281219 Cleaning the vent in your hearing aids
If you are wearing hearing aids and start sounding, to yourself, as though you are talking in a tin can or your voice sounds to you like you are covering your ears, it is time to clean the vents out.
This easy process, accomplished quickly with a simple homemade cleaning tool, a common Q-Tip. Use the ones that have the cardboard and not the wooden center sections. They need to flex as they go through the vent hole on the aid.
The gear needed to clean the vents.
Hearing aid vent hole and wax protector kit that came with the hearing aids
Q-tips
Nail clippers
Note: Scissors are harder to use than nail clippers but will work if you are persistent.
Sharp knife
Hearing aid vent hole and wax protector kit that came with the hearing aids.
Hearing aid vent hole and wax protector kit with directions on the container.
Costco ReSound GN aids.
Locate the vent holes in each aid
Notice the arrows pointing to the hole on the right side of each hearing aid. These are the vent holes. Once plugged up with earwax and other debris, they are closed off. When these close off and you talk, the voice in your head sounds like you are in a tin can talking. This is your time to clean them out and here’s how to do it.
Remove them from your ears. This should be more than obvious but you just never know the level of stupidity of people.
Gather up your tools and get to it by cutting one end off the Q-tip.
Use the nail clippers for this, as it is the quickest method of cutting the tip off.
Next, take a sharp knife and strip some of the wrapped bare end off the Q-tip. This stuff peels off in the same manner as rolled paper towels do. Start this by making a nice shallow slice length ways on the Q-tip.
Once again, a warning for safely using the knife. Don’t cut toward yourself. Be safe not stupid.
The last picture shows the Q-tip running through the hearing aid vent.
Special warning
The Q-tip should be a tight fit but not so tight that it breaks off inside the hearing aid. If this happens, then you have to figure a way to get it out without damaging the aid.
This has never happened to me but I have given it some thought and have decided that I will use a weed eater string. This is a thick string of plastic that I think would go through the hole and push out the stuck Q tip…But I don’t know, so be careful trying this out.
ActivelyFitSeniors 