TV star Susannah Constantine has shared a devastating diagnosis, as well as the treatment that has changed her life.
The BBC What Not to Wear star and author noticed changes earlier this year, though she now thinks the problem could have been going on for some eighteen months. Susannah, 60, told the Mirror: “The penny didn’t really drop until spring.
“I live in the countryside, birdsong is something I’ve always loved and found very comforting. I was sitting in a big barrel of water doing my cold water immersion, listening to the birds, thinking, ‘There’s a mistle thrush and there’s a… why aren’t I hearing it?’
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“It was a cacophony of noise without the clarity and differentiation. That’s when I realised. Well, that coupled with my children [Joe, 23, Esme, 21 and Cece, 18] calling me deaf and getting really frustrated with me.”
Social situations had become a struggle for Susannah. She said: "I’d become an amateur lip reader, but if I couldn’t see someone’s face, I had no idea what they were saying. It was embarrassing.”
Susannah, who lives in Handcross in West Sussex with her husband Sten Bertelsen, admits she’d always dreaded needing help for age-related hearing loss. She added: "I won’t lie, I did feel ashamed in a way. There are lots of young kids who have hearing disorders, which is obviously completely different.
“For me, it’s always been one of the greatest physical signs of ageing, like wrinkles and dentures. There can be a huge stigma around wearing hearing aids, I felt like I might as well go to the funeral director and order my coffin, it made me feel so old.”
But instead, Susannah booked a hearing test at Boots, which found years of wear and tear had left Susannah in need of a hearing aid.
She said: “I’ve listened to music on headphones for decades. When I write, one of the things I do is listen to music very loudly, on full volume. My children screaming at me hasn’t helped either…”
Her hearing aids arrived quickly and she describes them as “transformative”. She added: “There are loads of amazing brands out there, mine are by Phonak and worn over the ear – they’re so comfortable. The technology is like something from NASA, so rock and roll, it blew me away.
“They can adapt them remotely, you can swim in them, put your head underwater, even wash your hair as long as you’re careful not to knock them off. They’re Bluetooth and connect to my phone so I can listen to music and calls, although I will say the music isn’t as good as it was through headphones. The difference is so subtle, you don’t put them on and suddenly find everything is amplified, but my eldest daughter says my hearing improved massively.”
Susannah is now urging anyone who struggles with hearing to get tested. The TV personality said: “A lot of my mother’s friends refuse to do it for the same reasons I did. Even though they’re 10, 20, 30 years older than I am, there’s still that stigma. And they do feel isolated.
“What I found is, saying, ‘What? Excuse me?’ all the time can feel so ageing. When you hear with crystal clarity, it makes you feel younger. It’s kind of liberating."
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