You’re supposed to wear your hearing aids every day. But you’re also supposed to wash out your milk jugs before recycling them. Occasionally, we don’t do the things we’re supposed to. So yeah, you skip taking your hearing aids out of the nightstand drawer occasionally. Perhaps you even go a day, or a week, or maybe a few weeks (a month?) without using your hearing aids.
That’s not good. Because when you don’t use your hearing aids several things happen and some things already happening get worse. And the majority of them, to be honest, aren’t very good.
Consequences of Failing to Wear Your Hearing Aids
There will be repercussions of varying degrees of intensity and severity, both to your health and social life, if you don’t use your hearing aid. The effects and consequences of failing to use your hearing aids could include the following.
Your Hearing Will Continue to Diminish
The technology of hearing aids is rather impressive. They enhance your ability to hear and help keep your auditory complex (the region of the brain that interprets sound) functioning efficiently.
If you “forget” to use your hearing aids and, instead, turn your TV up to an even higher volume, you might be doing additional damage to your hearing. Even if you’re keeping the volumes under control, issues with your brain can result from the lack of sensory input. (It actually shrinks.) So you’ll most likely wind up needing more powerful hearing aids in the future if you fail to wear your current pair because your hearing will keep getting worse.
It Will Become More Challenging to Interact Socially
You know when you go to the store and you get into a short discussion with the cashier? Those conversations are nice. A nice little bit of humanity in a technological world.
These everyday social interactions suddenly become very difficult when you don’t use your hearing aids. You regularly miss parts of the conversation and have to ask people to repeat what they said. Again and again. And after that, the conversation just quickly becomes strained. Perhaps that sounds trivial, but every bit you retreat into yourself makes it that much easier for you to completely separate yourself socially. And the outcome can be even more significant.
Mental Decline And Hearing Aids
Your brain doesn’t get close to as much exercise when you seclude yourself. After you have a nice conversation with your family, think about how revitalized (or exhausted) you can feel. Without that exercise, certain mental processes can start to decline (or decline faster). This could mean:
- Balance troubles
- Memory issues
- Declines in productivity or energy
- Depression
But that’s not all. Because hearing sound is vitally important to certain regions of your brain and nervous system. Your auditory complex starts to atrophy when certain nerves begin to deteriorate from lack of stimulation. This can result in an even more accelerated mental decline (or, even in the best-case scenario, make adjusting to your hearing aids even more challenging).
Your brain remains happy, stimulated, and engaged when you wear hearing aids.
Losing The Ability to be Independent
Needing a bit more help, as you get older, is not abnormal. Perhaps you get a neighbor to mow your lawn or ask your daughter to swing by with groceries more often. You are probably to accelerate your loss of independence if you’re not wearing your hearing aids.
You can miss phone calls or fail to hear parts of conversations with your neighbor when you don’t use your hearing aids. You might miss important weather alerts. Maybe you don’t hear your cat meowing at night for food or your dog barking at somebody knocking on your door.
What’s The Solution?
Using a hearing aid is not going to solve all of life’s issues, no matter how technologically innovative those little devices get. But many of the problems connected to failing to use your hearing aid can be solved.
You need to come see us for assistance if you’re having problems with your hearing aids or if they are uncomfortable.
It’s worth taking a little time to think about what the consequences will be if you avoid using your hearing aids and also what the advantages of using them might be.
Call Today to Set Up an Appointment
References
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/otolaryngology/specialty_areas/hearing/faq.html
https://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20140128/hearing-loss-tied-to-faster-brain-shrinkage-with-age
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/05/ce-corner-isolation