Do my hearing aids have wax filters?

You’ll find that professional audiologists will have a large aid dryer at their practice ready for action should a client walk in with an aid moisture issue. Some of these box-like dryers can dry a hearing aid in ten to fifteen minutes. Physical inspection is also important, and many times a professional Audi will see signs of moisture in tubing, ear hook, etc., where the user was none the wiser. And I’ll bet 85% of all HA-related moisture issues are from sweat collected in and around the ear canal, versus someone caught in the rain or walking into a shower with aids on.

I hear you @Baileyhere…In most instances the layman can observe any droplets of moisture in the tubing as this is crystal clear…Ear hooks are a different kettle of fish, as they are usually opaque, therefore difficult to see through! On a warm day, if I am working hard, perhaps doing some form work with concrete, I like concrete, even in my 70th year, I still push myself, and sometimes I will push myself so hard, I can feel the sweat running on the inside of my ears, beads of sweat will have formed inside the tubing, I then have to remove the tubing from the ear hooks, and then blow it through, not very hygienic, but needs must! If the concrete pour is prolonged (usually hand batched via a cement mixer) I may have to remove my hearing aids altogether, such is moisture I am producing inside my ears, effectively making the HA’s absolutely useless! Now that’s an extreme example, and nowadays it will only happen a few times a year, but prior to that, before I retired, it was a fairly regular occurrence… We are all different, some of us produce excessive amounts of moisture inside our ears, especially so with unvented moulds! Cheers Kev

That is a damper that comes with many earhooks. They are designed to smooth out resonant peaks, but I tend to just take them out. I like being able to unlatch the earhook and just go through the whole thing with padded floss to clean, which is something you can’t do with the damper in place. As far as smoothing peaks, particularly once we fine tune for real ear response, we have not found a significant difference between damped and undamped ear hooks. However, in general, the more severe a loss is, the more likely undamped earhooks will be appropriate.

I’ve never mixed concrete and at 82, I’m not going to start ! I do get a little moisture in the tubing even though I have vented custom ear moulds and try to keep the vents clear. I too, resort to just blowing through the tube as it works. Interestingly, the audiologist at the hospital (when the NHS looked after my hearing) once gave me some ‘special’ tubing which she said didn’t collect moisture so much and it worked (visibly anyway). Anyone know what this was? It looked exactly the same.

I’ve long since replaced the tubing with ‘off the shelf’ tubing from Ebay.

Incidentally, my audiogram keeps disappearing from my posts, can’t work out why.

Twin walled tubing must be what the hospital supplied but I couldn’t see the difference at the time as the OD and ID looked the same. I recently had problems with some tubing provided free of charge by my current hearing centre (M&S) as it wasn’t a snug fit in the moulds and kept coming out. it was very slightly narrower and was preformed in an R shape rather than a single bend. After searching the web I ordered some which is 3.1mm OD with a single bend and fits ok but does collect moisture and looks to be single walled.

You’ll “Probably” get twin walled tubing from Connevans UK hearing accessory suppliers, I will post up an exact image of the label on the twin walled tubing, I get mines privately, but I’m not sure who supplies them? Cheers Kev

Sorry for the slow reply. Thanks for the info. My tubing measures at 3.5mm OD and 2mm ID as accurately as I can tell without using a micrometer and it fits in the earmould ok. This is in-between what Conevans call standard (MTUBETHICK 3.2/2mm) and extra thick (MTUBEXTHIC 4/2mm). The OD is crucial to ensure a snug fit in the earmould of course. I think M&S gave me 3.0 or 3.2 mm OD which kept coming out. I think they are all single walled.

I’ve been changing the tubing myself for about 10 years and I too found that the ‘correct’ size needed quite a bit if force to pull it through the ear mould. The NHS hospital audiology dept. did it for me originally until I learned to do it myself (they also suppled the tubes free of charge) I discovered very early on that the knack is to cut the leading end of the tube into a very long pointed shape to get plenty through the hole to pull on. I wasted a couple of tubes getting this wrong. I too, use pliers and if I don’t aways trim the tube right flush with the tube but leave about 1mm protuding, wax builds up around there.

Yeah @acjm99 there is most definitely a knack in splitting the tubing with sharp scissors, I split the tubing completely in half for approximately just over an inch, it feeds through the hole very easily then, pull the tubing through with pliers till it hits the knuckle bend, trim off flush with a razor sharp knife, I use the old tubing as a measuring stick for the other end, cut that off, reattach the hearing aid, and we are good to go… Usually takes under a minute per aid, but I have probably changed hundreds of these, when I worked at Deaf Services? Cheers Kev