Trouble with hearing aids

For the last few weeks we've been having a lot of trouble with Queen Teen's hearing aids. Her new ear molds were tight and very hard to insert into her ears. I thought it was because they were new, but when Queen Teen complained of pain, and those complaints didn't go away after a couple of days (she always whines about how her hearing aids "bug" her) I noticed her left ear was looking irritated. Is this an allergic reaction? She continued to use her hearing aids with frequent breaks, but her left ear became even more raw. Plus, I noticed a lot of feedback.

I contacted the audiologist who said the molds might be too big. How can ear molds be made too big if their cast from an exact mold of the inside of her ears? I pulled off her new ear molds and replaced them with her old, too small ear molds, which solved the pain problem, but not the feedback. The audiologist told me to check her ears for wax, which I did, but her ears looked clear. So I checked her ear molds (the old ones) and found a little wax in the tube. The problem was it was deep inside the tube, too far for the cleaning tool to reach.

Here's a trick I discovered. After digging around in my sewing basket for something longer, but not pointed, I found my threader, which is long enough, but thin and flexible so it won't puncture the tubing. With careful swipes, I was able to dislodge and pull out the ear wax.

Unfortunately that didn't fix the feedback problem, so between improperly fitting ear molds and high pitched whining feedback, we have to go back to Stanford.

Did I mention Stanford it three hours away? And that it eats up an entire day and a half of our extremely busy lives?

Oh well. What can you do? Queen Teen is back to hating her hearing aids and is depressed she has to use them. They are uncomfortable and not working properly. Even with them on, she is having trouble hearing me, which makes me wish we both knew more sign language.

I'd better make that appointment.