How Is An Earmold Created?

Earmolds can play an integral part into how your hearing aid fits and functions. To ensure you have the best experience possible with your hearing device, your hearing care provider may create an earmold to enable you to feel and hear better.

What is an earmold?

Before we dive into how an earmold is created let’s take a quick look at what an earmold is. An earmold is an impression of your ear. The earmold impression that is taken is made up of your outer ear parts. More specifically it is an impression of the bowl or concha of your very outer ear, the part that is visible to the naked human eye, extending up into your helix and covering the ridge that surrounds the bowl of your ear as well as extending down into your ear canal to at least the second bend. The impression stops just before your eardrum so as to not damage or harm the eardrum in any way. The reason that the impression taken needs to be full is in order to show the person that will in the end be making the earmold all of the little bumps and grooves of the person’s ear in order to make sure that the earmold fits correctly and comfortably.

How is the earmold created?

After the impression is take by a certified professional such as an audiologist or a hearing instrument specialist or any other certified hearing health professional the impression is sent away to either a company that specializes in making earmolds or the hearing aid manufacturer. Once the earmold is received by the company that is going to make the earmold they go over the earmold impression ensuring that it is a good quality earmold impression for them to make the final earmold for the client. If they feel that the impression is poorly done or if there was a problem when shipping the earmold the company will have the hearing health professional to redo the earmold impression, though this is rare it does happen.

Approving the earmold

Once the earmold impression is approved they then take a reverse impression of the earmold, in other words they take an impression of the earmold to simulate the clients actual ear as if the person was sitting there. They then using their own special products take an impression of the mold they just created in order to make the permanent custom earmold that was ordered. Once everything has set they remove the earmold impression that was just taken and clean and polish it and make any minor adjustments or add-ons that are needed as per the order. Each custom-made earmold is then thoroughly inspected prior to sending back to the client and hearing health professional that ordered it.

To find out more about earmolds and if they are required for the hearing device you selected, ask your hearing care provider to explain the process and need. Your hearing professional is there to not only diagnose and treat your hearing loss, but to help you hear better and more comfortably.