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How often do you have to replace your wax filters and domes?

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Not a bad solution. Just warm water? I have been using an earwax cleaning kit. After five minutes per ear leaving the peroxide fluid, I use the bulb with warm water to rinse each ear. I have been doing that once every two weeks. By doing it before bed, then the moisture drys out overnight.

Hi, We dont have Costco stores, only private audiologists and the NHS. I dont understand why you return to costco rather than cleaning the dome and changing the filters yourself. Costco presumably supplies parts once you purchase h/aids from them. To return once every two weeks seems excessive unless your hearing becomes worse due to excessive wax build up in the filters. Forgive me if I have this all round my neck.

It’s easier to have them do the work, since it’s included in the cost of the hearing aids, and they are about five miles away. I did change them the other day, and they didn’t appear to be dirty at all, but it worked.

I change the filters about every 3 months as I keep my ears very clean. As for the domes I use open domes and I found it is easy to clean them under very warm soapy water. I roll them around between my fingers and any wax that clogs the tiny speaker vent gets removed fast. Then I just squeeze the dome in a towel to remove the moisture and it is good to go. haven’t had to buy more domes in over a year. Still have a sleeve of them sitting in the drawer.

After removing the dome, exposing the filter, it didn’t appear to be dirty. However, after changing it, the hearing aid began working again. I’m assuming that the filter was dirty. Am I making a correct assumption?

You can look at the dome and the filter with a magnifying glass and see the amount of dirt of wax on them and if your cleaning tool (I use a small pointed toothbrush) doesn’t clean them well, change either or both. My domes have very small holes that need a magnifying glass to see well, Open domes would be easier to see, but the filter probably needs to be seen under a magnifying glass. The domes seem to last forever even though they discolor over time.

In reply to @Flyboybob

Removing the dome 2 or 3 times during its life shouldn’t hurt its ability to stay in place on the . I wouldn’t do it daily or anything.

If I start seeing wax in the dome, I treat my ears to peroxide for 7-8 minutes each and change the domes. I inspect the carefully with a flashlight and +5 readers, and if they are not pristine white I change them also. Probably about every 5-6 weeks I have to do this. But if you produce a lot of wax, you might want to preemptively do wax removal more often… every other week, or even weekly, depending on your situation.

My need changing every about 6 months. My husbands every 2 months. I do regular clean the wax out of the dome so that may be why mine last longer. Hubby says he just has a lot of wax and that was before the hearing aids. I don’t think there one particular answer.

I don’t put much thought into . I buy a years supply from Amazon for about $30 to $35 and spend about a minute changing them each week. I suppose I could get more scientific about the need, but why.

I change my every5 to 7 days. I had the new 5.0 power receivers put on my Phonak Audeo Paradise P90R hearing aids. They are much better than the 4.0 receivers were.
DaveL

That depends. I’m checking looking through powerfull magnifier lens - and if they are dirty a little - replace them. The one I’ve got through Aliexpress -

IMG_2816

I’ve been wearing hearings aids since I was about five. I got hearing aids with filters in 2016 and only changed the filters once since… only because I brought them in to get a repair done and the audiologist did it. I’m so used to not having to do maintenance that I just never think about it. I will clean them every once in a while but I don’t replace anything unless it’s broken. I will note that I don’t really produce much earwax so that could be a factor. I have had them clog a few times and a quick clean fixes the issue.

get replaced every 14 days.
Domes get replaced the 1st of the month

All supplies are free from my audiologist. I tell her what I’m running low on & she hands me supplies.

In reply to @Flyboybob

@Flyboybob said:

Just warm water?

For keeping wax from clogging the filters, yep, warm water does the trick. I wear earmolds that have the receiver and right up at the tip (unlike domes where the wax filter is behind the dome). Before I started rinsing with water, the filters sometimes got clogged daily.

Just water isn’t enough for me to completely avoid ear cleaning, though it does help a lot. When I was seeing my audiologist regularly, she’d find just a bit of wax when she looked, and it was easy to remove. Much better than before I started rinsing, when wax removal was a frequent and unpleasant ordeal.

This time, after 9 months away from the audiologist’s office, I did end up with wax blockage that needed removal. But even then it was very easy because the water had kept the wax plug mostly softened. Now I am using Debrox every few weeks in the hope of avoiding a future blockage. That’s in addition to the daily rinse.

Happy to stumble onto this topic. I been wearing for over 20 years. Often, a HA would without warning stop working.
Symptoms suggested a wire or contact failure due to it occurring so suddenly.
Sometimes it resulted in a panic visit to the .

Eventually - after I personally got more proactive with my HAs, I realized that clogged filters were the biggest result of problems and that often they would seem to fail suddenly when likely performance had been degrading for a while.

Now please – do not all shoot me at once, BUT for the past five or more years, I have stopped entirely using those filters!

I don’t generally develop wax, likely cause I always carry cue tips in my pocket and 2-3 times a day, dry what feels like dripping ears.

More the point, since I stopped using those filters, I don’t have HA failure! Every so often - perhaps a month or so, I will remove the power domes, ( used to be regular domes ), and either replace or soak in dawn soapy water, before blowing out with pressure blower and letting dry.

Those curved green plastic tooth picks I find are good to ream out any speaker orifice to clean any dirt build up without damage to the speaker.

At times I have worn molds and as supplied by the MFG, came with their own speakers, which now had it’s own filter in addition to the filter at the entry of the mold. I don’t believe any filters are needed and feel that over time they evolved into a good way to get most patients to come in for a visit. This can be extremely and needless stressful when it results in the emergency visit, especially by active persons who rely on their HAs.

If one is using molds, and prudently chose to remove the filter below the mold, then the filter in use is right at the outside, and easily exposed to the ear’s wax and other clog-able debris. BUT will the filter which has a strainer and is a narrower orifice, not get clogged more readily than the mold’s port. And could not the port be cleaned both safely and effectively when or before that happens?

So I stopped using any filters - period. Either before or after the mold and not with domes - power or regular.

Filters that are installed BEHIND an ear mold, require that the mold itself be removed to access the filter. My experience, with molds is that after a few removals and replacements performance is degraded because the speaker no longer is tightly gripped by the mold. The speaker entry angle in the mold can change and the mold itself can allow, or result in the speaker being at a different than 0 degree angle within the mold! Performance must degrade with each and every reinsertion of speaker into custom mold. Which is one reason I am currently not enthusiastic on molds or using molds.

It is impossible to be sure there is no filter between the mold and the speaker without removing to check, so even a new mold, then isn’t new. On more than one occasion, where the AuD knew my feelings and instructed there not be a filter between a new speaker and mold from factory - I insisted on inspected and found there was!

My experience with Oticon is that even vigorous attempts at cleaning with a those rubbery toothpicks, does not damage the speaker.

Bottom line: NO FILTERS FOR ME!

I check the small dot on my hearing aids. When red I replace my . I leave it alone when it is black. That is usually about weekly.

These come in handy to check filters among other things.

Third Generation Dr Mom Slimline Stainless LED Pocket Otoscope with Soft White Natural Hue Light Spectrum in Clamshell Packaging https://a.co/d/3yQRgLx37

Edited

With cShells my stay pretty clean and I use a Jodi-Vac on them every day. I change them once a month. I expect the cShells to last the life of my Spheres. I use a RadioShack 2x magnifying stand with a smaller 4x inset lens to one side. I have a 50x Wild binocular (stereo) dissecting microscope available if needed (with 6, 12, and 25x magnifications also available, IIRC).

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