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Ear mould design

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Hi everyone,

I got Thermotec ear moulds last year and am still not quite used to the look of them - i am finding them a bit too bulky (see picture attached) . When discussing with the audiologist back then he recommended a smaller design that would practically not be visible (just in the ear canal).

When they arrived and the audiologist fitted them he himself seemed surprised that they turned out bigger than what he ordered. But he just brushed it off with “they must have had a reason to do that”.

Do you think the bigger shape has to do with my hearing loss or the shape of my ear canal? Those are the reasons I could think of but was wondering if there could be more. I might go back to the audi to see if smaller ones are an option.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thank you!

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Yes, that would be perfect because I could use thermoactive material to ensure the best seal. Unfortunately, I can’t.

You need proper seal to get as much benefits from high frequency amplification as possible. With lees seal your risk acoustic feedback and necessity to be underamplified, which defeats the purpose of having hearing aid.

To be honest, I’m no audi and can’t speak to that size being NEEDED. But my gut tells me the mold may have been “overdone” from the impression taken. If this material is SUPER squishy, why can’t it be made smaller to fill the ear canal further IN? Here’s how it’s described:

“THERMOtec ear moulds are custom-made earpieces for hearing aids made from a thermoflexible material that is hard at room temperature but softens to body temperature for a comfortable fit. They are designed to be skin-friendly, moisture-wicking, and provide a secure seal in the ear canal.”

On the other hand, if it’s small enough to fit IN the ear canal, would you be able to pull it out day after day if you have to tug at it. How grippy is this mold?

I’m due to pick up titanium molds in a couple weeks, and wonder how they will come out from the impression taken. I don’t think it’s GRIPPY, but my bigger issue is being allergic to the material. Now you’ve piqued my curiosity about THERMOtec. I’ve never even heard of it!

Don’t feel like you’re being “high maintenance” if you ask the audi to re-make them SMALLER. Even if it costs a bit to have them made again, you may get a good result and be fine with them smaller.

In reply to @x475aws

Maybe on this forum but when I see other people with hearing aids in real life, they mostly have way more discrete options. Maybe because they use domes rather than custom ear moulds. But anyway, I am just trying to understand the options and whether they need to be this visible or not.

In reply to @1Bluejay

Thank you for the detailed response!

I researched this a bit more and one aspect could be that because I need the ear mould to be vented to avoid occlusion and to have natural sound as my low frequencies are still good and because the thermotec material is thicker than titanium for example, it might not be going in as deep into the ear canal and therefore needs more grip and seal outside of the ear canal to avoid feedback? That is how I understood it anyway, not sure if it makes sense. I will bring up the topic with my audi again.

I am also interested in titanium moulds as I think they look quite cool. And if the moulds are a bit visible anyway then I would rather have a nice look! Hope you get on well with them!

@Mosby said:

I need the ear mould to be vented to avoid occlusion and to have natural sound as my low frequencies

Not necessarily if you have earmold placed deeply, reaching bony part of your ear canal, which greatly reduces the occlusion effect.

You have much loss in your high frequencies (70-80 ) which means you should have a bit more occluded fitting, like small diameter vent, because otherwise you might be underamplified in that frequency region due to the risk of acoustic feedback.
That leads to the poorer speech understanding, especially in noise.

Of course, you can try to find sweet spot between maximising diameter of vent and reaching the proper target of high frequency gain, but it is a bit trial and error work, a bit costly and cumbersome. Not to mention it requires (Real Ear Measurement).

@Mosby said:

because the thermotec material is thicker than titanium

It isn’t thicker per se, unless you mean it requires thicker wall between the receiver and ear canal wall.

Despite I am waiting for titanium earmold, it is good to mention do not be overhyped by it. It can be put deeper in the ear canal due to it can have thinner walls (high titanium resistance), but it not necessarily can be more tight and have better grip than thermotec.

Personally, if I were you and has that possibility, I would choose thermotec because of it tightness and probably better earplug effect, which could help in filtering noise.

In reply to @Mosby

@Mosby said:

I researched this a bit more and one aspect could be that because I need the ear mould to be vented to avoid occlusion and to have natural sound as my low frequencies are still good

You should also consider soft silicone moulds, you can get a nice tight fit plus have a decent sized vent for those lower frequences, as has been mentioned getting the correct mould and vent size is not always straight forward, sometimes trial and error unfortunately, but your Audiologist should have no problem redoing these to get the best results for you.

I have thermotec moulds in canal tip style with 1.4 mm vents and would consider them pretty invisible. Maybe canal tip would be a style option for you?

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My audiologist said that he had to send the request for the moulds to several different providers until they came back in a satisfactory, invisible size

Thank you - I did have several times, but unfortunately do not have a printout of the results, so I cannot provide the requested values. Are they a measure of occlusion? I do not experience any occlusion at all.

In reply to @Penzance99

Hi again, one other question that came to my mind. With the small size of the ear moulds, are you able to stream content (music, podcasts etc.) ok? Or is the sound not good? For me, with the more sealed off ear moulds the streaming sound is quite good (even though I have a vent in the ear moulds). I use it all the time!

I do not have a direct comparison to larger moulds, but streaming and feedback suppression appear ok to me with my moulds, definitely better than with the previously used domes!

Ok thank you! I might ask my audi if a smaller ear mould like yours is possible. Let’s see what happens :slight_smile:

In reply to @Mosby

@Mosby said:

…it might not be going in as deep into the ear canal and therefore needs more grip and seal outside of the ear canal to avoid feedback?

That is exactly what I have experienced with previous custom molds made for me! With my level of loss, ideally, the mold would tickle my eardrum, lol, but those don’t exist. I pick up my titanium molds in early November, and already I’m wondering how I’ll JAM them in my ears every morning. As it is, with my double-dome silicone power domes, my ears are tender from the previous day’s jamming them in alllllllll day long! My ears swell UP and go down.

Even so, I will be back here to report in on how they look, feel and perform! :grinning_face:

I have worn aids for 20 years. Mostly half shell aids. Now I wear MiniRite aids with full skeleton ear molds. So I have all ways had my aids visible and that is okay with me. My hearing loss is very obvious even with great hearing aids. I will tell anyone that will listen about my hearing. There isn’t and should never be any shame in having a disability.

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