Power Domes HURT!

^^^^ WOW!!! This is great news! I hadn’t seen the thread you refer to above - so I will surf over there momentarily. But being impulsive … I’ve already ordered these mixed-size tips at Amazon.com50. I will definitely be the guinea pig here and try them out as soon as they arrive.

From their shape, it looks like my size 85 receiver would sort of slide into a memory foam donut hole and just rest snug that way. I didn’t know my receivers had a wax guard on the very end. Geez, I need to get my reading glasses ON and take a closer look here. Cuz I’d actually snipped that irksome silicone nippy OFF my power dome the other day … and then worried I’d just gum up the receiver over time. So I put a new dome on, and for the past couple days have tried not to insert it quite so deeply in my canal. Even so, by day’s end: another red spot has appeared just waiting to erupt!

I do find that the double-dome Widex Power Dome size L is just not enough padding to keep my ear canals from feeling like a small 2x4 has been RAMMED in. By day’s end, I am actually fatigued with the nagging, low-level ache in my ear canals. How I wish receivers could be made of softer, more flexible material. The small round sore from that power dome is not a good sign for long-term use.

I can’t wait to get these Comply foam tips and try them out. Thanks SO much for letting me know about them.

Or, get a custom hard shell mold. Not only will it seal better, but I find them more comfortable than the domes.

Well shit… Allergic to hard acrylic molds but not rubber/latex interesting.

Post #305 in this thread: Hearing Aid Forum - Active Hearing Loss Community9

@1Bluejay said:

I had a very productive follow-up with my dear aud-guy today! I’d been trying a Widex tulip mold on my Opn miniRITE BTEs - and surprisingly, it worked OKAY - altho the quality of sound was like a public address system. But I had a “Eureka!” moment last week when I happened to just press on my ears and see how things sounded. Immediately, I enjoyed more midrange and low ranges! Like a miracle! If only I could walk around ALL DAY with my fingers pressing on my ears, everything would be groovy. But - is that optimal?

So that was priority #1 for me to address today. I’d read right in this thread about someone who used a “power dome” on their Opns, so I asked my aud-guy to have one on hand when I got there. Turns out, the Widex LARGE power dome is now on my aids. I was simply not getting a tight enough seal on the aids with a tulip dome - bummer, cuz they were smaller and more comfy to wear & for insertion.

Why Widex dome on an Oticon aid? Welllllll… Widex seems to make these domes in a smoke topaz color of flexible silicone. For some reason, I am hideously allergic to any clear plastic thingamabob in my ear! I’ve tried both clear and so-called “hypo-allergenic” hard plastic molds on two occasions during the past decade. Both times, my ears flared up, burned all hot and red, and I subsequently developed otitis. While there is a clear plastic, flexible silicone dome for the Opn, my aud-guy said about 1 in 20 of his patients is … ALLERGIC to them. <:-(0) I didn’t want to take any chances, so ever since Sept., beginning with the Widex BTE, I’ve been using their smoke topaz domes. Now I hope I didn’t just jinx it, but so far, SO GOOD!

The larger power dome offers a much tighter seal on these Opns. I am really pushing the envelope, and the best configuration would probably be the tube over the ear and molded plastic receiver. But I dare not go there again.

I will probably need a few minor tweaks, but so far, I have default Program 1; Program 2 fully directional for noisy env’ts; Program 3 dedicated to streaming the TV (which I’ll try later tonight). I would SO LOVE for this to be my solution. My ears are just so much better without the hard plastic “plug” ITE aid, which made them itch like the dickens by day’s end from all the sweating.

I am also getting my loss profile mailed to me so I can add it to my siggy here. Believe me, I am the QUEEN OF THE DEAF! Tee-hee, a hollow victory, but still - I get by.

That must really suck to be allergic to all hearing aid molds, and in particular to the very kind that would be best for that loss.

AUGH! So last night, I’m logging in to the forum, and my spastic fingers get my username all a$$-backwards with capitalization. I was LOCKED OUT (and pounding on the windows!) for hours, till I gave up and came back today. Now where was I …?

I am late to my own game here! And thanks for all the suggestions. YES, in fact, a hard plastic mold of the flesh-colored type could indeed work out for me! I seem to only be allergic to the pink-tinted or clear hypo-allergenic plastic molds.

However, having a hard mold would kind of negate why I’m trying wire + dome instead of the ITE style I’ve worn for 30 years. I’m finding that at age 61, I wake up with swollen ear canals (like swollen joints, or stiff, creaky other parts). So I’ll typically wait like 30-40 min before inserting my aids in the morning. Definitely not optimal!

It’s this condition that prompted me to check out the Oticon RIE with dome + wire. But YES, with my loss profile, seal is the real deal! I have still not found my 100% solution. So I also hope the Comply foam tips will provide flexibility for insertion right when I wake up AND comfort throughout the day.

Mon night I snipped the irritating loop off the tip of my Widex power domes and voila! By the end of Tuesday, the red mark where that ding-a-ling would poke into my ear cup was completely GONE, so I know that loop was an irritant - and not the best design.

I have to be honest and note that my old Agil Pro ITEs offer a better seal over the current flexible Widex power domes I’ve got on my receivers for now.

I hope to report back by week’s end with the success of Compy vs Widex power dome vs Agil Pro hard case ITE! Stay tuned… And if you don’t hear from me, i’ve undoubtedly WONKED up my log-in again. <:-(0)

If the domes are tight, take something like a cuticle scissors and make a cut in the dome. That will allow it to compress more without pressure while giving the dome it occlusiveness. It is a single cut from edge to center. Some use an added cut.

So you effectively turn it into a tulip-like dome then, right? So why not just go for a tulip dome instead in the first place?

I’m assuming that the OP needs a tight fit (hence the power dome), yet something soft enough to conform equally to the shape of the ear canal. I’m guessing that the OP’s ear canal is not round like the dome so the sore spot is where the dome gets flattened out with more pressure against the canal.

HO HO HO!!! I am beyond thrilled to report that the Comply memory foam tip is PERFECT! I’ve got the (M) one on my aids right now. It was super easy to just peel off the Widex power dome and gently push my receiver through the donut hole of the Comply foam tips. They are snug as a bug in a rug! No feedback, good quality sound and SUCH a comfortable fit.

It was the small, silicon LOOP on those old power domes that did the damage in my ear canal. That loop is like something a fishhook could attach to and pull on? But WHY put it on the inner tip of a power dome? It literally jammed like a twig into my ear cup and caused an open wound. Compare that design to the Comply memory foam tip: SMOOTH, foam that gives to the natural shape of the ear (each of us having a unique shape). No loop thingy on the end to dig into the ear even more. (Again, refer to the photo link, first post on this thread, which shows the Widex power dome.)

The Oticon Opn receiver is like a wooden matchstick in size and shape, only a bit thicker. So I found the Widex silicone dome never gave enough padding for the square edges on the receiver. This memory foam Comply tip is a GOD-SEND!!! Second only to this amazing board that has given me so many good tips, advice and answers. I even told my mother-in-law to check it out, as she has lots of questions about her aids (Costco) but no one to turn to in her senior facility for answers. God bless y’all here.

@1Bluejay said:

It was the small, silicon LOOP on those old power domes that did the damage in my ear canal. That loop is like something a fishhook could attach to and pull on? But WHY put it on the inner tip of a power dome? It literally jammed like a twig into my ear cup and caused an open wound.

I’m guessing that little loop at the tip of the dome (my OPN closed dome has it, too, looks like all domes have it) is to give some structural integrity/rigidity to keep the opening at the tip of the dome from being squeezed closed if the ear canal is small enough to squeeze it in. I’m guessing a secondary benefit is to help keep some of the ear wax from creeping into the opening, but that’s probably not the primary reason they have it there.

I thought that if you had the dome centered in your ear canal then that tip is not supposed to come into contact and rub against anything. I still can’t seem to visualize how it could have rubbed your ear canal raw, unless the dome somehow gets twisted to a side, or maybe there’s a sharp bend in your ear canal shape right at where the tip is.

^^^^AH! You are no doubt right in the structural reason behind that loop! And maybe I do have a weird bend in my ear? It’s hard for me to tell except that when I hold a mirror & flashlight to see into that ear, I can see a “wall” before the canal that had the raw wound on it. Makes me also wonder if the power dome just wasn’t being inserted into the doorway of the canal properly. Feh.

Well, it’s been a few hours with my new Comply tips on, and they are wondrously comfortable - so perhaps I’ll never go back to the Widex domes. Again, it does make me wonder why more domes aren’t made from memory foam? These do not cause occlusion, there’s zero feedback, and the comfort is like no other aid from any other material I’ve ever worn. Fingers crossed I won’t sprout an allergic reaction to the foam!

Well, I am bummed! I had my SO COMFY Comply memory foam domes on today - and it was SO great to wake up and just put them right into my ear canal with no problems… But later today, I had to call for a PT app’t, and I simply could not understand what the receptionist was saying. So much so that I told her I’d call her right back! And I did. With my Agil Pro ITE aids in. I’ll be danged if the sound wasn’t about 25% louder and ALL speech crystal clear. So.

I may be at an impasse here. The comfort of the memory foam domes is great, but I can’t call these my “go-to” aids if I’m not able to hear very well on the phone. I think the problem could be that my aids are set up (frequency, gain, etc.,) for the Widex power domes. Maybe if I get in to see my aud-guy and show him the memory foam domes he can do something? But if not … or if he says that the wrong kind of dome could actually ruin the receiver (how, I dunno!), then it’s back to the painful Widex domes OR … Agil Pros. That would really be sour grapes for me.

I would love to know if anyone else has swapped in these SUPER comfy Comply memory foam domes for whatever they had on their receivers? If so, did you have the aids re-programmed, or are you lucky enough to have phone streaming and/or be able to discern speech A-OK with these foam domes?

Sigh. At least they work pretty good with the TV streamer. But again, the total volume is about 15-20% lower than streaming with the Widex domes for whatever reason. I wonder if the foam is somehow getting in the way of the receiver tip? Like maybe squishing over it to plug it up somehow? Oh to have a teensy little person sit inside my ear canal with a flashlight and report back to me.