Does Using a Hearing Aid Actually Weaken Your Hearing? 

It’s a common concern to wonder whether using a hearing aid impairs your natural hearing. There will always be that trick of perception for those who frequently require further assistance without hearing. The short answer to this is no, wearing hearing aids won’t impair your natural hearing. Hearing aids have been shown to maintain your hearing abilities much sharper over time, provided they are correctly programmed for your unique hearing needs. They also work to slow the loss of hearing that occurs naturally.

A Trick of Perception

Does Using a Hearing Aid Actually Weaken Your Hearing? - Northwest Hearing + Tinnitus - Olympia and Seattle, WA
Although many people think a hearing aid will weaken their real hearing, the truth is the opposite.

After a few weeks of wearing hearing aids, you might notice that the world sounds different when you take them off. You can feel like your hearing is worse than before when you take your hearing aids out for bedtime but then carry on talking or watching TV. In actuality, you have a misperception because your brain is deceiving you.

Typically, a person with hearing loss waits up to ten years before seeking assistance. The reason for this is usually that until that point, they are unaware that they are dealing with any hearing loss. They do not believe they need hearing aids, so they wouldn’t even think of going to an audiologist.

Because it typically takes a while to see an audiologist, the brain grows acclimated to hearing loss and starts to think that the loss represents true hearing ability. To you, the loss is normal. As a result, using a hearing aid makes the world seem louder, and taking it off again makes you feel like you’re losing your hearing. The truth is that your hearing loss is not worse than usual in this situation; you are only now becoming aware of it.

Boosting Your Senses

Your actual hearing can be greatly improved by properly fitted hearing aids. Your hearing aids will be perfectly customized to meet you and your needs when you visit an audiologist. Hearing aids function through amplification and sound processing to make sounds easier to hear. Your hearing aid won’t harm your eardrums the way that loud sounds played right next to them can.

You should seek the assistance of a qualified audiologist for this because the volume of a properly fitting hearing aid won’t be loud enough to injure you. If the hearing aids feel overly loud after you have gone through your rehabilitation phase following your fitting, you must inform the audiologist.

The devices can be properly adjusted for you by an audiologist, but if they are set up to magnify frequencies that you can already hear well, the device poses a long-term risk. In some situations, hearing aids that aren’t correctly fitted could endanger your hearing, especially if they’re louder than necessary to make up for your hearing loss. This is the distinction between seeing a qualified audiologist and not seeing one. 

Seeking Assistance

Consulting with the professionals at Northwest Hearing is your best course of action if you want to understand more about your hearing aid requirements. Call us right away to speak with experienced professionals who can assist you. You deserve to have hearing aids that perfectly fit your hearing loss. An expert’s assistance is what you need, and when you leave, you’ll feel you can once again hear the world as it was created to be heard.