Meet Chris – From Crickets to Clarity, Therapy Helped His Construction Career

“My tinnitus sounds like crickets in my ears all the time—just nonstop crickets. It’s hard to go to sleep when that’s all you’re hearing. That’s why I sleep with a fan all the time, just to try to drown it out. I’ve used hearing devices in the past, but they weren’t comfortable, so I just left them on the shelf. I’ve been doing construction for a number of years, and my hearing has progressively gotten worse. Dealing with owners and architects weekly, if not daily, it got to a point where I couldn’t hear what was going on in meetings. I started shying away from conversations, and it reached a point where I needed to do something, or I couldn’t continue with my work.

We made an appointment, got the hearing test, and got fitted. It’s been a great experience ever since. She brought in some hearing devices for me to try, showed me what we could do with them, and it’s like night and day. Everybody’s raving about the therapy built into these hearing devices. In the last year and a half, my tinnitus has probably improved 75 to 80%. It isn’t annoying anymore, so it’s working.

I go to the river every weekend in the summer to fish, and I haven’t heard frogs on the river bottom for years. With the hearing devices, I can enjoy nature again. If it gets too annoying, I just turn them down using the app that comes with them. Once you figure out the whole thing, it’s a night-and-day difference.

The big difference between the two hearing devices I’ve had is that the old ones were either on or off, with no control over volume or wind noise. These new devices, with the app, allow me to control them. They can even tweak them on the computer. The therapy built into these is like an ocean wave hitting the beach—very soothing and runs all the time.

The staff here is second to none. They listen to what you have to say, and if there’s a problem, they can tweak it over the phone which is very helpful with me being an hour away. It’s life-changing. The quality of life is so much better now with family, friends, and work. I would tell everybody they need to come here and see these people because they are awesome to work with. Dr. Beki, Heather, all of them are just awesome. They listen to you; they understand what you’re talking about. It’s really amazing what they have accomplished with the therapy over the last year and a half, and they say it can still get better.”