Behind the ear, aid question. Scratchy noise?

It is not unusual to be able to hear scratching sounds behind your ear. I have ReSound Quattro’s and they have excellent feedback cancellation, excellent wind noise control, at least with the settings my audi provided me.

BUT, when I put my RITE(RIC) devices on in the morning, one test that I do to see if the receivers are reasonably positioned in my ear is that I run a finger over the topic of the HA body behind my ear where the body with the 3 mics is and listen to the soft scratching sound that I generate. On very windy days when my hair is shaggy, I hear little or no wind noise from the mics themselves but what I do hear occasionally is if a gust of wind disturbs the HA’s or blows my shaggy hair against the mics, I will hear a rustling sound. Same for jostling my glasses and displacing the HA’s against my hair.

There is a typical hearing aid setting across brands called “expansion” - this effectively adjusts how much soft sounds are amplified. If you have very good low frequency hearing, you might actually hear noise generated by the HA’s themselves in a very quiet environment or perhaps soft noises like your HA’s rustling or the refrigerator running could be a bother that your mind can’t tune out for some reason. By raising the floor for soft noises with the expansion setting, your audi can make soft noises softer or potentially make them disappear altogether - but you might miss out on some noises that you want to hear, too. There are trade-offs. As cvkemp says, nothing is written in stone. Experiment and see what works best for you!

Sometimes if your receiver wire is too long the aid rubs on your hair or edge of your ear. Some double sided tape helps. Tape it to your ear. See if that helps. If it works buy tape for attaching a wig. Lots cheaper than the tape supplied by the hearing aid companies. Wig tape is intended for skin contact.

I have that. If I just tap the hearing aid, it’s like styrofoam rubbing styrofoam. I assumed this was normal. The costco hearing aid fitter said this is how you check to make sure they’re on & you haven’t lost them. So, is this not normal?

While I use 3M medical tape to secure the wire next to my skin (keeps the silicone domes from sliding out of the ear canal & holds the BTE unit pretty stable), I think you may also benefit from a pair of EarGear sox. These are not cheap at $30+ at Amazon289, but I slide these over my aids when getting my hair done. I’ve never detected any kind of hair rustle, diminished sound quality or negative issue at all with these sox that cover the entire BTE unit.

That’s a neat deal. Think I’ll pick up a pr of those little socks.

Exactly. Like a bunch of albino dancing cats.

@teejayess said:

Is it like this?

Real cool! Thanks!

You probably near a hair cut. Seriously, brush your hair, with your finger away from the HA microphone. My audi showed me when I complained. We had a great laugh. I now know when I need a haircut because unlike a lot of people, I hear it!

I am another Ear Gear user—they eliminate some of the scratchy noises.

That is true! I didn’t think about that till right now.

I love the LOOK of them! I have really zany, bright orange/red socks. They are so much sleeker, fit better, and stay put behind the ear than those GIGANTIC, flesh-colored BULB-shaped blobs. Never could understand why anyone would use them, cuz they add too much BULK to the precious real estate behind our ears.

Every time I get a haircut the hairs just above the ears are just the right length to scratch against the microphones of my Phonak BTEs. I have to always slick them down and back when this happens - which works for a few minutes before it starts again!

@1Bluejay said:

I have really zany, bright orange/red socks.

Do you think the red / orange socks will go with my HAs? I can’t decide.