Hearing aid adjustments

We visited Australian Hearing this afternoon for some adjustments to Raphael's hearing aids. The first task was to fit a new right ear mould. This latest mould fits far better than the previous attempts and so we were hoping that this will stop the dreaded squealing.

We then tested his hearing with another VROA test but this time he was tested with one hearing aid in at a time. This showed that his right hearing aid is boosting his hearing ability down to about 25db which is good enough for conversational hearing. His left ear however still behaved poorly even with his hearing aid.

The Audiologist further amplified the relevant frequencies of Raphael's left hearing aid but noticed that he mould is getting a bit loose. she took another mould of Raphael's left ear to get another mould made (that sentence is a bit confusing, I wonder what the real terminology is). This new mould will be posted to us when it is ready.

Sure enough, by the time we got Raphael home, both hearing aids were playing a chorus of squeals. Annie will be going to Aus hearing on Friday for the RIDBC teleconference and so she will ask them to do something about it then.

The factors are working against us:

• His right ear doesn't have enough cartilage in it to hold a hearing aid properly and so any movement, jogs the aid out slightly and starts a feedback squeal. The new mould is better but still not perfect.
  
• His left ear requires more amplification but because the aid is a little loose, this amplification has resulted in the left aid squealing.
• The combination of: cold weather, low set ears and not much neck to speak of means that his clothes are usually pressing the bottom of his ears when he is sitting and this of course dislodges the moulds slightly causing more squealing.