Chewing Noise in Aids when eating?

Increasing the compresion ratio, may help. But some users of cutom products(all in the ear) I suspect will always have that problem. When I wore cic’s I could not stand to eat crunchy stuff. Beltone “open fit” digitals solved that problem. An unexpected benefit was my Spanish, pronounciation also got much better (I am English speaking) because my own voice did not distract me anymore. (in laws are Spanish speaking)

In 35 yrs of dispensing the one major complaint with custom products, has been the patient hearing themself (talking, or eating)

This Occlusion Effect is very common and may indeed by a primary cause why hearing aids are rejected.

It has NOTHING to do with hearing aids being ‘new’ etc.

It is simply an effect caused by the ear canal being blocked by a lump of plastic.

The air gap between the hearing aid or earmould and the eardrum can trap low frequency sounds being transmitted through the skull from the jaw or from your own vocal cords.

This trapped sound can reach VERY high levels which can drown out the outside world when you eat or when you talk and is very disconcerting.

So if you have good hearing loss at 250H or 500Hz then you can’t really wear any sort of aid which totally blocks the ear canal.

This is why Open Fittings are now so popular: theses aids let the low frequency sounds roam free like a wildebeest, and only boost the mid and high frequencies.

If you can’t avoid a lump of plastic in your ear:

1. Make sure it has a vent drilled through it.
2. Consider asking for the aid gain for Low Frequency Louds to be reduced.

Your hearing aid supplier should know ALL about occulsion so you shouldn’t be sent away with your aids behaving like that.

Google “occlusion effect”, “open fittings”, “hearing aid vents” , “Open Fittings”

I had the mold’s made for the plastic part in my ear today. I explained to
the audi about the loud sounds when eating. He is going to have a vent put
in the ear plastic part. So we will see if that helps.

My Phonak Naida’s might arrive as early as tomorrow or if not next week.

I will report back when I get them.

I experienced that but over the past 10 months I have had 3 or 4 sets of new molds made and adjustments with each new set.

I never specifically complained about the chewing noise but reading this thread made me realize that it no longer is an issue. I wonder what happened?

I will say that each new set of molds were 1) longer - fit deeper into the canal and 2) fit tighter and better (more comfortably). All were vented but the vents now are smaller than they were in the first sets of molds.

I am not sure I can make any sense out of this but maybe others can.

Peter:confused:

@EnglishDispenser said:

So if you have good hearing loss at 250H or 500Hz then you can’t really wear any sort of aid which totally blocks the ear canal.

This is why Open Fittings are now so popular: theses aids let the low frequency sounds roam free like a wildebeest, and only boost the mid and high frequencies.

If you can’t avoid a lump of plastic in your ear:

1. Make sure it has a vent drilled through it.
2. Consider asking for the aid gain for Low Frequency Louds to be reduced.

"

It appears to me that the majority of the aids on the market target specifically a loss that slopes to the hi freq, which would stand to reason as it is a predominantly common pattern of loss.

Are there any aids on the market that are designed towards a reverse slope?
Can a person with a reverse slope get satisfactory hearing results if the audi is conservative when boosting the low frequencies?

A dumb question… but what would be missed if the low frequencies gain were to be backed off until the occlusion is gone completely?