Can You Repair Your Own Hearing Aid?

Just like your phone, car, computer or television, your hearing aid is a piece of technology that can occasionally be damaged or broken. We sometimes forget that hearing aids, while robust enough to weather the day to day lives, we live, are quite delicate in nature. 

When damage occurs with your hearing aid, there are a number of options you could consider. Ultimately, you want your hearing aid to work without interruptions, so that you don’t have your routine disrupted by your hearing loss. 

Common hearing aid damage

First of all, there are different types of damage that can happen to your hearing aid, and each of these requires a different type of repair to fix it. In this section we’ll take you through the most common instances of hearing aid problems:

• External body damage: Your hearing aid is likely made largely of hard plastic, that encases the intricate wiring inside the hearing aid. If this external body is cracked, split or dented, it could be the reason behind your hearing aid’s current malfunctions.
• Moisture getting into the mechanisms of your hearing aid: Your ear will emit moisture, in earwax and other vapors, that can potentially damage your hearing aid if it is not cleaned regularly. Make sure to wipe your hearing aid clean frequently to avoid such damage from happening!
• Everyday wear and tear: Your hearing aid is relied upon each and every day to help you with your experiences of hearing loss. It’s no surprise, then, that just like any technology, the everyday wear and tear of life can damage it over time. 

Can you repair your own hearing aid?

Now to the question you’ve been waiting for: can you repair your own hearing aid?

For common wear and tear, such as cleaning earwax off the exterior or replacing the batteries, you can attempt to repair your own hearing aid. There shouldn’t be much harm in doing these exterior repairs yourself, without an audiologist.

However, repairs such as the following need the care and attention of an audiologist.

• Internal wiring of the hearing aid: Your audiologist is equipped to repair such tiny mechanisms with specialist equipment and expert knowledge. If you attempt to repair these yourself, you could end up worsening the situation by accident – so always take your hearing aid to your audiologist for internal repairs. 
• Repairing the exterior body of the hearing aid: If your hearing aid’s exterior is cracked or otherwise damaged, it may need to be replaced or repaired by an audiologist.
• If the cause of the problem is unknown: If you truly don’t know what’s going on with your hearing aid, fiddling with it could unintentionally worsen the damage, so call your audiologist instead!

Overall, conducting repairs on your own hearing aid can be done with caution – but for more complex repairs, it is always best to seek the help of your audiologist.