On July 3rd, 2008 I started my 30 day trial of the new Lyric Hearing Aid from InSound Medical. This Blog contains my experience and review of this innovative device.
First off, sorry for the long delay on my last post. I've been holding off until I could get some time to write up a nice detailed report. But I guess that defeats the purpose of a blog anyway. I'm going to try to start posting shorter and more frequently to keep everyone up to date.
If you've been following along, you'll see that my trail had gone really well, so the purchase really came down to evaluating the benefit to the cost. I had a good chunk allocated in my flexible spending this year in anticipation of doing something, so I pulled that all out and didn't end up needing to take too much out of pocket.
My audiologist worked with the engineers on a few of my complaints and we ended up making an adjustment on the low frequency cut setting. This setting basically controls how low frequency sounds are amplified. I believe the default setting is 500 Hz which means that sounds below 500 Hz aren't amplified. We moved the setting up to 800 and I immediately noticed a difference in less background noise. I followed up with another visit last week and moved it up to 1200 and am even happier. Road noise in the car is almost completely gone at this point.
So far, I'm very happy with the decision.
Since then, my left hearing aid finally went out. This was an original. It basically just died one morning which was at 45 days. I was hoping that they would last longer, so we'll see if this is normal.
Today’s the day I meet with my Audiologist to make my final decision. She called me on my 31st day right on schedule to see how things have been going. I had sent a few emails to her during my trial with some questions, but hadn’t had a response. Turns out they were getting blocked by the Clinic’s aggressive SPAM filter. She was quick to turn around some responses though, even contacting InSound to get a few clarifications for me. Great service! I’ll get some info from her replies posted up later when I get some more time.
Right after we talked, my right Lyric started to go quiet right after our call. Within a few minutes it was silent. After about 5 minutes I heard a small popping sound the device and it started working again. It’s since done that 4 or 5 times since then and will need to get replaced. I’m not sure if that means the battery is going out or not, but it seems to work fine, when it is working.
Once it became obvious that the right Lyric was going to be replaced, I decided to get one more good water test in to see how robust these devices really are. I’d spent plenty of time in the shower, lake, pool and river with lots of splashing, but had avoided putting my head under the water. So, this morning I decided it was time for a good dunking of my right ear to see how they would hold up. I’m not sure how official the test will be since the device may already be having problems, but it’s better than nothing.
I only put my right in into the water for the test. I didn’t want to risk being deaf for the day. I’m sure I looked strange dunking my right ear into the tub and cupping water into it! J
The first dunk under the water was pretty quick. It was kind of strange to hear the sounds of the water in my ear. I pulled my head out of the water and everything was just fine. Still hearing normal. 2nd try gave the same results. 3rd try I put my head under for about 20 seconds and moved it around to really get some water in there and that finally did it in. After letting things dry out for a few minutes, I checked to see if the device was still alive, even though I wasn’t hearing anything. I used the remote to switch them between the various modes. The beeps from the Lyrics sounded normal like everything was fine, but there was definitely no sound coming into my right ear. About 45 minutes later I heard a little crackling sound from the device and checked it out again with the remote and found that the beeps had turned into really low tones instead of the usual high-frequency beeps. Now, 4 hours later the tones are back to normal, but the sound still isn’t working.
I’m anxious to see one of these devices up close to see how they really work and the placement of the parts. I’m curious to know how they work so well getting wet in the shower, but don’t seem to deal well with getting dunked. I’ll be trying out some earplugs I’m going to get from my Audiologist to see if I can use them on occasion as well.
As of this moment, I've had over 430 unique visitors to this site. It’s great to see all of you stopping by whether lurking or posting comments. It's exceeded my expectations. Feel free to leave me some feedback or send me questions and I’ll try to get you a quick reply. Since I’m visiting with my Audiologist Wednesday, this is a good time for the hard questions that I can pass on to her.
I’m still planning on getting a final summary put together in the next few days for those visitors looking for a quick and consolidated review of my experience with the Lyrics.
With the 30-day trial at the end, I'm going to get one last big event posted before I give my final summary. My audiologist called this morning, right on schedule and scheduled my follow-up for Wednesday afternoon. Guess it's time to make my decision.
I spent the last week at Scout camp which was filled with mountain biking, water skiing, swimming, cave exploration, etc. I had plenty of dirt, sweat, campfire smoke and water to go around during my week. After about 3 days of pretty solid trail riding in the dust, I noticed that the volume of my Lyrics wasn't quite what it used to be. I attribute it to just tons of gunk on the microphones, but I'm not familiar enough with the technical construction of the devices to say for sure. After struggling with a few conversations one evening, I decided to bump them up to volume level 5 over the 4 I was used to. This made a huge difference and really brought my hearing back to the level I was used to. This level drove me crazy when I left the audiologist originally, but seemed perfect now. I really think it must be compensating for some of the crud on the microphones that must have built up. I guess I'll know for sure when I get my first replacement set.
One other note, I ended up sleeping with the Lyrics turned on during my week at camp. It was reassuring to hear the sounds going on at night or to hear if the boys were up to their usual mischief. This is certainly one big benefit of the Lyrics. It was really neat to wake up to the sounds of the outdoors in the mornings.
Sorry for the long delay since the last post. Things have continued to go great with my trial.
Since I'm nearing the end of my 30 day trial, I figured it was time to try out the Audiologist's advice and get a little wet :)
My family headed out for a nice long weekend that included swimming at a big pool and then floating a local river in tubes.
The swimming went just fine. I didn't go diving or intentionally put my head under the water, but I got plenty wet. No problems at all.
The next day I laid down in my tube and floated the river with the family 3 times. This river has some pretty good little rapids and you end up getting soaked many times. I got drenched and went under a little getting sprayed right in the ear with water. The first two times when just fine, and then 1/2 way down the last run I got a pretty good soaking my right Lyric stopped working. My hearing was pretty much out for that side as it seemed to convert into an ear plug.
With one working ear, I decided to leave it in for a few hours just to see if it might drain itself. I'm pretty sure it just got really wet and I don't think I got water actually behind the aid itself.
After a few hours I decided to try my magnetic adjustment tool to see if I could get it to respond. Nothing. About 3 hours later I tried the adjustment tool once again and to my surprise, it beeped and turned on! I was really happy to see that they must have dried out on their own. I adjusted the volume back to normal settings and by the next morning things were pretty much back to normal.
Next week I have another day on the lake planned with lots of swimming involved. I'm going to try and put them to the test again just to see what will happen. I'll keep you posted.
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