Hearing Aids and Sweat: The Problem Nobody Warns You About

Every pair of hearing aids I’ve ever owned came with a dehumidifier, and that should tell you something about how fragile these devices really are.

Hearing aids and moisture do not get along. The early ones were so sensitive that even sweat could damage the electronics, which is strange when you think about it, because the whole point of the device is to be worn on a body all day, and bodies sweat. For decades the technology just didn’t account for that.

I took my hearing aids out for every gym class as a kid, and I still take them out for anything physical today, whether that’s running, working out, or yard work. It’s not only about protecting the electronics. When you wear a fully closed ear mold and you start sweating, warm moisture gets trapped against the skin inside the ear canal, and the feeling is genuinely unpleasant in a way that’s hard to describe to anyone who hasn’t lived it.

So every night the aids go into a dehumidifier to dry out, and that has been part of my routine since first grade. It’s a small thing on its own, but it’s one more daily step in managing something most people never think about.

Here’s a detail that still makes me laugh. I used the same silica crystal dehumidifier, a big puck-shaped disk filled with crystals, from first grade through sixth grade. Those crystals had been spent for years. I was putting my hearing aids into what was basically a paperweight every night and calling it maintenance.

The devices are better now, but moisture is still the constant problem nobody warns you about.

#LLHearingMyStory #HearingLoss