote one full page out of her rant to badger the company to make perfect ear mold as much as possible. It works so far. *grins*
 
I have TMJ condition. When you open your jaw, it can produce movement in the ear canal. When my audiologist fills molds in my ears, I have to close my mouth and do not move an inch until the ear molds become firm. I do not recommend it. Your ears are as not same as mine. Just stick your finger in the ear and open your mouth at the same time, you may feel the movement. If I do move, and create a glitch in the mold, it would produce the feedback. Go figure.

As far as I can tell, I don't have TMJ yet I had to do much the same thing when I got new ear molds. If I moved my jaw or something, Mr. Moran (my hearing aid dealer) had to redo ear molds for me.
 
Can you trial having your molds made by another audiologist? In times past I've noticed a range in quality of impressions depending on who is doing it. They should pack in the mold so that it feels nice and snug in the ear. As Barbaro says make sure you don't move your jaws or laugh or sneeze when the mold is setting.

Make sure you clean your ears of wax before you have the impressions made. If there is a build up then this can affect the quality of impression. Get drops and put them in for a few days. If the build up is really bad then you might need to have an experienced doctor syringe out the wax with water.

Maybe you could also ask for a mold that goes a bit deeper into the ear canal too? I had one like that made, I didn't notice any difference but you never know!
 
As far as I can tell, I don't have TMJ yet I had to do much the same thing when I got new ear molds. If I moved my jaw or something, Mr. Moran (my hearing aid dealer) had to redo ear molds for me.

That's what I thought. Before I discovered I had TMJ, My old audiologists told me to open my jaw after they filled ear molds in my ears. It didn't work at all and kept creating annoying feedback. They kept thinking it was my fault that I closed my jaw on purpose. Eeek. Now, I have solved the problems and everything is fine now.

Sometimes, I have to push on the bottom of the ear molds further in order to hear better. If the ears get too hot and start sweating; ear molds can slide out of the ears, I can't hear too well.
 
When taking earmold impressions, some audis differ as to whether they will have the person open their mouth, smile or keep still. I've heard it said that smiling or opening one's mouth will create a better fit for an earmold, but I don't know if that's true since I know of cases where this has caused a full shell earmold to slip out of the ear canal.

It's been so long since I've had an impression done that I can't remember what my audi asked me to do.

I've had severe-profound hearing loss since 1995 and have always worn Lucite (hard shell) hypoallergenic skeleton earmolds which have been more comfortable than soft shell. When I tried using Patriot earmolds, I couldn't get them to stay in my ears (even when applying ointment) and once I did get them in, they caused alot of pain and discomfort.
 
That's what I thought. Before I discovered I had TMJ, My old audiologists told me to open my jaw after they filled ear molds in my ears. It didn't work at all and kept creating annoying feedback. They kept thinking it was my fault that I closed my jaw on purpose. Eeek. Now, I have solved the problems and everything is fine now.

Sometimes, I have to push on the bottom of the ear molds further in order to hear better. If the ears get too hot and start sweating; ear molds can slide out of the ears, I can't hear too well.

Yeah, I used to do that with my old HA. I'm glad there's no more feed back with my implant. :D It used to drive me crazy.
 
If you have someone who's earmold wants to be expelled out through talking or chewing (your ear canal narrows when you open your jaw), then you take an open mouth impression. Most will do fine with a closed mouth, it's only in that instance when someones ear narrows so much it squeezes the mold and wants to pop it out. I usually would make a hybrid mold for severe-to-profound hearing losses. The main body is a skeleton acrylic and the ear canal is a softer compound that reacts with heat (your ear canal) to soften up and form a better seal. It also helps to make it longer to reduce the chance of feedback. :D
 
If you have someone who's earmold wants to be expelled out through talking or chewing (your ear canal narrows when you open your jaw), then you take an open mouth impression. Most will do fine with a closed mouth, it's only in that instance when someones ear narrows so much it squeezes the mold and wants to pop it out. I usually would make a hybrid mold for severe-to-profound hearing losses. The main body is a skeleton acrylic and the ear canal is a softer compound that reacts with heat (your ear canal) to soften up and form a better seal. It also helps to make it longer to reduce the chance of feedback. :D
My first molds were like that. I thought it sounded good but for me, they did not work well. They slipped a lot and made my ears super itchy. I don't know, maybe it was just a crappy fit to begin with. I got new molds about 3 months ago and I really like them. They're completely acrylic and have just a bit of give to them. They fit so well into my ear canals and after a few minor adjustments to my Unison 6Ps, for the first time in over 4 years, I do not have any feedback!!!
 
If you have someone who's earmold wants to be expelled out through talking or chewing (your ear canal narrows when you open your jaw), then you take an open mouth impression. Most will do fine with a closed mouth, it's only in that instance when someones ear narrows so much it squeezes the mold and wants to pop it out. I usually would make a hybrid mold for severe-to-profound hearing losses. The main body is a skeleton acrylic and the ear canal is a softer compound that reacts with heat (your ear canal) to soften up and form a better seal. It also helps to make it longer to reduce the chance of feedback. :D

I've always worn this type of earmold and it has worked extremely well for me -- especially in terms of keeping feedback under control. Whenever I've tried using soft shell earmolds (particularly Patriot), they were painful and I had an extremely difficult time keeping them in my ears.
 
Maybe your hearing aids need to be changed! I had alot of problems with moulds as well, but people around me would think I am giving excuses here and there for not actually wearing my hearing aids. Those days I had Phonak and Siemens and I did not benefit much either; my moulds were also very problematic. I have a 90+db loss in both, and my new audiologist recommended an Oticon Sumo (so far the most powerful aids in the market), and I have been using it since 2004. I also got a new pair of moulds last week and it was really uncomfortable initially, but I think with time it would be alright.
 
If you have someone who's earmold wants to be expelled out through talking or chewing (your ear canal narrows when you open your jaw), then you take an open mouth impression. Most will do fine with a closed mouth, it's only in that instance when someones ear narrows so much it squeezes the mold and wants to pop it out. I usually would make a hybrid mold for severe-to-profound hearing losses. The main body is a skeleton acrylic and the ear canal is a softer compound that reacts with heat (your ear canal) to soften up and form a better seal. It also helps to make it longer to reduce the chance of feedback. :D

I used to get those kind of molds, but not anymore. Why? I don't know. I'm pretty happy with my current mold though, now that it's been filed down enough so that it won't hurt my ear and such. Originally, when the mold came in, there was another hole in it too.... Feedback all the time with that hole open, so the audie had to plug it up.
 
sometimes the answer lies within humidity, when ever you feel the mositure and the hearing aid feels loose its time for you to take the hearing aid to ur audiolgist and tell them to put it in the machine to drain out the moisture the other way to do this is to use the blow dryer and that'll dry up the moisture for the day, depends on the location and weather, right now im going thru that once a day deal with that then im fine soon time for me to get a new mold but at least i can hear just fine :)
 
Or you can sweat so much that your hearing aid make strange sounds. When that happened to me, the sounds my hearing aid made sounded very much like a train blowing it's horn. I remember getting strange looks from people when I asked them if they could hear a train nearby. There were no train tracks within 5 miles of where I was.
 
Or you can sweat so much that your hearing aid make strange sounds. When that happened to me, the sounds my hearing aid made sounded very much like a train blowing it's horn. I remember getting strange looks from people when I asked them if they could hear a train nearby. There were no train tracks within 5 miles of where I was.



:laugh2: where's that dang train?
 
I dont know how good ear moulds are when you approach an audiologist, but I always go to a hearing aid dispenser. HA Dispensers are the real professionals that look up HA, their defects, moulds, etc. and I am sure every hearing clinic has a Dispenser and Audiologist. Sometimes, an audiologist can do the job of both too.
 
Make sure you clean your ears of wax before you have the impressions made. If there is a build up then this can affect the quality of impression. Get drops and put them in for a few days. If the build up is really bad then you might need to have an experienced doctor syringe out the wax with water.
 
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