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Swollen Outer Ear Canal/ Silicone versus Titanium Cones???

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I just started wearing phonaks baseline hearing aide with the silicone cones and after 4 to 5 days my ear canal seems to swell and become occluded and sore. After I wait about a week the occlution lifts, the pain goes away and then I try again only to be met with the same effect. The audiologist gave me a smaller cone , but the swelling and closure of canal occurred again. Is it possible I am allergic to the silicone cone? I have asked the audiologist if trying the custom titanium cones would possibly work, and he said he has had very poor outcomes with the titanium tips. Has anyone had the same effect when they started wearing hearing aides for the 1st time.

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I love mine. About three and a half years I’ve been wearing them. Don’t know as I’ve ever heard someone get a reaction like that from them. Maybe they aren’t good at doing the impressions?

WH

Edited

Yes, you could be sensitive to the Silicone. I find it is hot and ichey, and I use Acrilic custom molds.
Watch this video … a little long, but inforitave;

or :

Thank you for the informative videos. The Dr. Says mt ear canals are narrow. I have always had to constatntly clear my ears and I am not sure if my ears are sensitive to the Silicone cones or I just have sensitive ears. The audiologist at Kaiser has been a bit dismissive with regards to custom molds. He says he has had very little success with custom molds for my type of ear canals.

I have narrow ear canals and hated domes, tried everything to be comfortable with them, but generally felt like ripping them out of my ears. I got on fine with Phonak c-shells. I now have Starkey aids and they are a good fit.

When they fit c shells do they penetrate the ear canal as deeply as the regular silicone cones that come with hearitng aides. The audiologist contacted phonak and we made titanium cones but I had the same negative “allergy” to those being in my ear canal. Ear canal swelled and occluded and the effect is the same. I really enjoy the hearing aides, being able to hear is nice The audiologist at Kaiser said he thinks my ears aren’t ready for hearing aides with amplification. I am pretty bummed out by the whole process. I am wondering if C shells maybe dont reach as far down the ear canal as the silicone and or regular silicone cones.

You could have acrylic cshells made very shallow and add a skeleton lock for retention. The aesthetics might not be as nice, but it might enable you to wear them. It might also be an interesting experiment to just wear the hearing aid without a dome at all and see if you get the same problem. You’d have to be more on top of making sure there’s no wax in the filter, and if you have significant low frequency hearing loss doing it this way may not provide enough gain in that region.

Saying your ears just aren’t ready is weird. It implies that sometime in the future they’ll just stop reacting this way, when they are “ready”.

This is an interesting suggestion, do you mean just letting the receiver “float” in the ear? Surely it wouldn’t stay in place or amplify correctly? I ask because I currently have an ear infection which means my ear canals cannot bare contact with anything at the moment (so I’m not using my new , very frustrating as a new HA user trying to adjust). I’m just wondering if your suggestion might offer me some middle-way in the meantime?

I think when I wrote that you didn’t have your hearing loss in your avatar. Looks like you DO have a significant low frequency component. Oh wait, no, I see, you’re not the OP. I wonder what happened with him.

Your hearing aids wouldn’t amplify correctly without domes. Whether they’ll stay in without domes depends a bit on the shape of the ear and how the hearing aid fits. Sometimes you need a retention tail. But you’ll lose a lot of loss frequency amplification without a closed fit. And if your ears are actively draining it’s not great to use . You might want to call your provider and see if they can extend the trial period given to ear infection.

Thanks @Neville , yeah I thought as much, it was a long shot! And thank you for the suggestion of asking for an extended trial, it’s a good idea, it’s not only that I can’t physically wear the at the moment but also my hearing is affected (and of course I’m fearful that’s not temporary) with the infection, so it feels like a bad time to assess if a HA is programmed correctly/ what tweaks are needed/ indeed what my prescription is now :frowning: (for context, I was originally diagnosed with a middle and outer ear infection and given antibiotics. When they finished and I still had a dull earache and blocked full feeling, I was given dexamethasone ear drops to take for 1 week. I’m half way through the week and praying I see change soon)

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