Hearing aid maintenance

As a Quattro wearer, probably whatever works well for you for any HA works well for Quattro’s.

My style of cleaning changed a bit going from domes to custom molds. I really like short, double-ended Q-tips, which are very inexpensive at my grocer, for cleaning. I first vacuum the microphone slots and switch opening areas with a Jodi Vac, then the receiver opening inside the molds, then the vent area, then larger debris all around the body of the mold. A much more inexpensive solution than a Jodi Vac would be wire pick and loop, brush, cleaning cloth. But after vacuuming the molds of larger debris, I moisten one end of a Q-tip with a cleaning solution (“Audiologist’s Choice” by Oaktree, bought on Amazon) and wipe all around the outside of the mold, then I wipe with the dry end of the Q-tip, which leaves the mold very clean and free of any wax debris or oil. A Q-tip moistened with water might do just as well. I haven’t been wiping or brushing the bodies of my HA’s with anything.

I don’t think any of the above is special to any brand of HA’s. Just what I like to do for the HA’s that I wear. I really like the Quattro’s better with custom molds and occlusive venting than I did starting out with open domes (for my decent low-frequency hearing). I think “Select-a-Vent” and the ability to try somewhat different amounts of venting with a mold is something everyone should consider trying to get the most out of their hearing aids (helped me on clarity of speech, directionality, and noise control).

Seeking to avoid the dread warning from this site’s AI about making a new post in an old thread and reawakening users from years past to a disused thread, this recently created thread seemed like a good place to post a recipe for THOROUGHLY cleaning custom silicone molds inside and out - but it is somewhat similar to advice in older threads except for my exact implementation and the tools used.

Recipe for thorough cleaning silicone molds inside and out:

1. Let molds dry overnight in room air or in a dryer.
2. Thoroughly clean all debris off outside of molds by your usual method.
3. Gently remove the molds from your receivers (in my case this is done by gently pulling on the receiver wires and the receivers pop out of the molds relatively easily.
4. Using a blunt-ended probe, push any vent inserts out of your mold onto a surface where the inserts won’t roll or bounce away and get lost. (I use the blunt end of my Jodi-Vac vacuuming needle with the vacuum pump turned off).
5. Put the molds and any inserts into a shot glass with enough a 1% to 2% dilute room temperature solution of Dawn or similar dishwashing detergent to well cover the molds and inserts. Soak for at least 10 to 15 minutes with occasional gentle swirling. (I saw a lot of stuff float away in the water!)
6. Pour the contents of the shot glass into a fine-mesh metal strainer ideally over a sink with a plugged drain. Gently wash the molds and inserts with your sink faucet water or sink hand sprayer if you have one. Rinse out the bores in your molds. If the mold inserts have narrow bore holes and are hard to rinse, one could go back to soaking through several changes of water in the shot glass, pouring into the sieve, rinsing, back to soak in a new change of water in the shot glass, etc., until everything is thoroughly rinsed.
7. Gently blow water out of the mold bores using compressed air, ideally over the sieve and a work area where you’re not to likely to loose anything if you drop what you’re holding. Blot the outside of the molds and inserts with a tissue or cloth. Set aside to thoroughly dry. Reassemble thoroughly dried molds with replaced inserts onto receiver ends.

The above procedure worked very well for me. The silicone molds themselves looked thoroughly cleaned inside and out under a magnifying glass. The inserts for Select-A-Vent are a different plastic material that is discolored from ear wax and oil. The coloration was slightly reduced during my relatively brief soaking period. Perhaps if I’d soaked everything much longer in dish detergent, the insert discoloration would have been reduced even more.

I’m probably only going to do this thorough cleaning once a month when I would normally remove the molds from the receivers to change receiver end wax guards. Besides the time involved, too frequently removing the receivers from the molds might be hard on the receiver wires and the molds with the gentle wire tugging and the silicone stretching involved.