Hearing Gear Guides

What an over the counter hearing aid is and who the rule covers, what a hearing aid fitting costs, how to read your own audiogram, when a symptom belongs to a clinician rather than a shopping list, how to care for a device, and how to talk with someone who has hearing loss.

12 pages in this section.

Getting started

• Choosing Your First Hearing Aid A first-timer's framework for picking between OTC and prescription, style, and price tier, without any promise about how much a device will help.
• What Is an OTC Hearing Aid A plain definition of an OTC hearing aid under the FDA's 2022 rule: who it is for and how it differs from a prescription device or a personal amplifier.

Living with hearing loss

• Communicating with Hearing Loss Practical face-to-face and phone strategies for communicating with someone who has hearing loss, built around behaviour rather than a device to buy.
• Hearing Aid Not Working: Troubleshooting The real checklist before assuming a hearing aid has failed: a blocked wax guard first, then the battery, then the dome, in the order most likely to fix it.
• Hearing Aids for Elderly Parents A practical buying guide for an adult child: whether to start with an OTC device, what matters for an older user, and when to call an audiologist first.
• Hearing Loss Explained The three types of hearing loss explained plainly: conductive, sensorineural and mixed, what presbycusis means, and why only an evaluation can tell them apart.
• Signs of Hearing Loss in Older Adults The patterns families commonly notice before a hearing loss is confirmed, and why none of them, alone or together, are a diagnosis a website can make.
• Tinnitus: What It Is and Who to See Tinnitus explained as a symptom rather than a disease, how common patterns differ, and which patterns are evaluated promptly rather than at a routine visit.

Costs

• Hearing Aid Fitting Cost Explained What "fitting" means, why quoted prices vary so widely by provider and region, and the bundled-versus-unbundled question worth asking before paying for one.

Care and maintenance

• How to Clean and Care for Hearing Aids The daily and weekly routine that prevents most hearing aid faults: drying, wax guard changes and battery handling, with the mistakes to avoid.

Understanding your hearing

• How to Read Your Audiogram What the axes, symbols and speech banana on an audiogram show, and why the same threshold can be called "normal" or "mild" depending on which scale is used.

When to get help

• When to See an Audiologist The specific symptoms that belong to a clinician rather than to a shopping decision, including why sudden hearing loss is treated as urgent.

Not medical advice, not a hearing test, not a diagnosis. Everything in this section is general information compiled from published standards, regulatory classifications, manufacturer specifications and the consensus of verified owner reviews. The charts explain what a measurement shows. They cannot tell you what your hearing is, and nothing on this site can measure it. Only a licensed audiologist or physician can evaluate hearing. If hearing changed suddenly, affects one ear only, or comes with pain, drainage, dizziness or ringing alongside weakness or numbness, contact a doctor promptly rather than reading a chart.