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Gold Plating Acrylic

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I am a 76 year old recent forum member, attempting to get fitted with hearing aids. I tried Resound Dot2’s, and the worked great for me but I reacted to the silicone end pieces with burning sensation in my ear canals after 3 days of use. I saw an and he could see nothing wrong, and suggested baby oil or Hydrocortisone cream. They resolve the burning sensation, but not the allergic reaction. I tried custom ear molds from Costco made of Hyperallergic Silicone, and reacted to them as well after 3 days. My latest venture was custom Acrylic ear molds from Costco, but reacted to them after a weeks use.

From my readings of articles on the web dealing with allergic reactions it appears that there are only two options left available. One is Gold Plating the acrilic molds, and the other is a bone mount hearing aid. I would like to avoid the later if at all possible. I am attempting to locate a place to have my Acrylic Molds gold plated. Metal plating I am familiar with, but on Acrylic? It is being done out there, but I have been unable to locate someone who does the Acrylic Gold Plating. I have located a place in Portland Oregon that can copper plate them, but don’t know if I dare try the copper because of the way it oxidizes. They also do Stainless Steep plating, and that might be an option. Does anyone out there have any suggestions on this issue? All help and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

The only thought that springs to mind is if you get a plating added to your mould they will become a much tighter fit. It’s a very, very thin coating, but if your ears are already very sensitive then making the mould that small amount larger all around could cause all sorts of issues of it pressing into you. It’s hard to know without actually doing it how bad the effect would actually be.

Have you seen a dermatologist to see if there are any other reasons this could be happening other than a straight allergy? For example maybe you aren’t allergic to the materials but are reacting to the fact it traps sweat and earwax under the mould and that irritates you, or that you are getting a fungal skin infection because the area is kept moist by the hearing aids and the ear not being able to breathe. Did you clean your earmoulds with anything? If not then it could be a buildup of things like bacteria/fungus on the moulds contributing to the problem, and if you have been cleaning them perhaps you are allergic to what you are cleaning them with? It’s the fact you took slightly longer to react to the acrylic which makes me wonder if it’s more that the presence of something in your ear is causing a problem unrelated to the earmould materials.

I’ve been reading up about the bone-anchored hearing aids for different reasons and something I didn’t know before is that you have to be a minimum amount ‘deaf’ in order to make sure you don’t get echoes. I would actually have to wear an ear plug to compensate because I have frequencies which are pretty good, and I’d hear through my ear also, and slightly out of synch with my . If you aren’t deaf enough for the Baha then you wouldn’t overcome your problem as you’d still have to put something in your ear. Bahas also have a very low fitting range becuase they are designed to overcome conductive problems where the nerve and cochlear are still good, so you need a pretty high power model for even moderate hearing losses.

There are limited numbers of people who have been successful in getting a middle ear implant device funded because of earmould reactions, so although it’s surgical again at least it’s another option.

Good luck, anyway, pretty frustrating to fix your hearing up and end up with a new set of problems.

Thanks for the response. I think that a Dermatologist is next on my list. My Dr. keeps saying it is an issue, but the ENT says no. So will try to get by my regular Dr with a referral to a Dermatologist. Thanks.

Hi Starkey will make gold plated moulds. Contact a dispenser and ask them to take new impressions and make the order to Starkey. They are very ugly to look at but have fixed reaction problems for a couple of my patients in the past

Thanks. that is mthe information I need. Don’t care about ugly, just care about ear pieces that ont cause a burning sensation in my ear canals.

were you ever able to resolve the issue and get the molds coated? I’m new to molds but my audi says I should try them but I’m wondering about this allergic reaction issue you were having. Sure don’t need to trade bad hearing for issue with molds. Maybe I should just keep dealing with the domes issue. Thank you.

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