Dry & Store & Fiona Apple

Brandt found out on Thursday that his iCom was back from its repairs (I think this is the 5th or 6th repair, but I've honestly lost count), so he had to rush back to the audiology clinic yesterday.  And after waiting over 2 months for the Dry & Store hearing aid dryer, it has finally come in as well (it’s cheaper and readily available on Amazon.com, but his health insurance will only help pay for it if it’s purchased through a doctor’s office).  It was supposed to come in a few weeks ago, but there was some “electrical glitch” in the batch sent out by the company, and they all had to be returned.

He tried out his iPhone and FM system with the new iCom (which was completely rebuilt, again—this time with a stronger neck-loop and updated software) and they worked fine, but music was a different story.  Now, Brandt doesn’t actually like music, but it’s a great way to test his hearing technology because it uses Stereo sound, whereas the other devices use Mono.  His iPhone randomly selected “Across the Universe” from the Pleasantville soundtrack, and his description of what the song sounded like was:

“Finona Apple singing underwater, holding a record player, driving down my parents’ gravel road.”  

I responded, “Wow, that is really specific.”  “It skips,” he explained, “and the sound quality is all messed up.”  The audiologist couldn’t fix it, and Phonak told her that ‘iPhones are the one type of cell phone that don’t handle Stereo sound correctly’ (or something to that effect).  There’s ALWAYS a catch with this technology! 

The reason Brandt got the Dry & Store is because both of his hearing aids have had to be sent back to Phonak and completely replaced in the last few months—and he just got them last July.  His audiologist guessed that maybe they were getting too much moisture in them, and it was shorting out the electrical circuits.  She gave Brandt a ‘passive’ hearing aid dryer last fall, which is simply a little plastic container with a desiccant (drying substance) inside it.  He stored his hearing aids in the container at night, and the desiccant was supposed to dry out the moisture inside the hearing aids.  Then when the white desiccant turned blue, it meant that it was full of moisture and he popped it in the microwave for a few seconds to ‘recharge’ it.  It was easy—and better yet, FREE—but unfortunately it didn’t do enough good.

Brandt’s audiologist follows the “no-pressure salesman” model, which we generally appreciate.  She made sure from the start that Brandt didn’t feel pressured into buying a particular (more expensive) model of hearing aid or other hearing assistive devices, and stressed that she doesn’t make a profit off anything he orders through the clinic.  When our state Vocational Rehabilitation Office offered to pay for Brandt’s FM system, iCom, and the mid-grade model of BTE hearing aids, he wanted to upgrade to the high-end model of hearing aids and pay the difference of $2,000.  His audiologist was very against this and tried to talk him out of it, saying repeatedly that none of her patients had ever been able to tell a difference between the two and that he would just be wasting his money.  He was insistent on the upgrade, and finally she compromised by letting him wear the mid-grade model for a month and then let him try the high-end model for two weeks afterwards.  He ended up preferring the high-end model by leaps and bounds and paid the extra $2,000 to keep them, much to the audiologist’s surprise.

But even with this background knowledge that she didn’t like to ‘pressure’ patients into paying for extra things, we still find it strange that she didn’t recommend Brandt get the Dry & Store much earlier (and even when she recommended it, she still phrased it as more of a suggestion, and apologized profusely that he would have to pay $150 for the machine).  When Brandt opened the box and read all the features, he said, “I should have gotten this when I first got the hearing aids!”  It’s a powerful dryer that pulls the moisture out of the hearing aids, and uses a ‘desiccant brick’ to trap the moisture; they last about 2 months each.  It also has a “UV germicidal lamp” that sanitizes the hearing aids.  The other claims on the box are:

• Removes destructive moisture.
• Hearing aids sound better, last longer.
• Dries ear wax that can interfere with hearing aid function.
• Reduces or eliminates itching and irritated ears.
• Hearing aids operate more efficiently so batteries can last longer.

I’m relieved that the Dry & Store arrived when it did, because the humidity around here is so intense, I was getting worried that Brandt’s hearing aids would short out again from all the moisture.  We can’t say with real certainty that it’s working, but when he took the hearing aids out this morning, all the moisture in the tubes was gone.  So that’s a good sign, at least!