There are a few types of hearing aid available, one of which is the in-the-canal (ITC) hearing aid. These come in a number of different shapes themselves, since each ITC hearing aid is ideally crafted from a silicone mold of the user’s ear.
This is what we mean by ‘all shapes and sizes’ – due to the diversity of patients’ ear canals, the variety of shapes that ITC hearing aids could come in is theoretically infinite. Therefore, there may be someone out there with an ear canal that would allow for a hearing aid shaped like a Harley Davidson motorcycle – you never really know.
Since ITC hearing aids go inside the ear canal, they’re a lot smaller than standard BTE hearing aids. And since they’re smaller, they have less room to include fun extra features, such as Bluetooth connectivity or tinnitus cancellers.
Another side effect of ITC hearing aids being smaller is that they have less room for more powerful amplifiers. Therefore, they’re only really suitable for mild to moderate hearing loss, which can make their user base a bit smaller than other kinds of hearing aids.