Covering of hearing aids with your hair

I have had my BTE's for about 5 months now. I wear royal blue Ear Gear over them. My hair was very short (hot summer) so they were very visible. I have been lazy about getting a haircut, so my ears are somewhat covered now. I am thinking about letting my hair grow long enough for a decent ponytail. I felt really self-conscious at first, but I don't think about it so much now. I switched to a Deaf church that I had been attending once in awhile, and now I have stopped being so concerned about people seeing them. Several people at the church have (a) hearing aid(s) and a few have a CI. I don't feel so "different" anymore.
 
A very long time ago I always tried to keep them covered. Then one day I realized no one was looking anyway. Hmmph! I cut my hair over my ears, got a purple mold (in one) and now wear sparkles on them. lol.
Hey, I am late deaf, but proud deaf nonetheless. hahaha!
 
I long ago ceased to care what people thought about my HA and now my CI. In fact, my hair is very short and folks can see my CI easily enough. Almost everybody notices but then forgets about it. Typically, it is only little kids ask me these days. :) I have fun explaining it to them. Now and then an adult will ask me if it is a cochlear implant.
 
I went through wierd phases. First, I wore my hair up all through middle school in a ponytail. Then I started to wear it down in the first two years of high school, I really did try to hide the fact that I was deaf because I did not like how differently people would start to treat me. Now I am in a school for the deaf and I feel much more comfortable in my skin, my hair can be found either up or down.
 
I have short hair and I couldn't care less if my HA and CI processor is visible. Heck, I love using the color caps and covers on my CI to show it off! = )

JC
 
I was never really into vanity, but when I got my hearing aids, the hair stayed down. And the hair, 4 years later, still pretty much remains down. I have to wear my hair up for exercise/sports, and have blue/green ear molds with silver/black bte's. This summer a mother of someone on my team turned to my mother and said, upon hearing a conversation between me and her about giving the microphone to the announcer (though this didn't work, because I was always out of range) "She wears hearing aids? For how long? I kind of wondered what was wrong when she didn't acknowledge me a few days ago when I walked by. I tried to say "Hi" but she didn't seem to notice..." I guess this gave me a little more confidence as to their invisibility. But I've also been proud to show them off, especially when a kid, about kindergarten age, was introduced to me and we compared hearing aids (just to help him realize he wasn't alone, make a connection, that there were other people with cool ears like him).
 
I wore ite aids when loss was mild, hair was longer but wore it in a bun or braid. The hair on the aid bugs me. Now I have bte aids and short hair. My molds are very different and one is purple and almost no one notices.
 
All through elementary school I hated to wear my hair up, because I would get stupid questions and teasing at times. Once I got into 5th grade and started cheerleading, I got over it. If people asked dumb questions, oh well. I don't even notice it now if I put my hair up and people are able to see. Mine are ITEs, I'm about to get new ITEs (possibly Siemens Nitro 16) or BTEs (I'm thinking Oticon Epoq XW or the Phonak Micro power IX).
 
At the beginning of high school, I used to tie my hair up until year 9. I became self-conscious of my hearing aid and never wore it up ever since. I'm in year 11, hopefully this is just a phase.
 
I used to wear my hair over my hearing aids, mostly because they are British NHS so they only came in one revolting colour known as "skin tone". Well, if your skin was that colour you'd be lined up for a liver transplant. Now I have rather more attractive aids I wear my hair up. In fact, wearing hair over your hearing aids seems to me a good opportunity to listen all day to a swishing sound of hair on microphone, which is quite maddening.

I am looking at one of the middle ear implants because I want to be able to hear in some settings that hearing aids are not fond of, like swimming pools, snow, etc. So I got this big brochure through that pretty much the whole emphasis was on how invisible it would be. I was quite upset, for me that's actually a side-effect not a benefit! Unless it's 100% perfect (yeah, right!) then I am still going to be HOH but people will not be able to tell and I will have nothing to point to in order to demonstrate why I don't seem to be listening. They also decided not to have any ability to plug in to external sources like headphones, FM receivers (could easily have been done with a mag-coil or through plugging into the remote or charging unit) because they concentrated on invisibility over function. Very annoying.

Veering wildly OT, does anyone think they could manufacture a lead that would connect external input into an Otologics implant, by magnetic coil or otherwise?
 
In 2005, I decided that if I had to wear hearing aids, I would wear colorful ones and since then I have had bright pink aids and orange and purple molds. I've had lots of people tell me that they really like them and it's interesting as my husband and I were in Egypt and he took a profile (sideways) photo of me in front of the Sphink and posted it on Flickr under the title "Sphinx wishes he had purple hearing aids" and it's gotten a lot of traffic from people admiring the hearing aids. I also wear my hair back frequently too. But as a woman, I often wonder what it's like for short-haired men who don't have the luxury of choosing if they want to show their HAs or not.

As a child though, I ALWAYS wanted to hide my HAs and often wished I had glasses so I had another excuse to sit in the front of the classroom.

As I am now getting a CI, I am getting a blue casing for it. I really do feel that if i have to wear it, it better be colorful!
 
I didn't care when people looked at my CI stuff, however, I did notice that when I started uni, many people would look at them and automatically assume "Uh oh... Dumb person here", and when I covered them with my hair, I noticed that attitudes changed.

It's annoying as heck that they would make that opinion before even starting a conversation, and I have always described myself as deaf, have a strong accent, etc, but somehow, none of that seems to result in attitudinal issues - only seeing the CI's!

It only seemed to be an issue at that uni, too, so I suspect it's a cultural thing, or something.

I still grow my hair long, even though I don't wear them anymore, but now I tie it back. :)
 
overthepond said:
Pinky I sometime wear my CI on my shoulder so it's not just for babies/kids... I find when I sail the winds are too much for me so I tuck them inside the collar of my jacket and used long coil. And when I am at home chilling out i use long coil and put my BTE on my shoulder as it's more comfortable.

Yes CI BTE is heavier than normal HA's. As it carries 3 batteries. If you are having rechargeables it will be a little lighter...
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I often wish I could wear my HA further from my ear. It's not the smallest HA to start with, then it has an audio shoe and an FM module on the bottom. I am thinking of getting (or making!) something like the Barretz clip to clip it up to my hair and take the weight off during the day, but when I am relaxing on the sofa I'd just love to be able to put my head down on a cushion without crushing a HA into my skullbones. I'm hoping this is one of the things that's going to come available with RITE aids, as it doesn't matter how long the tube is if it's not carrying the sound through it, I'd get the longest tube you can buy!
 
RoseRodent said:
I often wish I could wear my HA further from my ear. It's not the smallest HA to start with, then it has an audio shoe and an FM module on the bottom. I am thinking of getting (or making!) something like the Barretz clip to clip it up to my hair and take the weight off during the day, but when I am relaxing on the sofa I'd just love to be able to put my head down on a cushion without crushing a HA into my skullbones. I'm hoping this is one of the things that's going to come available with RITE aids, as it doesn't matter how long the tube is if it's not carrying the sound through it, I'd get the longest tube you can buy!
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The tube length does actually affect the quality of the acoustics, something to do with harmonics, I think.
 
RoseRodent said:
That's a shame, I hoped since it was a wire not a sound tube it could be as long as you liked.
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Oh, oops - I misread into it - "tube" vs "wire"! Yeah, nothing to do with harmonics! :)

At some point, you'll loose the signal due to increased resistance, but it's not the same - carry on, pretend I wasn't here!.

(Next time I'll read more carefully).
 
arafangion said:
Oh, oops - I misread into it - "tube" vs "wire"! Yeah, nothing to do with harmonics! :)

At some point, you'll loose the signal due to increased resistance, but it's not the same - carry on, pretend I wasn't here!.

(Next time I'll read more carefully).
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Cool, here's hoping then. Of course they need enough demand to actually manufacture one as well as it just being possible. I shouldn't think I'd need it much more than 4-5 inches, just enough to secure the aid to somewhere out of the way like a top pocket, in my hair or stick both of them over the same ear.

My body-worn FM has a 2-foot cable, so there's hope! Also wouldn't matter if it was a thicker wire rather than the "invisible" sort, and AFAIK thicker means you can have more length of wire before problems happen.
 
RoseRodent said:
I shouldn't think I'd need it much more than 4-5 inches, just enough to secure the aid to somewhere out of the way like a top pocket, in my hair or stick both of them over the same ear.
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Surely if you had your aid in your top pocket you would be loosing some of the advantages of BTE hearing aids, i.e. receiving sound from immediately above your ears, a more natural place to receive sound from than a pocket. With a HA in your top pocket you would encounter some of the problems of body worn aids, such as rustling of shirt material etc., which some of us experienced in the days when body worn aids were the norm. You would also, if you had both aids on one ear experience only hearing sound from one side, as both microphones would be on that side, this was the case when people were only issued with one aid, as when I was a child. You'd need really small HAs to manage this anyway, mine wouldn't fit! Don't you think it would look a bit strange too.

What is the problem with having your BTE hearing aids where they are supposed to be? I have superpower aids which are large, and use them with audio shoes and fm receivers, but am used to them being on my ears and would not feel right without them, I have to fit my glasses behind my ears too! You will get used to your HAs eventually and not even notice they are there.
 
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