You started using hearing aids but you feel that there is not much room for the hearing aids and the temple of your glasses behind your ears. Continue reading to see how you can fix this problem.
There are several reasons why your BTE* or RIC** hearing aids may feel out of place when you wear them with your glasses. Here are some of the common problems:
Your glasses may need adjustment - The temples of the glasses often have a bend that makes them hold on to your ears. If the temples get thicker at the end part they leave little room for the hearing aid. The same is valid if the temples are too short and the end bit stands off over your ear instead of sitting nicely on the ear and the bent part follow the curvature o your skull.
Solution: Contact your optician to adjust the temples of your glasses so the temples of the glasses follow the curvature of your skull. You may have to choose a frame that has longer temples, or one with thinner temples. Consider glasses with metal temples and those with straight temples.
Your hearing aids may need adjustment - The part of the hearing aids that go in your ear canal is connected to the body of the hearing aids with a small piece of wire (RIC hearing aids) or a thin tube (BTE hearing aids). Your audiologist has taken a great deal of care to make sure that the length of the wire or the thin tube is just right for your ear, not too long, not too short. If the length of the wire or the thin tube is too short the body of the hearing aid will be too high up, In such a scenario the hearing aid will be competing with the tail end of the temple of your hearing aid for space.
Solution: Contact your audiologist for a revisit of the fitting of your hearing aids and have a proper length of the receiver wire or the thin tube.
Wrong placement - If you place the hearing aid between the temple of the glasses and your skull. it would feel uncomfortable (see below image).
Solution - Try wearing your glasses first, then wear the hearing aids. If the temples of the glasses are long enough and the end tail of them follows the curvature of your skull then they leave enough room for the hearing aids to sit right between the pinna of your ear and the temples of the glasses (see below image).
You have small ears - If you have very small ears or the shape of your ears is irregular, or they leaning forward then you may need to consider In-The-Canal (ITC) or In-The-Ear (ITE) hearing aids.
Solution - Visit your audiologist to consult about other types of hearing aids that go in the ear so the issue of wearing the hearing aids and glasses is less problematic.
* BTE: Behind The Ear
**RIC: Receiver In the Canal
