Should I clean and disinfect my hearing aids?
The ear is a dark, warm, moist place…the perfect environment for growing fungi, germs, and bacteria. Hearing aids reside in this environment 13 to 16 hours/day.
Guess what? Every time you remove your hearing aid from your ear, it is loaded with fungus, germs, and bacteria. Reinserting your hearing aids without cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting them can irritate the lining of your ear canals causing redness, swelling, itching, pain, terrible odors, and infections.
HOW DO I CLEAN, SANITIZE, AND DISINFECT MY HEARING AIDS?
1. Wipe with a non-alcohol sanitizing wipe (like Audio Wipes). Let it air dry.
**Pro Tip!** Never use alcohol on hearing aids or ear molds. It will ruin and erode the surfaces and special plastic materials used in the manufacturing process. Alcohol will also damage the delicate components of the hearing aid.
2. Keep your hearing aids in a drying system (Dry and Store) or the new (PerfectClean) designed specifically to sanitize and pull out the moisture inside the hearing aids that accumulated from your ear. Drying systems use desiccants and heated moving air to dry the hearing aid inside and out. The built-in ultraviolet light sanitizes and kills germs while removing moisture.
Using a drying kit will:
- Increase the life of your hearing aids
- Prevent costly repairs
- Increase battery life
- Maintain peak performance of your hearing aids
- Relieve itchy ears by killing germs
-Dr. Ronna Fisher, Au.D.
July 27, 2017 @ 9:01 pm
It’s nice to know how to care for hearing aids. I’ve been thinking of getting them for a while now, because my hearing seems to be slowly getting worse. If I do end up getting them, I’ll be sure to clean them with a non-alcoholic cleaner, like you said. I’m not good at cleaning things, but I’ll put a note down to help me remember.