Hearing Aid Batteries

Hearing aid batteries are one of the most important items in keeping your hearing instruments working well. They come in different sizes: 5, 10, 312, 13 and 675. When you are fitted with your hearing aid, you are also instructed how to replace the battery.

Today, hearing aid batteries are of the zinc air type. They come packaged with a little tab on the flat side of the battery. That tab preserves the battery until ready for use in your hearing aid. Once the tab is removed, the very small opening is exposed to the air, and is ready for use. The tabs are different colors depending on the size of the battery, for example the size 10 is yellow and the size 13 is orange.

Once the tab is removed from the hearing aid battery, the battery will drain, even if you decide not to use it in your hearing aid and put the tab back on the battery. This is because the tab can not be replaced like it was at the factory. Once you remove a tab, use the battery.

Sometimes it is easy to mix up used batteries with new batteries. When changing batteries, take out the old one and dispose of it first. Then take the tab off the new battery and place it in the aid.

Sometimes a dead battery will, the next day, "come back to life". And it is tempting to want to use it again. My advise is don't. It will only last a few minutes, hardly worth the time and trouble to put it in again and then finally remove it again, and replace it with a new one.

Once you have been wearing your hearing aid for two to three weeks, it becomes easy to anticipate when you will need to replace the batteries. Many hearing aid wearers mark their calendar using the sticky tab that came off the battery. Others just get into a routine to change the batteries every Monday morning or every Saturday morning, for example.

When you take the hearing aid off at night, open the battery door so that the battery is not touching the contacts inside the hearing instrument. You do not have to take the battery completely out, just open the door to turn the aid off. This will conserve the life of the battery. The one exception is the style of aid that has a battery door that opens like a toilet seat. If you have a "toilet seat" battery door, at night you will want to take the battery out completely.

Hearing aid battery life depends on the size of the battery, the circuit of the hearing aid,the severity of the hearing loss of the patient, and the number of hours each day the aid is used. With this in mind, it is normal for hearing aid batteries to last anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks. It is not possible for a hearing aid battery to last as long as a watch battery because hearing aid circuits are much more sophisticated and draw much more power than a watch.

It is important to insert the battery correctly, as putting it in upside down can break the hearing aid. The battery has a flat postive (+) side and a bumpy negative (-) side. The negative side fits into the lip of the battery door, or in the case of the "toilet seat", the negative side goes down. Never force the battery door to close, just use gentle pressure. If it doesn't close, stop and check the placement of the battery. It could be in upside down. New hearing instrument users can easily master changing the batteries after the first couple of times.

Store your hearing aid batteries in a cool dry place to get the longest shelf life. It is not necessary to refrigerate today's batteries as people used to do. Finally, keep your hearing aids and batteries in a safe place where small children can not find them. If a child or a pet should swallow a battery, you should get medical help at once. Call the National Button Battery Ingestion Hotline for assistance: (202) 625-3333.

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