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Do people actually notice your hearing aids?

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Sorry but I’m young and a bit vain so I was hoping to hear some experiences/anecdotes when it comes to people noticing your hearing aids or not

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When I mention wearing hearing aids or having a hearing loss, such as when I ask for a particular seat at the table or a quieter restaurant table, I’ve often had people express surprise that I wear hearing aids. Even people I’ve known a long time. The over the ear () really aren’t very noticeable, and no one is looking at your ears trying to see hearing aids.

I have short hair that doesn’t cover my ears.

If someone is clearly having trouble hearing, I’ll look to see if they have on hearing aids and it’s often very difficult to tell even when looking. (I teach a class about hearing aids do I look but nobody else does). But hearing loss is much more noticeable than hearing aids. You may not realize how often you are bluffing, making it appear you aren’t paying attention. Or you are having to ask for repeated information.

The odds are yes that a few people may notice.

I’ve only had one person say something. It was when I first started wearing hearing aids.

Most people do not notice.

How many people have you noticed wearing hearing?

I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 8, that’s 60 years. Everybody notices them. After 60 years of wearing glasses, I just don’t care about hearing aids.

I wanted to get a bold color for my hearing aids and make them a style statement, but Costco doesn’t have bold colors. So I got brown. Matches my glasses.

Really, don’t worry about who sees them.

Don’t worry about it is right! If they’re your mates, they won’t say a thing, and if they do, it’s probably just to let you know it doesn’t matter. Think about it - if you saw someone with an eye patch, or missing an arm, would it offend you, or keep you from being a mate? No! It wouldn’t. The important thing is to keep going. Keep doing what you want, following your passion. If someone DOES offend you about your hearing, ask them why, then tell ‘em to bugger off!

What will happen if they notice your hearing aids? Make fun of you? If they do, scrape ‘em off! They’re not worth your time. I used to think the same thing, but then I thought ‘so what’? My hearing is more important than what others think. If they’re that shallow, tell ‘em to piss off! I have the kind that are molded and fit in my ears. They’re more noticable than the kind that fit behind my ears.

I have ears that look like a taxi with the doors open. The part that went behind my ears would flop around, and not stay in place. Plus, I have very thin hair, and nothing to hide them. I work in the woods, and had one of my hearing aids pulled from behind my ear by a branch. Luckily, I found it - twice! So I got the molded kind. They’re comfortable, and I’ve gotten used to them. Plus, they’re not flopping, and are always there.

figure it out mate! You want to HEAR some young sheila say she really likes you, and if she makes fun of your disability, you don’t want her anyway!

Recently somebody was talking to me about hearing aids, saying that their grandmother didn’t want to wear hearing aids. I said, yeah, I get it, but mine really help me, and they said, “Wait, you wear hearing aids?”

I think my glasses make the hearing aids less noticeable, but then, some folks don’t like to wear glasses either. Me: I want to see and hear.

  1. A lot of my work colleagues had no idea I had hearing aids. I have short hair, just long enough to cover the aids behind my ears. But frankly, even without hair, my hearing aids are pretty well hidden behind the upper part of the outer ear.
  2. No offense, but it still baffles me how so many people are afraid of hearing aids being visible, yet they have no problem with big honking white AirPods sticking out of their ears. Make it make sense. :woman_shrugging:

It’s because many of us were raised at a time when hearing loss was not recognized as a disability but more of a self inflicted condition. We were told to “pay attention” and “listen carefully”. So we pretended that we could hear OK. And Grandad’s hearing aids were a sign of his dementia and decrepitude and we did not want to be associated with that so we keep our hearing aids hidden.

I get it, I’m 40 and I’ve had to overcome a lot of blocks around wearing hearing aids. I’m just in the early days of wearing them. Honestly I’m finding that I’m telling friends when I first see them, because it’s a very “live” new situation for me, my hearing loss, and I want them to know that, and that if I seem to be fiddling on my phone it’s not because I’m ignoring them but rather that I’m adjusting my app so I can hear them better! I expect with time I won’t be telling people from the off..

My first choice was an in-the-ear model because I wanted the most discreet, but it wasn’t a good fit and then I tried a and I COULD HEAR SO MUCH MORE, my priorities shifted and now I want this pricey piece of equipment to serve me the best hearing possible.

What embarrassed me was not being able to hear and having to ask people to repeat things louder and slower. I have short hair, and if anybody’s ever noticed my aids, they didn’t say so. Then again, when I first got mine, I was so happy about them, I told all my friends all about them, so only strangers would have had a chance to say anything before I bored them with all the details.

This is perfectly normal and not at all vain. I’ve nothing really funny to tell you except some puppies trying to lick them, but I hope you are not feeling too self-conscious. I know I did feel this when I was younger. Right now I would balance a brick on my head if it brought better hearing so the optics I couldn’t care less about.

I’m sensitive to the feedback that others have posted that no one will notice your hearing aids and if they do, it is no big deal.

Sadly, I wish that this was true for those of us still working. I also agree with @Gilbert .

See my longer thoughts on this topic below. I chose hearing aids that were black so they look like earbuds and are “hiding in plain sight.”

Starkey Evolve AI vs. Phonak Virto I90-R vs. Starkey Omega AI
Hi @Psych2 - Please see my thoughts above - I shared that I looked for ITE aids that looked like earbuds. This is “hiding in plain sight.” I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve walked through airport security with my Evolve AIs (also ITE) and been challenged to put my earbuds into the scanner - when I shared that they were hearing aids, the agents backed off. So, I continue to select ITE aids that look like earbuds but are not - why? Because others notice RIC aids in professional settin…

Most don’t notice mine. When people do, I hope it helps them to speak to my face, understand that I may not hear their calling me or yelling across a facility. Most of my cow-orkers treated me well when I was diagnosed. For some it started to make sense as to why I was hard to communicate with, but I never felt slighted.

I was amused that it was noticed last Friday when I was out grocery shopping with my darling 1 yr old granddaughter. An older woman came up to me signing, asking the gender, age, and name. I don’t know sign, so she spoke and she was clearly someone who had hearing issues. But we treated each other respectfully in the short conversation. I can’t think of any reason she’d assume I knew sign except for seeing my aids (I’m bald and wear a ball cap that doesn’t hide them in the least. Charcoal colored, but I’d get a bright color if it were offered!). It is really nice having a delightful granddaughter cute as a button, and wonderfully interactive with people, watching her brighten the days of people we come across. Several mentioned that she made them feel good just seeing her.

WH

No, I wear long hair (not because I want to hide hearing aids). Although maybe it would be better if people saw the hearing aids and assumed my hearing is bad rather than assuming I’m retarded. When I had short hair during elementary school, kids commented on my hearing aids, thinking people are that blind is inhaling copious copium.

I’m male, wear with hair resting on my ears. I like to push the receiver deeply into my ear, so it’s virtually invisible.

When I told friends that I wear hearing aids, a common reply was “Wait, but your are not wearing them right now, are you? I don’t see anything.”

I my case the only giveaway is the wire that runs from the into the ear to the receiver. But that’s something only other hearing aid wearers would notice.

One caveat though: The above applies to my ReSound Nexias (Jabra EP20), which are tiny. I also have Phonak Spheres which are comparatively huge. Those require a bit more hair to conceal.

I wear aids with quite thick tubes which, to me, are quite noticeable but it doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, I feel that it is a positive that people can see you are hard of hearing and don’t mind when I ask them to repeat something. I sometimes point to my ears (I have short hair) if I’m having difficulty and almost universally, people understand and are very nice about it.

I wouldn’t worry about wearing visible aids as so many people walk about with ear buds in.

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