Jeff Pullinger: My step into the private hearing aid world

Back in 2020 I woke up one morning and realised that my glory days with the NHS were over.

My wonderful audiologist had retired many years before, and for the first time on that crisp, beautiful, sunny autumn day, I understood that I had to take control of my hearing aid care.

This moment of clarity came because my current pair of hearing aids were exhausting me.

I had had them for over five years and I was having to concentrate more and more to use them. It was draining.

Don’t get me wrong, they had been wonderful overall and I was very grateful for them. But I needed a boost. I needed something better.

So, it was finally time to bite the bullet and spend some money.

It was finally time to go private.

After several weeks of wandering around high streets, talking to various people and lots of reading online, I came to the conclusion that I had the choice between Boots, Specsavers or independent hearing aid shops. I decided to give one of them a go.

My reason for this was purely cost. A decent pair of hearing aids in an independent shop seemed to be between £500 to £1700 more than a national chain. I didn’t (and still don’t) see the point of paying more for the same thing. So, high-street chain it was.

Their hearing aids come with a 60 day money back guarantee, a 2 – 4 year warranty, range in price from £495 – £3,595 for a pair and you also get a one year supply of batteries.

The day of my appointment I waited nervously outside but was instantly put at ease by a big smile from a friendly young woman called Tilly (not her real name).

She gave me a hearing test and then told me my options. Without boring you with the detail, hearing aids are either various small sizes which slide into the ear, or bigger ones which sit behind the ear lobe with a tube running down inside.

I explained I wanted a small pair of in the ear (ITE) which are neat and sit inside the ear canal, protruding only a little. I had been wearing this type for a long time and was used to them.

I had tried an NHS pair of behind the ear in the past but I found them uncomfortable and impractical. They also gave me worse headaches, dizziness and made me feel ill (I suppose because of the extra sound coming in).

As I have had a continual headache since I was lucky enough to have caught meningitis and septicaemia in 2004, along with being constantly dizzy and generally feeling like a dog’s dinner, being made to feel worse wasn’t very appealing. So, little aids it was for me.

I eventually chose a pair which Tilly assured me were the best ITEs available at the time. They combined state of the art sound processing with blue tooth technology.

All in all, a gigantic step up from what I was used to.

She put some demonstration aids in my ears to show me what could be possible for me. It sounded OK, although I didn’t have much time to soak it in.

She then took moulds of my ears. In case you don’t know, the audiologist mixes a two-part putty together which is then inserted in the ears. After five minutes it hardens and what is left are two perfect moulds of your ear canals. Pretty clever, ah?

These are then sent away to be made into hearing aids which fit perfectly in your ears. Voila!!
Anyhoo, once this was done, I paid and that was it.

Not long after, I found myself standing in the street in a bit of a daze with steam coming off my bankcard. It had been quick and efficient in a military kind of way.

This didn’t put me off though because I had it all to look forward to. After more than 15 years of the NHS, I was finally entering the big time, the elite.

Life was about to be awesome.

My new hearing aids didn’t disappoint and were beautiful works of art. Like two little red and blue Lamborghinis. They were really well made and screamed quality.

Tilly connected to them and hit the usual buttons on her PC, as my ski slope audiogram looked on intrusively. After what seemed like a small eternity, she turned them on.

Oh dear.

I fell back down to Earth faster than a ballistic missile. I knew instantly that the left one (the ear I mostly hear through) was not clear.

The sound was poor.

I told Tilly and she played about with some settings. After a few minutes of the usual audiologist/patient banter (‘Is that better? What about now? Is that clearer?’) she advised me to try them and come and see her in a week and a half.

I took them home feeling a bit deflated but I was determined to give them a good go.

As usual with new hearing aids, I wore them with a tingling sense of excitement. I moved around silently and listened to everything – my family and friends, the TV, noises from the kitchen, birds singing, street noises, my 3 year old son telling me about trains, absolutely everything I could. But the sound quality was just awful.

I could feel the muffled sound hitting my left ear and it was incredibly frustrating. Everything was a dampened mix of unclear sounds.

Worst of all I couldn’t understand the one thing I really needed to hear, the thing that would improve my quality of life and ability to function in this world, the one thing I had struggled with since losing my hearing in 2004, my holy grail – speech.

I was relying almost exclusively on lipreading and could hear worse than before.

Although the blue tooth feature was a welcome distraction. For those of you who don’t know, some new hearing aids connect wirelessly via Bluetooth to a phone, the TV and any other compatible device.

This means that the sound from a phone call or music was streamed directly to my aids and it felt like the sound was in my head.

It was an incredibly surreal experience and would have been wonderful if I could have heard clearly.

But it was not meant to be.

The time passed and I still could not hear well with them. The sound did not become clearer in my left ear.

It was extremely frustrating.

What was going on?? These were supposed to be life changing.

‘Hmmmm,’ Tilly said thoughtfully, ‘Maybe we should change the programme because you have always had NHS ones.’

After an awkward few minutes, it became apparent that Tilly didn’t know how to do this. She opened software, clicked on various drop-down menus and even tried some shortcuts. All to no avail. She then informed me that she had to phone the company that made them for help.

Oh dear.

After a quick chat with the company she changed the programme and played about a bit, before telling me it would be better now.

It wasn’t.

It was still unclear and after a few more weeks of struggling with them I threw in the towel and got my money back.

So, what was the lesson here? What had I learned?

That an experienced and skilled audiologist is more important than anything when getting private hearing aids. The shop you choose, brand and even the price are all irrelevant if the audiologist sitting in front of you isn’t good enough. And as lovely, kind and caring as Tilly was, she just wasn’t experienced enough to help me.

My advice to anyone who wants to get private hearing aids is to shop around for a good audiologist first. One you feel comfortable with and who you have confidence in. Then look at the price list and your options.

My time at the high street chain dented my confidence in the private world. I had always imagined it would be a bit like Disneyland. But I spent too long queuing for the rides and meeting Mickey Mouse just wasn’t how I imagined.

So, it was back to the drawing board.

I spent the next year umming and ahing about hearing aids, whilst getting more and more tired using my old ones, before realising that I had to try again because the NHS were not helping me.

So it was that I found myself hitting the next place on my list…a rival high street chain…

Jeff says: ‘I’ve always been very adventurous but surviving meningitis and losing my hearing made me even more determined to enjoy life.  Since then, I’ve travelled and lived abroad extensively and have done a lot of exciting things.  More recently I’ve started a new adventure, embracing my disability, which I am enjoying.’