Suffering with hearing loss for the past 15 years, local business owner Robert Blott had seldom held a conversation with his wife Dawn that didn’t get lost in translation. After years of ‘what did you say?’ and ‘pardon me?’, the couple had almost given up hope in finding a hearing aid that provided Robert with natural hearing without background noise. Then Robert was fitted with Lyric, the world’s first ‘invisible’, extended-wear hearing aid.
“In the past, I often misheard or misinterpreted what my wife was saying to me, which caused an inevitable strain on our relationship,” says Robert, aged 66. “When enjoying a meal with friends, I spoke very loudly and I constantly missed crucial parts of a conversation. Since using Lyric hearing aids, I no longer embarrass my wife due to my bellowing voice at social occasions. And you know what they say… happy wife, happy life!”
Dawn has also seen a change in Robert in professional situations. “Before we discovered Lyric, Robert and I would often go to senior management me meetings and he would struggle to hear. At times his answers to questions would not relate at all to the conversation at hand and I would have to correct him,” explains Dawn. “Life has changed for the better since Robert started wearing his new hearing aids. I needn’t attend meetings anymore because I can relax in the knowledge that Robert can hear clearly.”
“I can understand why many people with hearing loss are self conscious about wearing a visible hearing aid – especially the youngsters,” says Robert. “Lyric offers the ultimate solution.”
Hailed ‘the contact lens for your ear’, Lyric, which measures 12mm, is inserted deep inside the ear canal by a hearing health professional and is completely invisible from the outside. Lyric remains in the ear 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and can be worn for up to three months at a time, allowing users to shower, sleep, swim (with custom fitted ear plugs), talk on the phone and even listen to headphones. The unique placement of the device, close to the eardrum, allows natural hearing without surrounding noise or feedback.