It is always good to have a device to take the moisture out of them in the night when sleeping etc. A presumption is made that one takes hearing aids out at home when asleep. (In trucking I sometimes did not in high threat areas and slept lightly if at all)
To the other poster regarding medicines and temperatures, I take medicine for several purposes each month and if for whatever reason they run out of supply sometimes they do not get refilled. (Schedule two medicines do not get refills until you have seen a doctor, per Federal DEA Order as of mid 2014. That cuts down on people getting early refills completely. The summer heat or winter cold affects the body in various ways as it deals with medicine or not.
In cold weather I tend to eat a great deal. Food as energy and a means to stay warm while doing heavy labor. In those days going through 10,000 calories and moving 100,000 pounds of freight in 30 hours seperated by driving hundreds of miles was common. Just a expensive food bill with all that eating. I remember some of the roach coaches and street food trucks in various places serving up really good stuff. Just not necessarily what you would consider healthy food. I stayed 150 pounds half my life anyway despite all that. IF I ate like that now well I would be dead from obesity.
Anyway at the end of the day, drying out the hearing aids help them. If you can make it happen. I dont just put hearing aids through the paces, I tend to destroy them. When they get to a quality and able to hold up 10 years with that kind of work and abuse then they were really good hearing aids. Unfortunately that company went out of business. Partly because the very good aids were also very expensive. My last pair was just at 3400 dollars 20 years ago. That would be about 5500 today. Not too many can afford that. My latest pair is stripped down and only 1100 dollars. Nothing fancy. But were the same technology and design as the older ones from trucking and should be my last pair in my lifetime.
One last thought.
In Arkansas some years on my lands even with trees and shade we burn about 6 weeks late summer. Sometimes 130 outside at midday or a little later depending on the weather situation which would be rather bad at times to support that kind of heat. I have learned not to wear hearing aids outside when its the burn season because they heat up too much in the sun. You learn to adapt by not mowing grass or doing any labor in the hot hours. You did that work late at night by moonlight or hired someone to cut the grass while you stayed inside in air conditioning. Come inside from say 116 and 90% humidty and sweating into a house at 68 and 40% give or take... you end up taking the hearing aids out for a brief time. Dry them off and cool them down.
The hottest I have been personally with hearing aids was one night when the AC failed in Spartansburg overnight. It was 100 through the night and the cab inside had reached 160 with me in it. Took 3 gallons of sweet tea over 9 hours that day to recover. The hearing aids needed rebuilding with new molds. Thats was pretty much it for them. That kind of heat was life threatening that day. The AC was replaced later that week.
A local audiologist in Charlotte built the molds for 60 bucks, shipped them to maryland with the old units and they had the lab rebuild everything. I was back later that month to get them. We ignored for that month federal regulations requiring me to be able to hear. We had satellite comms so phone talk was not needed.
I went SSD in the instant that a load of granite slabs fell off a truck and struck me down. When I woke up in the hospital, the doctors realized that my right ear was completely dead (possible fractured bones in the inner ear), and my only good ear, (which I had some hearing loss in due to being around F4 Phantoms for years, and Grateful Dead speakers off and on) was trying to compensate for all sounds, trying to get in,
all at once, making it very difficult at first for my brain to cypher and differentiate sounds, especially words. Over time I adjusted somewhat to this new world, and they tried out a $3,000 "hearing" on me which did absolutely no good. I did not need volume control, I needed volume suppression. Any sudden semi loud sound, made me jump out of my shoes, and so I wore an ear plug to dampen loud sounds, but it curbed my ability to talk to people. I had to make sure that my phone was on me at all times so when it rang i knew exactly where it was. I lived with it for years until one day a friend gave me a pair of, Wireless Bone Conduction Headphones which he paired up to my Samsung phone, and showed me that I could hear words and music (mostly treble) from
anywhere on my skull, but as I moved it toward the ear canal the base came in loud and clear. What an advantage that gave me to have nothing blocking my only ear canal, be hands free, and able to adjust the volume to where it was comfortable. I can ware it all day with no discomfort, in any kind of weather or temperature. Also, having a hearing aid in the ear all day, there is moisture build up, which doesn't seem good. I still have to be in front of people to understand and cypher their words though. I've found that I have acquired a much deeper understanding of the music that I listen to, the overtones and harmonies are much more pronounced.
I saw an article ware a deaf person held on to an acoustic guitar while it was being played loud, and she started to move to the tones and the beat almost like she could "hear" it.
I know that hearing impaired, means some sort of digital device in the ear is needed for volume, but a question I have for you is, without your hearing aids in, could you hear things through only "bone conduction"?
I've found that the "Tragus" part of the ear is quite an amplifier when I hold my bonephone on it, and the harder I press on it, the more "fidelity" I get, even with my ear plug in.
Being a trucker, and having to hear what sounds your engine is making, does the digital sound keep you confident?
Any thoughts on bone conduction as a way to supplement your hearing aids? Or is SSD a completely different animal?
Thanks,
Craig :+O)
