Invisible aid has patients cheering 'hear, hear'

Palo Alto Daily News (MCT) - In her years as co-owner of San Mateo's California Hearing Center, audiologist Teresa Clark has seen some whizz-bang innovations in hearing aid technology.

For instance, the Oticon Epoq, released last year, uses wireless connectivity to allow two hearing aids to communicate with each other, and it can even stream music or phone calls directly into the user's ear.

But a new hearing device that is being rolled out at her center and one in Palo Alto, along with a few dozen other outlets around the nation, represents a more fundamental revolution, Clark said. The opposite of flashy, the tiny Lyric hearing aid is invisible, buried deep in the ear canal _ and it can stay there around the clock, for months at a time.

"It basically gives you 24/7 hearing," she said. Because it eliminates two of the biggest concerns about hearing aids _ cosmetics and convenience _ it's attracting customers who have resisted hearing correction for years.

A message to the center's e-mail list about the Lyric last month has drawn more than 100 calls from potential customers, Clark said. And in Palo Alto, owner Mark Sanford said business at his CSG Better Hearing Center is up 50 percent this year, thanks in large part to the Lyric.

"It has certainly changed my business," Sanford said. "There's just nothing like it."

The Lyric was in development for seven years before being released by InSound Medical Inc., a Newark-based company, said Susan Whichard, vice president of marketing. Its founder, Adnan Shennib, worked at Redwood City-based ReSound Corp. before starting his new venture with the help of UC-San Francisco professor Robert Schindler.

Peninsula residents are among the first to try the Lyric because the Bay Area is one of four regional markets where the company is promoting and honing the product before taking it nationwide, Whichard said. Clark's office and Sanford's office are among 55 selling the Lyric right now, a number the company hopes to expand to 100 by year's end.

It's not cheap. Clark said most of her hearing aids sell for about $2,400 to $7,500 a pair and last for four to six years. The Lyric, on the other hand, is sold on a subscription model, with users paying $3,300 a year, and lasts about three months depending on battery life. The subscription covers replacements.

It's also not for everyone. It fits in the ears of just half the population, though the company is hoping a new model yet to be released will fit 85 percent. And Clark said some customers don't like the idea of having anything deep in their ear, even though most people don't feel it after a few days.

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"You have to think about it in a different way" from traditional hearing aids, Clark said. "It's really a new thing."

Ron Hiskes, 67, a retired Hewlett-Packard laboratory manager who lives in Palo Alto, grappled at first with the transition to the Lyric.

First, it felt too big and irritated his ears. Then, a smaller size proved too small, creating whistling sounds in his ear. He went back to the original size and it finally fit, but then it got damaged by water in the shower. (The company says the Lyric usually has no problems in the shower, though it's not recommended for avid swimmers.)

"I was almost ready to give them up," Hiskes said, when he finally got a pair that worked for him in every way. Then, the difference was stunning.

"I've been using hearing aids for a number of years, and I've tried to keep up with the state of the art," he said. "When I got the Lyric, it was just like night and day."

Not only was the sound much clearer, because the aid is so close to the eardrum, but Hiskes suddenly found himself able to do things he couldn't before.

He could talk on the phone naturally, something that's difficult with normal hearing aids. He could listen to music on headphones. And he eliminated from his life the daily hassle of putting his hearing aids in and taking them out.

That's a change that retired Raychem executive Bob Saldich of Palo Alto really appreciates.

"With a regular hearing aid, you take them out when you sleep," Saldich said. "So when your wife says something at night, you really have more trouble hearing her than you normally do. I had to get my ear right up in her face and make her repeat it."

Because the Lyric stays in the ear, Saldich said, "I can listen to her opinion without getting grumped at."

Such everyday revelations are common among people who switch to the Lyric, said Sanford, who owns a total of four CSG Better Hearing Centers in the Bay Area.

"I've had more patients cry in 10 months than I've had in 22 years previous" as an audiologist, he said. "I had this burly policeman come in who'd been struggling with hearing loss, and his wife's with him. We put (the Lyric) in and turn it on, and she comes back and sits down.

"She says, 'Well honey, how's it sound to you?' He just starts bawling like a 3-year-old that scraped their knee. He just couldn't believe he could hear his wife like that. He hadn't heard her like that for 20 years."

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Clark of the California Hearing Center said the thing that most excites her is the Lyric's appeal to younger customers who have been in denial about their hearing problems because they fear the stigma of a visible hearing aid.

"Often they're suffering a lot more than they let on," she said. "In many cases it starts to interfere with their employment. If we can get more people to come in and avail themselves of our services, they're going to be much more comfortable" even if it turns out the Lyric doesn't work for them.

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© 2008, The Palo Alto Daily News (Palo Alto, Calif.)