First of all, wearing your new hearing aids just a little bit of the time is a bad idea. You'll never get used to hearing with your hearing aids, that way. The occasional hearing aid wearer is the one who complains the most about background noise.
To receive the best results from your new hearing aids, learn to wear them most of your waking hours. This way you will gradually "acclimate" to more and better hearing. Using your hearing aids only part of the time often turns into none of the time... and here's why.
You began wearing hearing aids because your hearing changed, and you wanted back your ability to communicate effectively. Without hearing aids, many sounds are too soft for you to hear. Wearing hearing aids will bring the soft sounds back into your range of hearing.
Better hearing with hearing aids means your brain now has the task of processing much more information. Those "whisper sounds" (f, s, th & k) critical for understanding speech are now being heard along with many other non-speech sounds. Over time, you will adjust to hearing all of the normal sounds... but you will need to give it time! Your brain, using it's working memory, will learn how to tune in and listen to the important sounds while it tunes out the unimportant sounds. In other words, with training you will improve your listening skills and learn to process what's important, while tuning out what's not important. Before wearing hearing aids you didn't need to tune out all of the unimportant soft sounds, simply because... you were not hearing them.
From birth through early childhood all of your senses (hearing, vision, smell & touch) became finely tuned to perceive and process the world around you with the highest degree of precision and accuracy.
The onset of a change in hearing most often occurs gradually. You slowly become accustomed to a quieter world. But now you are unable to hear the softer sounds of speech (s, f, th and k), and this causes you to misunderstand what's been said.
It will take you only a few months, consistently hearing with properly fitted hearing instruments provided by your hearing professional, to achieve your best hearing. If you're not exercising your brain with good hearing on a regular basis, it will perform poorly, especially when trying to hear speech in noise. If you have not fully acclimated to hearing better with hearing instruments you can quickly become annoyed and frustrated.
With the help of a qualified and experienced hearing professional, you will learn to tune in and tune out sounds. You will become a good listener again. Better hearing and training your brain to become a good listener will only happen with the consistent use of properly fitted and finely tuned hearing aids.
A qualified and experienced hearing specialist will train you to hear more and listen better over a period of time. To obtain the maximum benefit and value from your new set of hearing aids and to become a happy and satisfied hearing aid wearer, make certain you follow up with your hearing aid specialist on a regular basis and wear your hearing instruments daily. Following this simple advice will avoid having your new hearing aids end up in a drawer... and those instruments are always the ones that will cost you the most!
