Patrick Wall started having problems with his hearing about five years ago. First, he began to have trouble understanding his grandkids. Next, he was missing words in business meetings.
“First it’s 10%, then 20%, and then I’m missing half the conversation,” he remembers. “Not hearing my customers is not a good situation.”
Wall put a lot of time and energy into researching hearing aid options, but was dissatisfied with all the models he tried. “I always felt like I was hearing something through a tin can,” he says. “The sound quality was terrible. My wife’s voice sounded totally different. Noises were distorted.”
Then he discovered Lyric hearing aids, an invisible, extended wear option which offers greater convenience and better sound quality. “It’s spectacular,” he says. “It’s the most like normal hearing that I’ve tried.”
Lyric hearing aids are placed deep inside the ear canal. Users wear them continually for as long as the battery lasts—typically two to three months—before coming back for a quick office visit to have them replaced.
Lyric hearing aids are sweat-proof and shower-proof, and can be worn during just about any activity, except skydiving and swimming underwater.
Better, All Around
“It’s better for a lot of patients,” says Dr. Jessie Grzeca, an Aurora BayCare audiologist. “They don’t have to worry about cleaning them or changing batteries. You don’t see it at all, so there are additional advantages from a cosmetic and a comfort standpoint.”
And, as Grzeca explains, because the Lyric hearing aids sit close to the ear drum, they take better advantage of the ear’s natural acoustics. That’s why Wall says the sound quality is so much better.
“You never remove them, so you’re always able to hear,” he says. “If I wake up in the middle of the night and something doesn’t sound quite right, I can hear that now.”
At first, Wall traveled to Chicago to find an audiologist authorized to work with Lyric. Later, he was able to shorten his drive to Milwaukee. But now that Aurora BayCare offers Lyric in Green Bay, he no longer has to travel for service.
No Show, But Tell
Wall says he recommends Lyric to friends and colleagues all the time—recommendations which are often met with surprise and confusion:
“People say to me, ‘But you don’t wear hearing aids.”
“Of course I wear hearing aids,” he tells them. “You just can’t see them!”
Watch Patrick and Dr. Grzeca's Health Watch segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNhEOLm8B7k