Excellent service from Selma! She was very passionate today and has helped my hearing. Thanks!
I wanted to say a big thank you to you for seeing Mum today. She’s hearing and feeling better already. Mum (90) tells me the way you have set up the clinic is – in her words – excellent, that she felt well looked after throughout. From arrival, when her temperature was taken and you explained what was happening, had hand gel applied on arrival and on leaving, to the kindness and patience shown (as always) she is extremely pleased. Please feel free to use this as a recommendation of the new arrangements you have put in place to be able to continue to provide a valuable service. It was Mum’s first and only trip out since lockdown and you made it a nice experience for her.
Harvey had his father, an NHS hearing patient in Brighton, staying with him during the Coronavirus/Covid-19 lockdown, when his father’s hearing aids developed a problem and became uncomfortable to wear. We had implemented a support service for NHS patients during this period to aid the NHS and assist NHS hearing patients. Harvey contacted us and we were able to help using our safe-support setup, which keeps patients and our consultants safe. Harvey wrote to us after we helped his father:
“Thanks for the work you carried out on my Dad’s hearing aids yesterday, I am pleased to report that they are working much better and are more comfortable for him to wear, I really appreciated it!”
Help in Hearing are a positive, compassionate and intelligent company, sincere in their desire to help. I have been a client for 4 years, after previously being with other hearing aid providers for approximately 12 years. Kevin is my Audiologist in Marlow.
Kevin creates a quiet and supportive environment, that has enabled me to ask (many) questions and get used to a new way of hearing. He has been patient and respectful of the time it has taken me to adjust.
Due to Kevin’s support, I have obtained a new level of confidence with my hearing which has enabled me to return to teaching. I am also about to begin studying for an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology; I did not believe I would be able to proceed with this 4 years ago.
I totally trust Kevin’s advice. I thoroughly recommend him and I feel very lucky to have discovered Help in Hearing.
Dear Selma … The Subject Line sums it up. I was going to wait to write this weekend in order to accumulate a bit more experience with the new OTICON Opn 1 miniRITE-T aids. But the experience report will be the same no matter when, and I am too excited to delay a response.
Almost zero feedback whistle in either ear. Almost no occlusion effect as long as I carefully insert the domes into my ear canals the optimal depth. Entirely blissful comfort indeed!
At this very moment I am listening to VERA using TV Box 1 and I am distinctly hearing every single word she mumbles in her thick northern dialect. Absolutely incredible. Every – single – word no matter how quietly she waffles on into her grubby scarf. I even hear her whispers. Before, at very best I only ever understood 50% of her dialogue. WHAT – A – DIFFERENCE. The TV-Link is far superior to the Phonak device; distinct, clear, static free, it does a superb job. You set up its connection; I did not have to do anything except plug in the power. So simple.
Today I took my eldest daughter to lunch in a delightful Ealing restaurant. They had no curtains and sounds ricocheted around the walls & tables like erratic thunderbolts. Nearby 3 men & a woman were seated; they spoke rather noisily. After ten minutes I selected Speech in Noise and focused on Karina sitting 2 feet away across the table. The program reduced the background conversation to a diminutive level. I could understand everything Karina said without undue concentration.
You really did achieve a truly outstanding solution to the daunting, professional challenge my hearing loss represents. You have earned the right to feel great pride in this fitting accomplishment.
Warmest regards, Kent.
….Yes, I’m heading in the right direction. I listened to the Festival of Remembrance for the first time ever this weekend. I didn’t catch everything no, but I definitely picked up more than 50%.
And so many other little things, like I had no idea the people on the Halifax adverts speak with a Northern accent before. But of course they do, I just didn’t realise. And the birds, I can hear the birds now. And life is just so much easier.
Yes, I am glad I had it done, and no – no regrets at all. And I’m so pleased you recommended Oxford to me They seem to be very ahead of the other centres, and it’s a good team they have there. So Kevin if it wasn’t for you, I would still be bumbling along, resigned to the fact that my hearing is very poor, and making the best of it. So I owe you a drink, large.
Charlotte Orchard
Dear Selma … in two words … dramatic improvement!!
I watch CNBC approximately 4-6 hours daily 5 times a week in order manage my investment portfolio. The programme is usually a group of 3-4 commentators proffering advice and reporting news. All too frequently male and female voices blend as they jabber together. Two personalities, Jim Cramer and Rick Santelli, are particularly difficult to understand. They both talk (sometimes shout) too quickly, their voice pitches vary widely, and they speak indistinctly. I now realise I have at best only understood a third of what they say.
I was almost shocked to listen to them this afternoon. The clarity of their speech was amazing. I could understand at least 80-90% of everything said even while they spoke over each other.
Before your adjustment I tried to improve comprehension by increasing volume. That did not improve my comprehension. But following the changes you made today my hearing clarity dramatically improved, and that was achieved not even using streaming directly to my aids.
I am certain I will experience new pleasure while watching heavily accented TV programmes like VERA now that I can actually hear what is being said. It is not an exaggeration to say it is something akin to coming out of the fog.
Thank you, Selma, for your excellent care. It proves the point we discussed about audio services of the likes of Costco. Help in Hearing focuses on helping the patient; Costco and others focus upon selling hearing aids.
Bless you, Kent
You may be understandably nervous if you suspect you may need a hearing aid. It helps to know that other people, young and old, have the same experience as you. There are many people in public life who wear hearing aids, you just don’t know about it because you can’t see the devices! Here is the story of Karen Hardy, who wears the Lyric invisible hearing aid.
Karen Hardy joined Strictly Come Dancing as one of the professional dancers in 2005 and won the competition with her partner, cricketer Mark Ramprakash in 2006.
From the age of about 5, Karen had problems with one ear, with almost continuous abscesses. “When I was 9, I was having dinner at home with my family one evening, and my ear just started pouring with blood,” says Karen. “I was rushed to hospital, where they said they would fit a grommet.” Fitting a grommet is a fairly standard procedure for young children, but Karen woke up later, after 4 hours of surgery, to discover that she had been suffering from an aggressive disease called mastoid cholesteatoma. This is a growth in the middle ear, causing dizziness, hearing loss and facial paralysis and even, in extreme cases, death.
Hearing loss of 70 per cent
By the time she was 18, Karen had lost 70 per cent of the hearing in her left ear and was still in pain. She defied the doctors that told her she couldn’t dance again and as we know, proved them wrong. “On the dance floor I dreamed that I could hear. I could run away from the pain.”
Karen went on to become undefeated UK, International, British National, World Masters, Open Italian, Yankie Classic, London Open, Osaka World Trophy Champions of Latin American Dance with her dance partner Bryan Watson.
But Karen’s hearing problems still bothered her, she couldn’t swim because of the pressure on her ear, and had to avoid getting her head wet in the shower to prevent infections. It was her husband who persuaded her to do something about her hearing loss.
Lyric invisible hearing aid trial
Karen trialled the Lyric invisible hearing aid in her left ear and never looked back. “It is the most incredible thing,” says Karen. “No-one can see it, I can’t feel it in my ear – I go to bed with the Lyric device in my ear, I can hear if my son is upset in the night, I can shower in the morning and don’t have to take it out, it is permanently in there and I don’t have to worry about it at all.”
The Lyric has been nicknamed “the contact lens of the ear” because it is so easy to live with. Karen says that the minute the Lyric was put into her ear by her audiologist, “I nearly burst into tears! The small sounds I could hear were incredible. I just didn’t think it was possible. I called everyone I knew to tell them and I could even use my phone on my damaged ear and could hear perfectly! I could walk along a busy street and hear workmen on scaffolding, could hear on the phone but still hear all the other sounds of the traffic, and could hear people’s conversations on the underground.”
Karen says she wants to teach the world to dance, and we think that with her Lyric invisible hearing aid, there is no stopping her!
Despite my relative youth, for quite a few years I knew I ‘missed’ certain sounds others heard but I didn’t consider I had any real problem and I was very against wearing hearing aids for all to see, particularly as I have short hair.
After some extensive but simple tests Selma fitted me with aids to show me the difference from “my” hearing to “normal”. I was astonished by the difference and became quite emotional. I had been kidding myself for years that my hearing was ok, the reality was quite different. In fact so different I’m now actually rather proud of my aids and happy to tell people about them.
I had been fearful that all noise would be magnified and the assault to my ears would be too uncomfortable. Selma capped the volume and took her time bringing the levels up to normal so not to overwhelm me in the early weeks.
I can now have a one-to-one conversation in a noisy social event and also hear a child talking to me in a class of thirty 5 year olds, no mean feat at the best of times.
Selma has throughout been so very understanding, sympathetic and knowledgeable and I can’t praise her highly enough. If you think that you’re struggling sometimes with your hearing, then you probably are, get it checked, it may change your life, it has mine!
I am writing to say how delighted I am with my new hearing aids. As you know, I have been using digital hearing aids for over ten years and during that time there have been no significant developments until now.
Firstly, they are extremely comfortable in the ear and once in they remain in all day without any discomfort. Secondly, the quality of sound is much better. I am hearing speech and sounds more clearly and background noise is less apparent than before. In fact in all the areas where I was seeking an improvement the aids have come up trumps.
Now, add to this the Bluetooth technology and we have the wow factor. Amazingly, the streamer enables me to answer the phone remotely, without having to hold it to my ear (with all the associated distortions), resulting in pure sound.
The ability to stream sound wirelessly, directly into my hearing aids, is nothing short of a miracle.
I can listen to music, speak on the telephone and still be aware of ambient sound.
As for the price I would say to anyone that this is an investment over the long term and as such represents excellent value for money.
Finally, I would like to thank you for your professional, caring and prompt attention to my hearing problems. I would have no hesitation in recommending your services to anyone and to say to them:
“if you have any degree of hearing loss don’t hang around, you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain by seeing a specialist sooner rather than later and Help in Hearing are the best.”
Well done to you and well done to Oticon for this innovative and truly fabulous product.
I have been using my Oticon hearing aids for several months and feel so pleased with them I am obliged to put pen to paper. When you recommended these initially I had some misgivings, having used “in the ear” aids for many years.
The experience of these now is something else, dinners, theatre, opera, music have now become a pleasure. Previous to using these whilst there was enjoyment I was rarely able to join in conversation, I often did not have a clue what the topic was.
It would be incorrect to say Oticon has given me natural hearing ability because I long ago lost the ability to hear naturally. However, for me they have come a long way to achieving this. The great thing in my experience they have greatly reduced much of the background noise and unwanted sounds which previously my hearing aids picked up drowning out what I really wanted to hear.
I am delighted with them and whilst expensive in my experience represent true value for money and help greatly forward full enjoyment and pleasure in life.
I have held for a long time the view that when seeking satisfactory professional services it is necessary to find somebody in whom you can put your complete trust, and for a long time now I have had an unreserved confidence in your technical competence and professional judgement.
Even so, I doubt whether I would have believed you, had you told my new hearing aids would make the dramatic improvement in my hearing that they have. Their performance is truly amazing.
I can listen again to music which now has meaning without continual adjustment of the volume control so that I can enjoy the full dynamic range and with a tonal quality enabling each instrument to be distinguished clearly.
These factors must, however, pale into insignificance when considered against the main use of hearing, communication. It is impossible for those not affected by a hearing disability to understand how isolated one can become. For me, just talking to one other person in crowded areas often became impossible.
I was finding I could not even participate in the conversation of seven or eight round a table in a restaurant and even at home. With these aids all the above are now possible and I find I can now converse with a group even in a very noisy bar.
Of course, with instruments of this nature it is impossible to disassociate the articles themselves from the necessary attendant services which, in this case, as I have come to expect, has been exemplary.
First, there was the care and consideration that went into selecting this particular type. I had not realised there were so many different manufacturers let alone the vast number of aids produced by them.
Secondly, there was the after-sale service. No effort has been spared to ensure that mine have been adjusted to give me a maximum possible benefit.
I cannot thank you enough for the tremendous improvement you have made to the quality of not only my life but also to the lives of those close to me.
