The digital revolution hits!

So I'm into my second day of wearing digital hearing-aids now, and I must say, they're not going too badly!

A lot of people really don't get on with them and I can see (or hear) why. The sound is completely different from wearing typical analogue hearing-aids.

At first, everything sounded really tinny, and weirdly, my own voice sounded really quite croaky. Not right!

Being used to hearing all sounds at quite high volume, these differ because everything sounds a lot quieter, and some sounds (such as voices) stand out a lot more over others. Still, they are very quiet.

In fact, even silence sounds quieter with these.

That's partly because they're not giving me as many of the sounds I don't want to hear. Traffic, background noise, hustle and bustle. Voices close to me stand out a lot more over other, blanket sounds.

So far though, I am hearing worse than before. But today was better than yesterday, and hopefully tomorrow will continue the adjustment phase. I had a bit of a headache from the change today (it's like reprogramming how your brain processes the information) but I'm fairly confident that the whole digital thing will work out.

So good news - the digital revolution has finally hit both sides of my head! And it ain't too bad!

P.S. After mishearing my colleague (who sits on the left of me) for the past two weeks, it was perhaps of little suprise to be referred to the ear-cleaning nurse on my arrival at Nottingham's Ropewalk centre. She admonished me for putting my little finger in my ear (although she did not say one of my favourite film lines "because you don't know where that finger's been") and said that my left ear was nearly blocked with wax.

Then she put a small vacuum cleaner in, which made a whooshing noise. My eyes watered. Floods of tears! Soon everything sounded clearer. The vacuum was gentle, which was a relief.

It could have been far worse.

If the vacuum had been a Dyson, I'm not sure whether there'd be much left inside my head at all...