You’re supposed to wear your hearing aids every day. But before you recycle your milk containers, you’re supposed to rinse them out too. We don’t always do what we’re supposed to. So yeah, you forget to take your hearing aids out of their storage container occasionally. You might even forget to wear it for more than a day.

That’s not great. Because when you don’t use your hearing aids several things occur and some things already developing get worse. And, to be honest, the majority of them are kind of negative.

Consequences of Neglecting to Use Your Hearing Aids

There will be consequences of varying levels of intensity and severity, both to your health and social life, if you fail to wear your hearing aid. The effects and consequences of failing to use your hearing aids could include the following.

Your Degree of Hearing Loss Will Worsen

The technology of hearing aids is fairly remarkable. They increase your ability to hear and help keep your auditory complex (the region of the brain that interprets sound) running efficiently.

If you “forget” to wear your hearing aids and, instead, turn your TV up to an even louder volume, you could be doing further damage to your hearing. Even if you’re not boosting the volume, the lack of sensory input results in issues with your brain. (It actually shrinks.) So if you don’t wear your hearing aids, your hearing will likely continue to get worse (so you’ll need even more powerful hearing aids in the near future).

It Will Become More Challenging to Interact Socially

You know when you go to the market and you get into a short discussion with the cashier? They’re pleasant, we think. In a world of technology, these little talks are a touch of humanity.

When you don’t use your hearing aids, these basic social connections can suddenly be much more stressful. You have to ask the cashier to repeat what they said. Again and again. And that’s when the conversation becomes really uncomfortable. Perhaps that sounds superficial, but every bit you withdraw into yourself makes it that much easier for you to entirely separate yourself socially. And the outcome can be even more serious.

Mental Decline And Hearing Aids

When you separate yourself socially, your brain gets a lot less exercise. After you have a pleasant conversation with your family, think about how invigorated (or exhausted) you can feel. Without that exercise, certain mental processes can begin to decline (or decline faster). This could mean:

• Memory issues
• Depression
• Balance issues
• Declines in productivity or energy

But that’s not the entire picture. Because hearing sound is vitally important to certain parts of your nervous system and brain. Without stimulation, certain nerves will begin to weaken, and your auditory complex starts to atrophy. This can lead to an even more accelerated cognitive 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

It’s not uncommon, as you age, to require a little more help. Perhaps you get a family member to go shopping for you or a neighbor to do some yard work. If you aren’t wearing your hearing aid, you could be expediting the loss of independence that often accompanies aging.

You can miss phone calls or fail to hear parts of conversations with your neighbor when you don’t wear your hearing aids. It’s possible that you will miss important alerts. Perhaps you fail to hear your dog barking when there’s somebody at the door or your cat meowing at 6 am when he’s hungry.

What’s The Solution?

No matter how technologically advanced hearing aids get, they won’t solve all of life’s issues. But many of the issues connected to failing to wear your hearing aid can be solved.

You need to come see us for help if you’re having issues with your hearing aids or if they are not comfortable.

It’s worth taking some time to consider what the repercussions will be if you avoid wearing your hearing aids and also what the advantages of using them may 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