Helena's Health Care Clinic Advice Blog

Here are two tips to follow when going to your first appointment with an audiologist. 

Remove any wax build-up in your ears beforehand

Whilst an audiologist can remove their patient's ear wax, it's best not to expect them to do this when you go to their clinic unless this is the main purpose of your visit. Instead, if you know that your ears produce quite a lot of wax, you should either remove it yourself with an at-home kit or have your GP syringe your ears, prior to going to the audiologist.

There are two reasons to do this; firstly, regardless of the reason for your visit to this medical professional, they will probably want to visually evaluate your ears, using their auriscope. The presence of an excessive amount of wax might block their view of your ear canals and make it impossible for them to do this assessment properly. If this happens, and they don't feel comfortable proceeding with the rest of their examination until they've done this initial assessment, they might either have to remove the wax there and then (in which case there might not be enough time left during that appointment for the remainder of the evaluation, and they might need to book you in for a second appointment to complete this process) or they might advise you to rebook after you've had your GP remove this wax.

Secondly, if they need to perform a hearing test on you and you have a build-up of wax in your ears that is temporarily affecting your hearing, this could interfere with the accuracy of the test results. As such, to ensure the appointment goes smoothly and that your results are as accurate as possible, it's best to ensure your ear wax is removed beforehand.

Protect your ears in the days before the appointment

You should also try to protect your ears in the days before going to the clinic. For example, if you're going to see the audiologist because you have tinnitus, and you expose yourself to loud noises without wearing ear protection in the week before the appointment, you could experience a temporary worsening of your tinnitus symptoms, which could skew the results of any related tests the audiologist performs on you. As such, if you know you'll be somewhere where there could be loud noises during the week or so prior to the appointment (for example, if you need to work on a construction site or will be going to a nightclub) you should ensure that you wear ear protection.

Additionally, it's best to avoid swimming before seeing the audiologist as, if you were to develop swimmer's ear, that led to, for example, pus being produced inside the ear or that made your ear feel very sore, having your ear physically examined could be quite uncomfortable.