Welcome to Hearing TV. I’m Stewart and today I’m answering one of the more common questions we get about hearing aids.

One often asked question is, do I need 2 hearing aids. The answer is, if you have hearing loss in both ears, then yes you do. Think of it like wearing glasses – you wouldn’t wear a monocle in one eye only. The same applies to hearing aids. If you can hear in one ear only because you only have the one hearing aid, then you lose important information needed by the brain to understand speech in noise. When it’s quiet, you might get by with one hearing aid only. But as soon as you’re in a noisy place, you will not be able to understand what someone is saying. This is because the brain uses both ears to make decisions about what is speech, and what is noise.

Another important thing we are able to do only if both ears are working, is to localise sound, or tell where sound is coming from. For example without two ears, you cant tell where someone is calling from, or which side a car is coming from, so it can be a real safety issue if you do not have both ears hearing properly.

So although it is completely up to you whether you buy one aid or two, we would always recommend two if you have hearing loss in both ears.