Hearing Loss Help  

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

If you have diabetes, you are twice as likely to develop hearing loss as you would be if you’d not had diabetes according to Catherine Cowie, PhD, the director of the diabetes epidemiology program at the National Institutes of Health.

Hearing loss from diabetes affects all speech frequencies, but is more pronounced in the higher frequencies. For example, in her study, Dr. Cowie found that 32% of diabetics had low-frequency hearing loss (15% for non-diabetics), while 57% of diabetics had high-frequency hearing loss (36% for non-diabetics).

This increased hearing loss could be the result of either changes in the circulatory system resulting in less blood flow to the peripheral blood vessels (which includes the tiny arteries in the inner ear), or changes in the nervous system—typically death to some nerve endings (which also includes the hair cells [technically the auditory nerve endings] in the inner ear).

Therefore, if you have diabetes, it sure wouldn’t hurt to have regular audiograms done every year or two so you can keep tabs on your hearing. If you are losing significant hearing, then you can get hearing aids before hearing loss sneaks up on you and negatively impacts your life.

(Extracted from: Diabetes and Hearing Impairment: Audiometric Evidence From the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999-2004. Abstract 991-P).

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Strange as it may seem, some children are born deaf, but “regain” their hearing a few months later without medical intervention according to Dr. Joseph Attias at the University of Haifa in Israel.

Amir Gilat, in his report “Some children are born with ‘temporary deafness’ and do not require cochlear implant,” explains:

There are two causes of congenital deafness among children. One is the lack of hair cells that activate the auditory nerve. The second cause is a malfunction of the nerve itself. A child may be born with what appears to be a normal inner ear, but the hair cells do not “communicate” with the auditory nerve and the child cannot hear.

Typically, doctors recommend that deaf children receive a cochlear implant as soon as possible so language develops normally. However, for those children with this kind of “temporary deafness” a cochlear implant is totally unnecessary as their hearing may return to normal over a period of 17 months or so.

According to Dr. Attias:

Because children typically go through a series of tests and evaluations by different doctors, a process that often takes months, there are cases of children who were initially referred for a cochlear implant who didn’t have it done because their hearing comes back.

For example, Dr Attias said:

I called parents and found seven cases of children who were diagnosed as deaf, did not have a cochlear implant, and began to hear.

Gilat continues:

Dr. Attias then found five more children who had been referred to him for pre-operative testing who had begun to hear in the meantime. By the end of his clinical research, he had identified a “window of opportunity” of 17 months during which deaf children may begin to hear.

Dr. Attias cautions:

A child whose deafness is caused by a malfunctioning connection between hair cells and the auditory nerve should nothave a cochlear implant in the first 17 months of life. Research results show the possibility that at least some of these children undergo the procedure for nothing.

Since a cochlear implant does not give normal hearing, such children would actually end up with worse hearing than if they had not received a cochlear implant. Therefore, the trend to implant children as young as 8 months or so would not give enough time to evaluate whether their hearing might “come back” on its own.

Interestingly enough, some children only develop partial hearing rather than normal hearing. Since they are hard of hearing, these children can be fitted with hearing aids rather than having a cochlear implant. Gilat concludes, “Dr. Attias is now researching ‘temporary deafness’ among young children, looking to find a way to identify those who will recover and those who will not.”

As a result of this research, if you have a child that is diagnosed as deaf at birth, you might want to have hearing testing done for a number of months to see whether any hearing is showing up before you opt for a cochlear implant for your child.

Reference: Eurekalert May 16, 2007 http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-05/uoh-sca051607.php.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Sudden hearing loss is a medical emergency. That is not in doubt. What is in doubt is how doctors should best treat sudden hearing loss.

Treatment for sudden hearing loss currently includes steroids, antiviral medications, vasodilators, hyperbaric oxygen, and to a lesser extent, vitamins, minerals and herbs, Some ear specialists choose not to treat Sudden Hearing Loss at all—citing spontaneous recovery rates of between 32% and 70%. However, giving steroids such as Prednisone is by far the most popular treatment.

So what’s the problem? The shocking truth is that there is little scientific evidence that supports the use of Prednisone, or any other treatment for that matter, according to an analysis of 21 random studies done on Sudden Hearing Loss over the past 40 years according to researchers Drs. Anne Conlin and Lorne Parnes in Ontario, Canada.

In the studies they analyzed, the doctors found positive results reported for systemic steroids (pills), intratympanic steroids (injected through the eardrum), batroxobin (an anti-clotting agent), magnesium, vitamin E and hyperbaric oxygen. However, they also found serious limitations in each study that had a positive finding, thus throwing these results in doubt.

Drs. Conlin and Parnes wrote: “To our knowledge, no valid randomized controlled trial exists to determine effective treatment of sudden sensorineural hearing loss.” In other words, there is no proof that any treatment really works.

For example, after pooling the data that compared steroids with placebos, the results showed no difference between treatment groups, In addition, there was no difference in the results between people treated with antivirals plus steroids vs. those treated with placebos plus steroids. Nor was there any difference in the results between people treated with steroids vs. people treated with any other active treatment.

The authors conclude, “At present, sudden sensorineural hearing loss remains a medical emergency without a scientific understanding of its cause or a rational approach to its treatment.”

Therefore, until studies are done which prove what treatments (if any) are effective, you may be just as far ahead to do nothing and let nature take its course. The odds are good that your hearing will come back—at least partially, but if it doesn’t, the treatments your doctor would prescribe likely wouldn’t help you much either.

The problem is in knowing whether hearing came back because of the medical treatment, or in spite of it. The tendency is to think it was because of the treatment, but this apparently is not a good assumption at all.

However, if you feel you want to take the “shotgun approach” and try any or all the treatments in hopes that one will work for you, go right ahead. That is your prerogative. Just don’t expect miracles as there are still far too many unknowns about the effectiveness of any current treatments for Sudden Hearing Loss.

Extracted from the Archives of Otolaryngology: Head & Neck Surgery (Vol. 133, No 6, 573-581 and 582-586).