One day, it required a tilt of the head at dinner to catch a drift of conversation to the left. Craning my neck, I’d pick up every fifth word or so, enough to get the gist of an exchange.
And then, as I settled into my 40s, it came to a point where I could bluff it no more.
I’d sit down at a work function and immediately say sorry to the person to my left. “I won’t be able to hear a word,” I would explain, embarrassed and apologetic.
I began to turn down social invitations I would have jumped at just a year or two earlier.
I had been aware of the persistent ringing in my ears for at least a decade at that stage. I figured it might have been there all the time, and assumed others had the same inner alarm bell ringing. Today, I know it is tinnitus.
I was mindful of my seating, my place at a table. Subconsciously, I was positioning myself to see people’s faces, specifically their mouths. Without realising it, I was lip-reading to get through conversations.
This realisation came with a bolt in 2020, when suddenly mouths were covered, literally overnight, by face masks to protect us from covid.
Still, though, I persevered. I didn’t count myself as a candidate for hearing aids.
I’m almost, but not quite yet, 50. And in hearing terms, thankfully, I’m considered to be a bit of a spring chicken.
I had had a few hearing tests and outpatient clinic appointments in my late 30s, when I could still cobble together a conversation to my left.
The deterioration, though, couldn’t be ignored when I found myself unable to hear my kids at breakfast.
School runs were punctuated by my consistent refrain: ‘What?’ I would repeat the word over and over, gesturing with great animation and frustration to my left ear.
The TV volume was a source of contention — too low for me, too loud for them. It seemed to worsen with each season of .
The kids had had enough. Understandably. Annoyed at having to repeat everything twice, sometimes three times, they were the ones in the end who forced me to get my hearing checked.
And how right they were.
I meet Emer O’Reilly at Blackberry Hearing in Douglas, Cork.
Established 10 years ago, the company has 60 clinics nationwide.
I explain how my hearing began to dip in my late 20s to early 30s, a few years after I finished chemotherapy for lymphoma. I outline the family history — my brother’s deafness would be classed as profound.
There’s no definitive way to tell my root cause, O’Reilly says.
A hearing test shows me to be a step away from profound in my left ear. My right ear, meanwhile, as I guessed, was in good shape. I grasp the positives, but O’Reilly tells me I am a definite candidate for hearing aids.
The test itself is simple — you press a button when you hear a sound, often through crackling, swishing wind noises. I’m instantly aware of my sensitivities to certain frequencies in my left ear.
I am shown a range of hearing aid options, and in the end, I opt for the Widex SmartRIC 330. I am given them for a six-week trial.
If I am happy with them, the cost is €4,798 — a €1,000 hearing aid grant from the Department of Social Protection is available to offset some of the costs.
They are small and discreet — six weeks later, no one has noticed them, unless I point them out. My hair is also shoulder-length, which easily conceals them.
They are set at 50% capacity to ease me in. O’Reilly warns me it will be overwhelming at first. And this is no lie. I emerge into the crowds in Douglas Court Shopping Centre, and it reminds me of that moment in when everything turns technicolour.
On a return visit to Blackberry Hearing a week later, the audio is increased to full. The aids are connected to my phone, and I leave with a kit to sync my TV.
It means my calls are connected directly to my hearing aids, and the TV is also looped to them. I am all but bionic.
This visit is almost as big a game-changer as the last one. The TV is no longer a trigger for eye rolling at home. We can all watch it together, at a volume we can agree on.
I go to the cinema, as well as the opera, and it feels beautiful. In the car, I listen to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
Aspects of the song, I realise, are relayed from the left or right speaker, while others are centred.
As I experience the stereo panning for the first time in a couple of decades, it is immersive and surprisingly emotional.
As I settle into life with hearing aids, I have just one question. Why did I wait so long to get them? When I needed glasses for night driving, I strolled into an optician without a second thought. So what was my hang-up about hearing aids?
Matt Gleeson, managing director of Blackberry Hearing, understands my hesitation about getting hearing aids. In his experience, people generally wait up to seven years to seek help.
“There is a lack of awareness, a lack of understanding of what hearing aids are now compared to before,” he says, referencing the advances in technology and design.
Gleeson talks about the impact hearing loss can have on people’s lives, the isolation it can lead to. He is speaking from experience — he set up Blackberry Hearing when he saw how difficult it was for his grandfather to access hearing aids for his grandmother when her hearing began to fade.
“He didn’t find the process transparent or affordable,” says Gleeson. He set out to change that, and takes solace in knowing that he is “doing good for people”.
Chime is the national charity for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. Founded 60 years ago, it offers services that include care, technology, and advice.
The majority of its funding comes from the HSE; the remaining support is sourced from grants, government departments, and our social enterprises.
Its CEO, Danielle McLaughlin, also talks of the stigma around hearing aids. It often stems from their association with ageing and disability. And then there are the optics.
Glasses today can be funky and fashionable, while hearing aids are often wrongly assumed to be bulky and noticeable.
McLaughlin also believes the lack of a national hearing care plan could be the root cause.
“People put off going for a hearing test,” she says.
“They are quicker to have their eyesight checked than their hearing. And people wait until their hearing gets quite bad before considering getting a hearing aid. This is why Chime believes that a national campaign is required to educate the public about the risks of untreated hearing loss and the benefits of seeking treatment early. It is one of the key areas we are campaigning for, along with the campaign for a National Hearing Care Plan.”
We are used to eye tests — hearing exams less so. They are simply not built into regular check-ups.
McLaughlin points out that Ireland has a high level of unaddressed hearing loss — yet we prescribe hearing loss at less than half the rate of the British per head of population.
According to the HSE, eight per cent of the adult population has a significant hearing loss and needs audiological intervention — that’s 300,000 people in Ireland. However, only one in five people with significant hearing loss has hearing aids.
“Chime has been campaigning for several years to improve the level of take-up of hearing aids amongst the population,” says McLaughlin.
The charity’s 2022 survey showed that many people put off going for a hearing test, with 86% of respondents agreeing that people were quicker to have their eyesight checked than their hearing.
Almost nine in 10 agreed that people wait until their hearing loss becomes quite severe before considering a hearing aid.
But it’s wrong to wait, says Chime audiologist Sarah O’Sullivan.
“The longer a person avoids addressing their hearing loss, the more challenging it will become to adapt to living with hearing aids. It really is a case of the sooner the better,” she says.
“Hearing aids work to stimulate the auditory processing of the brain that becomes idle without stimulation. Introducing hearing aids at a later stage of hearing loss often means poorer results for any individual.”
Untreated hearing loss can “chip away” at a person’s identity and social connections, she adds.
“Having difficulty following the thread of a conversation, enjoying yourself at a wedding or in a restaurant, or staying involved and linked in with family and friends in your everyday life, can lead to a deterioration in an individual’s sense of self.
“Untreated hearing loss can have very serious impacts on a person’s wellbeing and in their key relationships, which can result in avoidance, isolation, and depression.”
A 2011 US study, published in JAMA Neurology, found that the rate of cognitive decline in older adults with hearing loss compared to their hearing peers was double for those with mild hearing loss, three times for those with moderate hearing loss, and five times for those with severe hearing loss.
In 2020, a Lancet commission of global experts in dementia estimated that 8% of dementia cases could be prevented by early treatment of hearing loss.
There is strong evidence that this increased risk is largely eliminated through the early fitting of hearing aids.
Cost is, of course, a barrier, but following a change to the hearing aid grant available through the Department of Social Protection, an additional 7,000 people got free hearing aids in 2021.
The HSE provides audiology services to medical card holders and children, and there are record waiting lists — more than 25,000 people are waiting for a first appointment.
Approximately 70% of hearing aids are provided through private providers.
According to Chime, a national hearing care plan would ensure that people with hearing loss could access quality audiology services in a timely manner, irrespective of whether they accessed hearing care through the HSE or private providers.
Chime has made a submission to the Hearing Care Plan Working Group, jointly chaired by the Department of Health and the HSE.
A report with initial recommendations is due by the end of this summer for consideration in Budget 2026.
In the meantime, O’Reilly keeps checking in from Blackberry, and I tell her, six weeks in, the hearing aids are working seamlessly.
On a very odd morning, when I forget my hearing aids, there is a tap on the shoulder, and my kids draw me close, reminding me to pop them in.
They don’t need to repeat themselves, over and over, anymore. Our mornings, and my life, are transformed.
