Here at ‘Iwearhearingaids.org', we have a couple of overarching themes which we consider to be ‘The Realities of life with hearing aids.' Those realities are 1) You need to wear your hearing aids, 2) Your physical location will help you hear better, 3) Water is not your friend and 4) It is not enough to just wear your hearing aids. We have chosen these four realities because most situations experienced by hearing aid users fall generally into one or two of these categories.
Let’s say you put your hearing aids on today, and you’re walking down the street when the battery dies! Do you have a battery? No? Then you might as well not be wearing your hearing aid!
I recently found myself in this situation, without a battery, despite my extensive efforts to prevent such a situation. I had gone to my in-law's house with my wife. We usually keep batteries in our cars and in my wife’s purse, which covers us a majority of the time. From my in-laws, we went to dinner and would you believe it? My battery died! Well, guess what? My in-laws drove and my wife didn’t have her purse! I may as well have not been wearing my hearing aid.
The most common time I find myself with a dead hearing aid and without a spare hearing aid battery is when I got outside for a run. I use a Bluetooth connection to listen to music and podcasts while I work out, which tends to drain the hearing aid battery faster than normal. I try to keep a spare battery in my athletic band which holds my phone and hearing aid remote while I run so I can continue to listen with both ears. Many times though, I find myself listening with only 1 ear because a battery died.
Hearing Aid Battery Laws (HABL)
There are a couple of laws regarding hearing aid batteries which I’ve encountered in my 30 years of wearing hearing aids I want you to know about, and then I’ll discuss how to live with those laws.
Hearing Aid Battery Law #1: No matter how prepared you think you are, your battery will die when you don’t have a spare battery available.
Hearing Aid Battery Law #2: You can never have too many hearing aid batteries.
Hearing Aid Battery Law #3: These batteries are expensive!
I realize that these laws may seem contradictory, but I think you’ll come to find that if you remember these laws, and you work to appease the laws, then you can limit their impact on your daily life and keep your hearing aids working properly and thus putting them to work to do what they were intended to do! Which, of course, is to help you hear.
HABL1 is by far the most aggravating part of wearing hearing aids. Chances are you took the effort to put your hearing aids in and you’re probably out and about hearing things and now and then you can’t because the battery died! HABL2 is the best way to get around finding yourself without hearing aid batteries. Short of never leaving a retail pharmacy, I have not found a way to perfectly prevent myself from being without a spare battery. HABL3 prevents you from buying a thousand batteries and keeping them in every nook and cranny you can possibly imagine. Even if I were in the top 1%, I wouldn’t spend the money needed to place a battery in every imaginable place to prevent being without one.
Strategies I’ve used to prevent being without a battery
Ladies, your purse is probably the single greatest invention in history when it comes to carrying spare hearing aid batteries. Guys, I imagine your egos are like mine and you’re not in a hurry to carry a purse.
When I was in college, I found myself carrying a pack of batteries in my pocket everywhere I went. This was by far the best strategy I have employed to prevent myself from being stranded without one. I just kept the pack with my wallet and phone, and anytime I put them in a pocket, so too went the batteries. Now I don’t do this any longer and I’ll tell you why. The packages that are small enough to fit in a pocket discreetly are made with cardboard, which over the course of 2 months disintegrate. I use the term discreetly with a bit of sarcasm because that package is anything but discreet! I found that they’re not comfortable in a pocket alongside your wallet, phone, and keys. Also, I found that when I kept a pack in my pocket, I wouldn’t keep them anywhere else, so there were times when I forgot to put the pack in my pocket and therefore ended up with a dead hearing aid!
I also tried keeping individual batteries in my pocket, but I found that they were too small and sometimes I’d forget to take them out of my pocket when they went into the laundry. Then the battery found its way into the wash and dry cycle. It turns out these batteries are not intended to get wet, then dried at elevated temperature! Sadly, the battery was ruined and ended up being an expensive mistake. See Hearing Aid enemy #2.
The strategy I employ now is one that works well, and I recommend it to everyone. First and foremost, I keep an aluminum keychain emergency pill container which holds around 6 batteries on my keys. I take my keys with me to most places, and chances are my keys are in my pocket no matter where I am. This pill container is waterproof and low profile, so it doesn’t add considerably to my keychain profile and is worth the extra space it takes up. I know there are many options out there, so I suggest starting here (note, I am not a spokesperson for this product). The second part of my strategy is that I put a pack of hearing aids everywhere I spend more than 1 hour of time. In my house, car, desk at work, briefcase/backpack, suitcase, gym bag and my wife’s purse. In this scenario, it means I own a minimum of 7 packs at any given time which allows me to maximize HABL2 and minimize HABL3. I also recommend that you consider putting a pack into your backpack/camelback if you’re a hiker/biker/runner and a single battery into your athletic band which you put your phone/mp3 player into when you work out.
Chances are, if you employ this strategy, you’ll draw the majority of your batteries from the keychain case and replenish it using up the packs in your house and at work before you run out of the packs in the other places. Thus, you’ll only have to buy 1 or 2 packs at a time helping you minimize HABL3 even more.
Other Considerations
I have found that Energizer and Duracell make the best hearing aid batteries. I’m not saying that the other brands won’t get the job done, and I’ve bought these brands more than a couple of times! I’ve also found that the cheapest way to buy hearing aids is through Amazon (keep in mind, you get what you pay for). They have some selections that provide 5 times as many batteries as a pack or two will provide at a local pharmacy or big box store.
Batteries, just like your hearing aids, hate water, so keep them dry! If you don’t use a hearing aid dryer when you’re not wearing your hearing aids, open your battery compartment all the way, especially if you live in a humid place. This will help your hearing aid and your battery stay dry and help lengthen their functional lives.
Conclusion
If you wear hearing aids, are having trouble with your batteries dying and find yourself with a dud, give a couple of these strategies a shot. If you have worn hearing aids and have a strategy which I didn’t cover above, I’d love to hear it! Please post in the comments below.
Until next time, please keep in mind that if you need hearing aids and don't wear them, you should! If you know someone who needs them and doesn't, do them a favor and talk to them. If you need to, send them to this site. It's ok to wear hearing aids, there are lots of us who do!
