Lesley Reynolds is a skincare expert, author and columnist (‘Best’ and ‘OK’ magazines) and founder of the Harley Street Skin Clinic which offers surgical and non-surgical treatments, known for its celebrity clients.
Lesley and her husband, Dr Aamer Khan, also run a wellness and aesthetics retreat at Ballingdon Hall in Sudbury, Suffolk.
A gradual change
Lesley Reynolds and her family have been noticing a change in her hearing over the past five years. Lesley explains:
“The most worrying thing for me was that I started to make myself busy when family were around, rather than having to interact with them.
“At work, it was very difficult with patients. I just couldn’t hear certain pitches of voice, and I’d say, ‘hang on, I can’t really deal with this, I’ll go and get [my husband] Dr K to speak to you’ and I’d rush to my husband and say, ‘I need your help, I can’t hear this patient at all.’
“It’s a busy clinic, and we’ve been going for 25 years, so people know us and would come to talk to me, but I’d get away from them as quickly as possible because I couldn’t hear them properly. I would run away from situations.
“I’d also decline the many public speaking invites I get because I couldn’t hear the audience when they asked questions.
“It was really beginning to affect my life. But it takes time to make yourself do something about a problem as it gradually gets worse.
In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates1 that it typically takes people 9–10 years to take action on hearing loss after first realising they’re having difficulty.
“My agent Jaine said that she’d noticed I’d been giving completely wrong answers to things she had said and that she was getting really worried about what was wrong with me because I was withdrawing so much.
“That’s when I decided I had to get my hearing tested. It wasn’t until I spoke to Mark at Hidden Hearing’s Kensington clinic that I realised I was lip reading a lot of the time.”
Hearing loss affects those closest to you
When you struggle to hear, it doesn’t just impact you but those around you too. Lesley’s husband, Dr Khan, says:
“At home, Lesley was withdrawing slowly and was on her phone more and more because she could interact with it. The television was really loud – I feared for the neighbours!
“Interacting with Lesley became really difficult. I’d say something and she wouldn’t hear me unless she was looking at me directly. I got used to talking to her in a really loud voice which sounded aggressive and that wasn’t good, especially when we were out in public, because it looked like I was shouting at her.
“As you start to withdraw your mind slows down. That’s what we were concerned about, we didn’t want to Lesley to withdraw completely.
“If people withdraw and become isolated it’s going to have a real impact on their mental health and risk of depression.
“And what I’ve noticed is that I’ve got Lesley back now that she is wearing hearing aids.”
The difference hearing aids have made:
Lesley says: “The first thing I noticed when I left the clinic in Kensington with my hearing aids was just how clear everything was.
“When I got home, I could hear the dishwasher – I didn’t know that it made a sound!
“In the garden, I could hear lots of birds and the rustling of the trees. I think I had forgotten how many sounds there are. It’s like a different world now.
Lesley and Dr Khan are now passionate about raising
awareness of the signs of hearing
loss and the benefits of
acting on them as early as possible.
Five years is a long time to not be living life to the
full because you can’t hear, and Lesley wants to help others with hearing loss
avoid the embarrassment and frustration she endured for so long.
If Lesley’s
experience of hearing loss sounds familiar, you can book your free hearing test today, just follow the link.
Or to get a general
idea of how well you can hear, why not try our online hearing test? It’s free, only takes a few minutes and
we’ll email you your results straight away.
Sources:
1World
report on hearing, World Health Organization, Geneva, 2021.
