Two hearingaids are better than one

When buying hearingaids, it can be tempting to buy one instead of two. It’s cheaper for a start. If you are worried about how you will look with hearingaids, one aid would be easier to hide then two. It might be case of, “I’ll buy one and see how I get on with it“.

If you are suffering from hearing loss in both ears, you need two hearingaids. If you bought glasses, would you consider buying just the one lens?

The brain processes sounds from both ears – if you wear only one hearingaid, the sounds coming into each ear are going to be very uneven, leading to a number of problems:

• Difficulty in locating the source of sounds: The ability to determine where sounds are coming from is called localization. You will reduce you ability to localize sounds by wearing only one hearingaid, most of the sound you will be hearing will be coming through the ear with the aid and your brain will not be able to accurate locate its source.
• Poorer speech recognition: Particularly in noisy situations.
• Increased volume: Your ears should work as a pair. When you wear two hearingaids, you are able to turn their volume down and still hear better than you would with one aid at a higher volume.
• Further hearing loss: Many people believe that by wearing only one hearingaid you could be doing further damage to your non-aided ear. The non-aided ear is not being stimulated as the aided ear is doing all the work – gradually, over time, the non-aided ear will lose it ability to recognise speech simply because it is not being used.