Wax Traps - the weak link of a hearing aid

This one little microscopic component will control whether or not your hearing aids will actually work. Hi guys. Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Phoenix, Arizona. And in this video I'm talking about every hearing aids weakest link, the wax trap. Now, to provide you with some context, modern day hearing aids have become significantly more technologically advanced since the digital revolution that began in 1996. This digital revolution not only made hearing aids significantly smaller and added Bluetooth capabilities to stream audio directly from your smart device into both of your ears, but it also made speech more intelligible through hearing aids and allowed hearing aids to separate speech from background noise better. Now we're even starting to see technological advances spearheaded by the hearing aid industry that's working its way into the consumer electronic market like LE Audio Bluetooth that has Auracast capabilities. But as advanced as hearing aid technology has become, there is one thing that will bring your hearing aids to their knees, and that is ear wax. Ear wax is a combination of dead skin cells, hair and waxy secretions called sarin from the skin inside of your ear canals. Now, some ear wax is actually a good thing. It's antimicrobial. It traps dirt and dust, and it lines the skin of the ear canal to prevent dryness and itching. However, just like anything else, too much of a good thing is a bad thing and earwax is no exception. But before I explain exactly why ear wax is such a huge problem for even the most advanced hearing aids in the world, do me a huge favor and click the like button. It really helps out the channel. And if you are not yet subscribed to the channel with notifications turned on, go ahead and do that as well, because that ensures that you never miss one of my newly released videos and I publish a ton of new videos every single week. That being said, it's greatly appreciated and huge shout out to Phonak for sponsoring today's video, but more on them in a little bit. Ear wax can be a huge problem for hearing aid users for three different reasons. The first reason is it can actually create a wall of wax inside of your ear called an impaction. If this happens, it's like wearing an earplug inside of your ear canals. It will drop your hearing sensitivity by a massive 30 decibels in addition to the hearing loss that you already have. This means that your hearing aids will become virtually worthless because your hearing aids will be programmed to your hearing loss prescription, which will not be taking into account this additional 30 decibel reduction. The second reason that ear wax can be such a huge problem is something known as feedback. You know, the high pitched whistling or squealing sound that occurs anytime that someone who's speaking on stage with a microphone walks too close to a speaker. Well, the exact same thing can happen with hearing aids. In fact, you probably even know someone who has hearing aids and those hearing aids whistle uncontrollably and maybe that person is you. The reason why ear wax causes feedback is because when sound is being put into your ear, it bounces off the ear wax and comes back outside of your ear canal and recycles through the microphone of your hearing aids, causing that whistling sound. And the crazy thing is, is that you don't even have to have a ton of earwax inside of your ear canals for this to occur. But the third and biggest reason why ear wax is such a huge problem for hearing aid users is that it can plug up the receiver tip of your hearing aids, which is where sound typically comes out of your hearing aid into your ear canal, and it renders your hearing aids completely ineffective. This is why hearing aid manufacturers like Phac, today's video sponsor develop these ingenious little inventions called wax traps, also known as wax guards or wax filters to prevent this from occurring. Here's the thing, if you wear hearing aids, your ear wax is going to eventually work its way into the tip of the receiver of your hearing aids and block the sound from entering your ear. What you need to be able to do is have a way to prevent that ear wax from permanently damaging your receiver. Phonak CeruShield and CeruStop wax guards are tiny little filters that prevent your earwax from damaging the receivers on your Phonak Audeo and Phonak Virto hearing aids. Take a look at this side-by-side comparison of a receiver tip that has been completely blocked by earwax versus a clean receiver tip. These wax traps are the weakest link of your hearing aids by design because all you have to do is remove the old wax strap that is plugged with earwax and replace it with a brand new one. The CeruShield wax traps by Phonak were originally developed in 2018 for the Marvel line of hearing aids, and they could trap a lot of wax before the receiver tip got completely plugged. To use the CeruShield, you simply remove your rubber dome to expose the old wax trap and rotate the face plate to reveal an empty trash can along with a new replacement wax trap. Then you remove your old plugged wax trap for step one and replace it with a new wax trap for step two, followed by replacing your rubber dome. Now, even though the zero shield wax traps did a great job of trapping a ton of wax before cutting out the sound of your hearing aids, there were some people who had a lot of difficulty working with this particular style of wax trap, which is why Phone Act developed their new SDS 5 receiver wires that are now compatible with the tried and true CeruStop wax traps that use a stick tool to exchange the wax trap rather than the CeruShield. Now, trust me when I say this has both hearing care professionals and hearing aid users extremely excited to change these wax traps and the SDS 5 receivers. All you need to do is remove a new stick from the butterfly case, use the removal end to take out the clogged wax trap, flip the stick over and replace it with the new wax trap on the other end. For many people, this technique of exchanging an old dirty wax trap for a brand new clean wax trap will be much easier. And this is extremely important as a hearing aid user because if your hearing aids ever stop working, chances are the culprit is a dirty wax trap. Remember, your hearing aids live inside your ear canals virtually all day, every day, subjecting them to ear wax. And even if you don't produce a lot of ear wax, it will eventually work its way into the wax trap of your devices. And here's the thing, even if everything else is working perfectly fine with your hearing aids, meaning when you take 'em out of the charger, they're powering on or even able to connect them wirelessly up to your smartphone and it says that they're connected, it won't matter because if sound can't make it out of the hearing aids into your ears, it will make even the most premium hearing aids in the world completely useless. All that being said, your ability to change your own wax traps is critically important for long-term success with whichever hearing aids you use. This is why finding a hearing aid that uses a wax trap system that you are actually able to use effectively can be the difference between you having success with hearing aids and not having success with hearing aids. And remember, any hearing aid is only as good as its weakest link, and fortunately for you, that weakest link is usually the wax trap.