We are approaching the 2025 Christmas and holiday seasons, so I thought a quick reminder to my beloved hearing aids club members might help them hear better and enjoy this holiday season more. These tips might also be useful to people with mild hearing loss who do not use hearing aids.
Here is my best advice for impaired hearing and hearing aid users to hear speech better in the upcoming holiday seasons.
1 - Smart sitting arrangements can improve speech intelligibility in noisy environments
This is a smart yet easy trick. When you are in a noisy environment, you can hear the speaker's speech in front of you better if you leave the noise behind you. So if you and your partner sit in a noisy restaurant, you can offer her the seat facing the restaurant floor and pick the seat facing a wall, or a window. Similarly, if you are attending end-of-year corporate functions and trying to conduct a conversation with a friend or colleague, you could let him/her face the music band or the crowd. This way the noise will be left behind you. He or she will be hearing your voice along with the noise of the band or crowd located behind you but you'll be hearing his/her voice with much less noise and disturbance.
2 - Ear wax cleaning can help you hear better
You may be a regular ear wax cleaner or just noticed that one or both ears started going muffled on and off. If this is not an issue of Eustachian tube (our article on ETD here) then you may want to check your ears before flying out on a vacation or getting closer to the busy holiday season. If you are in London, you can book an ear wax microsuction appointment here. Even 50% blockage of the ear canal by ear wax can trap the water and cause ear infection, something you don't want to experience while on holiday.
3 - Hearing aids tune-up can help you hear better
When was the last time you did a hearing test and when was the last time you tuned up your hearing aids? See it as part of the preparation for the holidays. You may be fine with hearing the TV or speech in a one-to-one conversation in a quiet room, but if you struggled holding a conversation in a noisy environment recently that means that you'll be struggling in hearing speech again in the 2025 holiday season. I advise contacting your audiologist for a hearing test and check-up, especially if it is more than a year since you visited your audiologist.
In addition to the hearing test, you may want to visit your audiologist for a tune-up. As part of the visit, you can cover:
Tuning up your hearing aids for the latest hearing test
Discuss hearing aid fitting if they don't feel comfortable
Discuss any malfunctioning of the hearing aids if your hearing aids are not working properly
Please see this article which leads to how-to-videos of different hearing aid manufacturers.
4 - Take some disposables with you
Every now and then I receive a call from a traveller to London who has forgot bringing the hearing aid charger or extra wax guard with them. If travelling make sure that you take essentials such as the hearing aid charger, its power cord, some wax guard/filter packs and some domes in case you need them on the trip.
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