The decision of when to wear hearing aids or when it is not really necessary can be complicated in some cases and more important than it seems. The last word always has to be the specialist doctor, so, before driving to the nearest hearing aid store that you can find, please be sure to do an appointment with a doctor.
Hearing aids are devices that help those with hearing impairments to better perceive the sounds in the environment. But with hearing aids, they can not only perceive these sounds but also allow them to understand them, which greatly facilitates the communicative situation for the receiver. However, wearing hearing aids is not recommended for everyone, not even for someone who may be hearing impaired.
People who must wear hearing aids are those who suffer from a medium or severe hearing deficiency and always after the pertinent approval of an ear doctor. It’s true that hearing aids help you understand most sounds in the environment, but deciding to wear one is not a decision to be made lightly. Wearing hearing aids without actually needing to do so can only be detrimental to the person’s hearing for several reasons; for example, because it accustoms the ear to expendable and unnecessary comfort or because it subjects it to a higher decibel level than normal and its consequences can be detrimental to hearing health.
If you do not hear well in certain situations (for example, you only fail to hear sounds at very low volumes), but you are able to lead a completely normal life in terms of hearing, you should not wear this device. Why? Because you really don’t need it and, if you force your ear to live with a hearing aid on a daily basis, you’re just going to get used to it being a lazy ear. At the same time, since you would be dealing with sounds at a much higher decibel level, the already higher decibels will translate into something much more powerful that could damage the inside of the ear canal or even the eardrum. It is as if you hear television or music well at a certain volume, but you decide to always turn it up to the maximum; in this type of situation what you get is pushing the ear to the limit and you risk damaging your hearing. Therefore, and with time, this small initial problem with which you could have lived perfectly, would have worsened.
As a general rule, if you are young and can live a normal life (despite not understanding 100% of sounds, something that is not usual and requires perfect hearing), try not to wear hearing aids. On the other hand, if you are an elderly person and it is very difficult for you to follow a conversation, watch television or carry out daily activities, perhaps the most appropriate thing to do is to go to a specialist doctor so that he can recommend some hearing aids that you can use.
If it is really necessary for you to wear hearing aids, there can be two real options, which will be determined by the medical specialist himself and always after the relevant hearing tests. Perhaps you need two hearing aids, one for each ear, because the hearing capacity has decreased in each one of them; or you simply need one, because the deficiency of one is higher than the other. Keep in mind that it is normal if you can hear well (or better) with one ear than with the other, it is somewhat similar to sight, since you do not have to have the same prescription in the left eye as in the right.
Some hearing specialists, if they have doubts when deciding whether or not the patient should wear hearing aids, or if their case of hearing impairment is mild, what they recommend is to put on the hearing aids for interrupted periods of time and only in situations concrete. That is, do not wear them throughout the day, but only when necessary. In this way, the interested person can get out of any day-to-day situation when they do not understand well what is being said, but neither will they force their hearing nor will they get used to depending on their own hearing aids, but will force them to make an additional effort.
In summary, the medical specialist will always be the one who has the last word and who determines in which situations you should or should not wear hearing aids and even who decides if you need a hearing aid for each ear or if one is enough for the left or the right.
