I came to see you with specific problems that my wife and I had defined after wearing NHS hearing aids for two years:
- Having poor hearing in my left ear made conversations in the car very difficult when I was driving.
- Other people's speech was often blurred. This caused me to not understand or misunderstand what my wife said or what I heard on the television, particularly films.
- Womens' voices were too loud and penetrating, especially when they were becoming animated.
- Busy, noisy restaurants with modern decor (i.e. no sound-absorbing carpets or curtains) were too loud for comfort and I couldn't hear my wife from across the table. In a half empty restaurant I could clearly hear other people's conversations and this was very distracting. My solution was to remove my hearing aids.
- High pitched noises made me flinch. This included ordinary noises which would not normally be noticed such as stacking crockery in the cupboard.
Experience with new hearing technology:
I have experienced marked improvement in all the above problem areas. Some fine tuning has been needed and some more will probably arise but these adjustments are on a base of great improvement. The different programme adjustments, some automatic and some manual via my remote control, offer me much more control and therefore the ability to respond to changing environments. My wife says I am much more alert again. Certainly I have stopped closing down, which I was doing before as a reaction to the difficulties of holding normal conversations. I do feel more mentally stimulated and awake.
A. Reed, July 2011