folks with hearing aids: do you wear them to bed?

The past couple of days I had a couple of experiences that made me realize I probably need hearing aids. I have known that I have some hearing loss for quite a while but thought I would hear anything at night and wake up, I do hear things like tree branches scraping on the windows or rats trying to gnaw into the crawlspace vents and wake up immediately... but now I think that's because those happen right outside my bedroom.

Here are the two experiences: One, I was in the bathroom with the door closed, but no extra sounds like running water or fan... thought I heard a soft scratching outside but figured it was a squirrel... bla bla it was the mailman, who said he had both banged on the security door and rung the bell. I hear those sounds fine from my bedroom with the door ajar, but the bathroom is further from the front door and I had the door all the way shut. Two, today I was driving and saw a fire engine coming from the opposite direction, a long block away (what is that, 300-500 ft?), with lights flashing, about the time I completed my thought of "why are the lights flashing but there is no siren?" it had gotten closer and I heard the siren.

So I'm wondering, if there are any folks here who use hearing aids, do you wear them to bed? If not, what's your plan in the event of an intruder?

Yes, I am making an appointment.

This being ST&T, I am asking whether others here who wear hearing aids wear them to bed at night, or if not, how they would detect an intrusion.

Thanks everybody.

I have security doors and very good window latches, and the windows are never opened. Two sides of the house are lighted dawn to dusk, the other two sides have motion detector lights. Someone would have to ignore the possibility of being seen and break a window to get in, but after my recent experiences I'm no longer certain whether I would hear the breaking glass if it was a window at the opposite end of the house and I were asleep at the time. I had an idea for a low-tech alarm system of strings of jingle bells on every window, but I guess that's now also out.

Have thought about a dog from time to time, one big problem with that is that for some reason fleas totally love me and I'm very sensitive to the venom. If anybody has a foolproof method to keep a dog and the house free of fleas, I'm all ears.

In my mind there are three types of people who break into houses:
1. professionals - they are not going to target my modest house when there are huge expensive homes only a block away.
2. what I call "rational" criminals, who just want a quick way to get money for drugs or whatever - these are lazy and would probably decide to look for an easier house rather than chance being seen breaking a window.
3. crazies - there are quite a few of these around here and they are totally unpredictable, this is the group that I worry about.

TomJ said:

If hearing broken glass is a concern, there are alarm systems with glass break or motion detectors. I installed a Simplisafe system a while ago and has been happy with it. Both of these features are available through them.

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That looks quite attractive, thanks a lot for the tip.

Do you have the glass-break sensors in your house?

medic15al said:

Hello! I was born profoundly deaf (on the edge of legal deafness)and have worn hearing aids since the age of 3. ( I am 46 now) Trying to wear to bed will also result in constant feedback manifesting itself as a sharp whistling. Plus it can cause some damage. I have to wear the more powerful behind the ear models so that is more susceptible to that.

As for alarms, you can obtain alarm clock, phone, and door bell rings via a visible flashing light, in addition to a bed shaker mode for alarm clocks.

With my hearing aids I can hear relatively normal, serving 15 years as a paramedic and 8 as police. I pretty much guarantee sirens didn't help either....

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Thanks for sharing.

I can thankfully hear OK close up. If G-d forbid somebody broke a window in my bedroom while I were asleep there, I would hear it and wake up. But I'm no longer confident I would hear a breaking window at the opposite end of the house.

Being that I recently changed to a wireless doorbell (the wired one stopped working and handyman was unable to fix it), moving the part that makes noise (the "receiver") was just a matter of picking it up from where it was and moving it elsewhere. So it's now centrally located in the house. But from the room where I normally sit it now sounds like some kind of chime from my cellphone, as opposed to the doorbell it used to sound like when it was in the same room as me.

Last year it happened to me twice that I didn't hear someone who came up behind me outdoors -- once on the street where it turned out to be a friend out walking at the same time as me, the other time in a parking lot where the person wanted to know if he could take my empty shopping cart given that there weren't any in front of the store. I wrote both experiences off as having been preoccupied and not doing a good enough job of situational awareness but now in retrospect I realize I probably actually didn't hear them. Very grateful both situations were harmless.

medic15al said:

Hello! I was born profoundly deaf (on the edge of legal deafness)and have worn hearing aids since the age of 3. ( I am 46 now) Trying to wear to bed will also result in constant feedback manifesting itself as a sharp whistling. Plus it can cause some damage. I have to wear the more powerful behind the ear models so that is more susceptible to that.

As for alarms, you can obtain alarm clock, phone, and door bell rings via a visible flashing light, in addition to a bed shaker mode for alarm clocks.

With my hearing aids I can hear relatively normal, serving 15 years as a paramedic and 8 as police. I pretty much guarantee sirens didn't help either....

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So since you are a LEO I assume you go shooting at a range in order to train and practice. Do you wear your hearing aids when you are there? With regular ear pro as well? Or how do you handle it?

medic15al said:

In cooler weather shooting pistols I leave them on under electronic muffs. Makes it very convenient while talking.

With rifles or hot weather where sweating can damage them over time I just remove them and use plugs and muffs turned off.

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Why do you turn the muffs off when you don't have the hearing aids on? I can at least hear that somebody's talking to me with the muffs turned on, although last time I couldn't understand what they were saying.

medic15al said:

I am on or past the line of legally deaf in volume. With my hearing aids out I can only hear the loudest sounds faintly. I do have bass hearing but high pitch loss, or rather never had it. Thunder if close, banging on wall next to me, ETC......

I turn the muffs off to save the batteries, and even if on I could not hear any conversation. Think a faint underwater sound is close to what I hear without them.

Due to this deafness I can and have sleep thru a tornado, thunderboomer storms, and loud outdoor activities.

Without my hearing aids in to block the direct sound pressure waves I am very sensitive to loud noise such as gunshots. I can be around outdoor shooting of 9mm pistols without muffs but with the hearing aids on and can tolerate it, it does get hurtful after a bit.

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Oh, so the answer really depends on the degree of hearing loss. OK, I get it now.

Thanks very much for your time and energy answering my questions.