Fiona and her husband started their own farm in 2004 after years of working for other farmers. Their cattle run on the New Forest and the best way for Fiona to check them is to hack across the Forest on her pony.
After being in denial about her hearing loss for years, Fiona finally took action and made an appointment at her local Hidden Hearing clinic in Bournemouth. Audiologist Paul Richards fitted Fiona with the latest Oticon Intent™ hearing aids, and she hasn’t looked back since.
This is her story.
The impact of hearing loss and hearing aids at work
“I was concerned about how my hearing aids would cope because I’m out in all weathers, but I’ve had no problems at all. I ride a lot – I ride my pony at least five days a week across the Forest – and I think people like me who are active outdoors might be put off from wearing hearing aids, but there’s really no disadvantage at all, only enhancement.
“If I don’t wear them on the farm I don’t hear things properly around me, like the animals moving behind me. It’s not a comfortable place to be and yet previously I thought it would be uncomfortable to wear hearing aids.
“In my off-farm work, as a vet’s receptionist, not being able to hear people properly when they spoke to me was a problem. I’d try to lip read because there are only so many times you can say, ‘Could you repeat that, please?’ And there’s a lot of telephone work, too, on reception and my hearing aids have made a huge difference.
”If younger people with hearing loss who don’t think twice about wearing ear bud headphones realised how modern hearing aids can help with hearing sound from your phone, TV and computers it would help to lift some of the reluctance to try them.”
Fiona Gover describes her hearing aids as “pure enhancement”.
The social impact of hearing loss
“Before wearing hearing aids, I avoided large gatherings where there were too many people speaking because that wasn’t comfortable.
“My father was deaf – it may have been war-related – and he was very unsociable, which I didn’t understand as a child. Now I have complete sympathy because if you don’t hear people, there are only so many times you can say ‘could you repeat that?’ without feeling a nuisance and self-conscious, and so he just preferred not to do things.
Overcoming stigma
“It’s such as shame that some people feel a stigma around wearing hearing aids because it makes such a big difference to your life, it really does. There are such good hearing aids available now, gone are the days of aids that don’t work very well or make funny noises, technology has really moved on; we’re so lucky. Not to take advantage of it means missing out on life.
“It is important to try hearing aids because, once you’ve lost something you don’t realise how much you’ve lost until that door is reopened. Because hearing loss is such a gradual thing, it creeps up on you. You have no comprehension of how serious the problem is and that you are ‘shut down’. That’s a term we use for animals when they are depressed and retract into themselves and it’s what happens to people when they can’t hear.”
The link between hearing loss and cognitive health
“I had heard about the link between hearing loss and developing dementia1 as one of the reasons you should wear hearing aids. But until you experience the difference wearing aids makes to your brain, you are completely unaware of how you shut down when you can’t hear. You’re only half alive.
“The brain connection is such an important point to get over to people. It’s very hard to describe without experiencing it.
“Wearing hearing aids isn’t just about hearing better. It’s your whole body and your brain function that’s affected. It’s so far reaching. Which is why it’s such a shame when people are like I was, living in denial, because hearing aids absolutely enrich your life.
“I’m now a real advocate for wearing them. I put my ‘ears’ in at six in the morning and they don’t come out until 10 o’clock at night when I go to bed. And until I put them in, it’s like I’m only half here. When I put them in, it’s like my brain wakes up.”
Fiona’s hearing loss advice for over-50s
“You don’t understand the huge impact hearing loss can have on your well-being.”
“Hearing aids absolutely enrich my life and I would urge anyone who's experiencing hearing loss to love their ears and take control.”
If Fiona’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.
1G. Livingston, J. Huntley, K. Y. Liu et al “Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission”
