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Opinions on disinfectant dryers

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so I pulled the trigger on a Kapak disinfecting dryer for my aids, largely because it was relatively cheap and got good reviews. My audiologist sells another brand, Dry Max with uv light that requires a dessicant brick and costs three times as much as what I bought. But it looks really solid.

Any opinions? I probably should have asked here before buying the Kapak, but there you go. thanks in advance.

–Jeff

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I’ll be contrary. My take is that unless you know you have a problem, these devices are a waste of money. Hearing aids will dry when exposed to air. There is no point in “disinfecting” them. Your ears have plenty of bacteria. Keep them clean, yes. Brush them and wipe them off, but don’t worry about “disinfecting.” If you live in a humid environment and don’t have refrigerated air conditioning to dry out the air, I could see some benefit to having a drier.

PVC I did read the reviews, that’s why I bought it. However there are at least three different listings of this product on Amazon, all with a different thread of reviews. Mostly they seem good.

I read some reviews that suggested that the 30 minute cycle for the Dry Lux wasn’t long enough, so I passed on that–but who knows?

MDB, you’re probably right and this is overkill. My eustachian tubes are whacked and so I get a good amount of fluid build up in my middle ear, and my canals are on the moist side. So for fifty bucks, I decided to roll the dice. But I’m still curious about any other opinions.

Maybe it will turn out that this will help with my swimmy underwater ears…

Other than using a hearing aid dryer, l clean my ear canals about twice a month to remove excessive ear wax. I have a scope to look inside the canal for any wax buildup.

many surgeries, most especially for cholesteotoma in both ears, have altered the shape of my canals. As a result, I have to go in three times a year to have accumulated wax vacuumed out, or sometimes simply removed with a pick (‘debridement’, or as I sometimes think, divorcing the wax.) this is wax that’s accumulated in my mastoid area, as far as I can tell. Meanwhile, I continue to also produce wax in my canals, as I’ve learned with my hearing aids. I’ve always been told that producing wax is a sign of healthy ears, so I suppose I should welcome all of this.

but my anatomy has been surgically altered and I’ve been warned repeatedly not to put pointy objects in my canals–times ten, because again I don’t have normal structure and my middle ear is exposed, apparently.

still, I’m curious about this scope that Terost uses…that’s new to me.

And back on topic, the Kapak dryer arrived in the mail. What can I say? It works, as of last night. Or at least, all the light go on!

–Jeff

I’ve had a Dry and Store Zephyr for years. Uses desiccant packs, no UV light. I’ve always felt the UV was a waste, as simply keeping your molds clean should be sufficient to prevent infection.

I recently purchased the Dry Lux from Costco for travel. Attractive for this to ultimately replace my Zephyr, because there is no need to buy desiccant. It has the UV, but obviously, this wasn’t a selling point for me.

I’m not even sure these devices are necessary anymore, simply because most modern ’s are nanocoated and therefore water resistant. However, living in a humid environment, I feel it is better to be safe than sorry.

Opinions are whether these devices are necessary or not are welcome.

Evil

I have worn for 60 years and have used dryers with desiccant packs every night for longer then I can remember. If you wear a with a ear mold, look at your tubes when you take them off at night.There will be times when you can see the moisture in the tube. That moisture will block the sound from your aids if you do not remove it. What ever dryers you use will remove the moisture from that tube.

Curious if you’ve ever tried an experiment when you see moisture in both tubes? Like using the drier for one and leaving one out of the drier. My guess, unless you have very humid conditions is that both would dry.

Nope, never tried that as I want my aids to be moisture free when I put them in. This is the closest to what you asked. For a lot of years my wife and I were winter Texan’s and we met a older women were we were staying. We were staying on the gulf coast. She always had trouble with moisture in her . I told her what I was using as she did not use anything to dry them. We went out and bought a Dry-Aid for her to use. We seen her for 5 years after that. Long story short, she had no more moisture problems with her aids. You be the judge.

I’m thinking Gulf Coast of Texas is pretty humid. Perhaps Illinois is too? We have about 20% humidity here and everything dries pretty quickly.

Forget we live in different worlds. Guess we should all remember that in commenting and also probably good to give relevant details when asking for advice.

It takes a long time for a ha dryer to remove moisture in the earmold tubing. I use a pipe cleaner to clean the tubing if there’s lots of moisture. I find cotton pipe cleaners in smoke shops. I do not smoke.

Interesting. I never even thought about moisture in the tubing. That makes me glad that I passed on the Costco dryer, since it only runs for 30 minutes. Which may be entirely sufficient! I honestly don’t know. The Kapak runs for 3 hours.

The instructions say: UV light will destroy the casing of ’s that aren’t UV light resistant. So I emailed my provider about that. No problem, I’m sure.

I’ve always used a jar of Hal Hen super dry aid with the pellets for storing my aids, but the pellets just seem to stop working. The Dry and Store that my provider sells is pricey AND uses a dessicant that you have to keep changing at 12.99 for a three pack. Not bad, but the Kapak never requires a dessicant.

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