Overview
Are you an avid concert goer? Go hunting? Ride a motorcycle? Maybe you spend every game day with the Seahawks? Custom hearing protection can help reduce your exposure to harmful levels of noise that could affect your hearing.
What to Expect
At Seattle Hearing and Balance, we offer a wide range of hearing protection to suit your particular needs. We can also provide you with the custom ear impressions to order it yourself.
An appointment for custom hearing protection includes ear impressions, two custom ear plugs, two filters, and any necessary remakes/follow-ups. For cost information, please contact our office.
The custom hearing protection process starts with a conversation with our audiologists about the environments you will use your hearing protection in.
At our appointment, you will decide with your audiologist what type or manufacturer of hearing protection you will need.
Then, a custom cast of your ear is taken in the office and your order will be sent in.
Once your order comes back, you will have another appointment to determine if they are a good fit and also to measure the amount of noise they reduce.
Ear Impressions
Custom hearing protection requires making a mold of your ear! Here’s what the process looks like:
Your audiologist will look in your ear to determine if it’s free of any wax and to determine the shape of your canal.
After you are all clear, the audiologist will place a piece of cotton in the ear to help the material stay in the right spot in the canal and not get close to your eardrum.
The audiologist mixes the two materials together. After being mixed together, the material is ready to go in your ear! The material is usually cold and will completely block out any sound while it sits in your ear.
After three to five minutes, the impression is ready to come out. Your audiologists will carefully remove the impression and determine if it’s valid to send to the manufacturer.
Finally, one last look in your ear to ensure that nothing has been left behind!