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Life-changing: the new hearing aids - Health and beauty feature - Health and beauty - Lifestyle - Manchester Evening News
FOR Patricia Rae the most familiar sounds still bring an element of surprise.
Even those mundane noises we so often wish we could drown out like the dull buzzing of the fridge, the whirr of the washing machine or the creak of the stairs create a certain fascination.
"I know it sounds silly but they were all sounds I'd never heard before" she says with a slight bashfulness at discovering such everyday sounds for the first time.
"I'd say to my husband `What's that noise?' and it would be the washing machine or the boiler coming on and I had no idea our stairs creaked the way they do," she laughs.
"I'd never heard the birds sing or an aeroplane overhead. Traffic, as well, was something else that took me by surprise - I thought the traffic had suddenly got so much busier but it was just that I'd never been able to hear it before."
Pat's hearing problems were first recognised when she was six years old.
Confusion
"At school they sat me on the front row because they said I wasn't listening," she remembers.
"Eventually they realised I was going deaf and the reason I wasn't paying attention was because I couldn't hear what was going on."
Pat tried using standard hearing aids, but because of chronic infection was unable to use them.
So, for almost 50 years, the mum-of three relied on lipreading.
"I used to frown a lot trying so hard to listen to what people were saying," she adds.
"To try and stop this I started looking at their mouth and did a lot of lipreading.
There is the funny side because people would say things and I'd think they'd said something completely different, but it could also be very isolating.
Confidence
"I've always been quite shy and very quiet. It does knock the confidence out of you because you can't join in with everybody else.
Unless you are face to face you can't hear; simple things, like having a conversation in a car, I couldn't do."
That was until four years ago when a simple operation changed the way she experienced the world forever.
Pat was fitted with a Baha - a bone anchored hearing aid - which is surgically implanted into the skull, at Manchester Royal Infirmary.
In most cases individuals needing a hearing device will be fitted with the commonly seen, air conduction aids, which are placed inside the ear canal or behind the ear.
However, some people, like Patricia, are unable to benefit from this type of aid.
Specialist
Ear nose and throat surgeon, Kevin Green, from Manchester Royal Infirmary explains:
"There are two groups who would potentially benefit from Baha: those who need a normal hearing aid but can't wear one for some reason and people who are completely deaf in one ear to the point that a hearing aid would not help.
"Deafness makes it so hard to communicate. A lot of the people who come to us have tried hearing aids and haven't got on with them because their ears discharge.
Some of these patients think they've reached the end of the road and are just going to have to put up with a smelly, discharging ear or not hearing. We do this operation and people are amazed."
Innovation
The operation involves a small titanium implant being placed into the bone behind the ear.
A removable speech processor unit/hearing aid device is then fitted to the external part of the implant which transmits sound waves through the skull to the inner ear in patients with impaired hearing and for those who are completely deaf sends the signals through the skull to the good ear.
The good ear listens but the brain is then able to work out which side of the body the sounds are coming from.
The operation takes about 20 minutes and many are done under local anaesthetic with the patient returning home the same day.
Established in two weeks
It takes a couple of weeks to settle and after six to eight weeks, when the bone has knitted with the titanium implant, patients can use their hearing aid.
All being well, the implant should last a lifetime and the removable sound processor will be replaced every three years.
"For a surgical operation it's probably one of the safest you can do," says Mr Green.
"To get so much benefit from something so simple with so little risk is unusual.
"In the last three years I've done nearly 200 between the MRI and Hope Hospital and at least 150 of those were under local anaesthetic.
"Most people say it's like going to the dentist - they don't think it's any worse.
Almost painless
"It's not even desperately painful afterwards, most people just take paracetamol and some don't take anything.
"They go home the same day. I've had some patients drive to the hospital and drive away.
"Most people think of it like an extra tooth to keep clean. Once it has settled down we see patients every six to 12 months for a check-up.
"Other than that they can lead a normal life. They remove the processor to have a shower but they don't have to worry about getting the implant wet.
They can go in a plane and if they need an MRI scan, which involves magnetic imaging, then it's not a problem because it's titanium."
The operation is available to anyone from aged five years old and Mr Green's oldest patient was well into her 80s.
"As long as they don't have uncontrolled hyper-tension we can operate on pretty much anybody," he adds.
Odd feeling
"While it isn't for everybody and some people might have some aesthetic ideas about having a little screw behind your ear, which I do appreciate some people don't like, it isn't the first line.
"It's not like someone would come in for a hearing aid and we'd offer them a Baha, because that's not the case at all.
This is for people who've tried everything else and nothing has worked and it gives such benefits to people who thought they were at the end of the line.
"In the past if you were deaf in one ear it would be that's the way it is, tough, you've got to get on with it, but this is a really big step forward."
It is a sentiment with which Patricia certainly agrees. "It's changed my life," she beams.
"I'm only now realising how much I've missed in my life, but not in a sad way.
I'm enjoying and appreciating everything as new. I'm enjoying being more involved. I can sit in the back of the car and join in the conversation or if I'm with a group of people I don't have to have someone repeat everything that is being said.
Now, unless I tell people, no-one would guess I am deaf. I wouldn't be without my Baha, to remove it would be like taking my right arm."
For more details visit Cochlear.
FOR Patricia Rae the most familiar sounds still bring an element of surprise.
Even those mundane noises we so often wish we could drown out like the dull buzzing of the fridge, the whirr of the washing machine or the creak of the stairs create a certain fascination.
"I know it sounds silly but they were all sounds I'd never heard before" she says with a slight bashfulness at discovering such everyday sounds for the first time.
"I'd say to my husband `What's that noise?' and it would be the washing machine or the boiler coming on and I had no idea our stairs creaked the way they do," she laughs.
"I'd never heard the birds sing or an aeroplane overhead. Traffic, as well, was something else that took me by surprise - I thought the traffic had suddenly got so much busier but it was just that I'd never been able to hear it before."
Pat's hearing problems were first recognised when she was six years old.
Confusion
"At school they sat me on the front row because they said I wasn't listening," she remembers.
"Eventually they realised I was going deaf and the reason I wasn't paying attention was because I couldn't hear what was going on."
Pat tried using standard hearing aids, but because of chronic infection was unable to use them.
So, for almost 50 years, the mum-of three relied on lipreading.
"I used to frown a lot trying so hard to listen to what people were saying," she adds.
"To try and stop this I started looking at their mouth and did a lot of lipreading.
There is the funny side because people would say things and I'd think they'd said something completely different, but it could also be very isolating.
Confidence
"I've always been quite shy and very quiet. It does knock the confidence out of you because you can't join in with everybody else.
Unless you are face to face you can't hear; simple things, like having a conversation in a car, I couldn't do."
That was until four years ago when a simple operation changed the way she experienced the world forever.
Pat was fitted with a Baha - a bone anchored hearing aid - which is surgically implanted into the skull, at Manchester Royal Infirmary.
In most cases individuals needing a hearing device will be fitted with the commonly seen, air conduction aids, which are placed inside the ear canal or behind the ear.
However, some people, like Patricia, are unable to benefit from this type of aid.
Specialist
Ear nose and throat surgeon, Kevin Green, from Manchester Royal Infirmary explains:
"There are two groups who would potentially benefit from Baha: those who need a normal hearing aid but can't wear one for some reason and people who are completely deaf in one ear to the point that a hearing aid would not help.
"Deafness makes it so hard to communicate. A lot of the people who come to us have tried hearing aids and haven't got on with them because their ears discharge.
Some of these patients think they've reached the end of the road and are just going to have to put up with a smelly, discharging ear or not hearing. We do this operation and people are amazed."
Innovation
The operation involves a small titanium implant being placed into the bone behind the ear.
A removable speech processor unit/hearing aid device is then fitted to the external part of the implant which transmits sound waves through the skull to the inner ear in patients with impaired hearing and for those who are completely deaf sends the signals through the skull to the good ear.
The good ear listens but the brain is then able to work out which side of the body the sounds are coming from.
The operation takes about 20 minutes and many are done under local anaesthetic with the patient returning home the same day.
Established in two weeks
It takes a couple of weeks to settle and after six to eight weeks, when the bone has knitted with the titanium implant, patients can use their hearing aid.
All being well, the implant should last a lifetime and the removable sound processor will be replaced every three years.
"For a surgical operation it's probably one of the safest you can do," says Mr Green.
"To get so much benefit from something so simple with so little risk is unusual.
"In the last three years I've done nearly 200 between the MRI and Hope Hospital and at least 150 of those were under local anaesthetic.
"Most people say it's like going to the dentist - they don't think it's any worse.
Almost painless
"It's not even desperately painful afterwards, most people just take paracetamol and some don't take anything.
"They go home the same day. I've had some patients drive to the hospital and drive away.
"Most people think of it like an extra tooth to keep clean. Once it has settled down we see patients every six to 12 months for a check-up.
"Other than that they can lead a normal life. They remove the processor to have a shower but they don't have to worry about getting the implant wet.
They can go in a plane and if they need an MRI scan, which involves magnetic imaging, then it's not a problem because it's titanium."
The operation is available to anyone from aged five years old and Mr Green's oldest patient was well into her 80s.
"As long as they don't have uncontrolled hyper-tension we can operate on pretty much anybody," he adds.
Odd feeling
"While it isn't for everybody and some people might have some aesthetic ideas about having a little screw behind your ear, which I do appreciate some people don't like, it isn't the first line.
"It's not like someone would come in for a hearing aid and we'd offer them a Baha, because that's not the case at all.
This is for people who've tried everything else and nothing has worked and it gives such benefits to people who thought they were at the end of the line.
"In the past if you were deaf in one ear it would be that's the way it is, tough, you've got to get on with it, but this is a really big step forward."
It is a sentiment with which Patricia certainly agrees. "It's changed my life," she beams.
"I'm only now realising how much I've missed in my life, but not in a sad way.
I'm enjoying and appreciating everything as new. I'm enjoying being more involved. I can sit in the back of the car and join in the conversation or if I'm with a group of people I don't have to have someone repeat everything that is being said.
Now, unless I tell people, no-one would guess I am deaf. I wouldn't be without my Baha, to remove it would be like taking my right arm."
For more details visit Cochlear.