Hearing Loss Help  

 by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

 A man asked:

I am enjoying my new Music Links, but I wonder whether they will work with a body-type of hearing aid? I am thinking of a body aid because it is more practical for what I’m doing, and besides, they are a lot cheaper than behind-the-ear hearing aids.

I was talking to a friend of mine that wears a body-style hearing aid. He told me that almost all body aids have t-coils AND direct audio input (DAI) jacks. This means that you could tape or clip the Music Links over the t-coil on the body aid and hear well. (He shoves them under the pocket clip on the aid itself.)

However, since they have the DAI jack, you’d be better off using a patch cord from your audio device to your hearing aid, and forget about using the t-coils and Music Links. (Just remember that the hearing aid jack is set at microphone level and the output of any audio devices is at line level (a much higher voltage relatively speaking)—so you need a special attenuator patch cord to reduce the line signal to the microphone level.)

He recommended that when looking for body aids, you make sure they have both a t-coil and a DAI jack. That way you keep your options open.

 by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

As Jim says,

Without my hearing aids, I’m deaf. With my hearing aids, I’m just confused!

 by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady wrote:

We just visited our ENT for my son’s biannual hearing test. My husband asked the doctor if he could do another cat scan. He told the doctor we wanted to make sure whether my son had LVAS or not because we want to fly. My doctor told us he has other patients with LVAS and most of the parents take their children on flights. So, to reassure us that it is perfectly fine for our son to fly, he told me I should join a support group and talk to other parents to see what their opinion is. Thus, I decided to join your Large Vestibular Aqueduct Syndrome (LVAS) list because the reality of not flying is starting to sink in.

Your doctor gave you good advice. Few doctors know much about LVAS, but there is a wealth of collective wisdom on the LVAS list.

Here are two rules of thumb.

1. If your child is not affected by rapid pressure changes—such as from driving up or down a mountain, or when a fast-moving high or low pressure weather system moves in, or diving down to 6 feet or so underwater, or blowing on a woodwind or brass musical instrument, then the chances of him having ear problems related to LVAS and flying are almost nil.

2. In order to know what will likely happen in the future, you have to look at your child’s past history. If none of the situations in rule 1 (above) apply, try a flight and see what happens. If he doesn’t have any problems, then you can likely fly to your heart’s content without any problems in the future.

A lot of kids with LVAS do indeed fly, and with no harmful side effects I might add.

We did an informal survey on our LVAS list some months ago. Nineteen people responded that they had flown with a child with LVAS. Of the 19 that have flown, only 2 experienced a hearing loss which may have been related to flying.

The first child lost her hearing 12 days after flying and experienced a permanent loss. The family was unable to identify another reason for her loss such as head trauma or a virus. However, this child had flown twice before with no apparent loss.

The second child was fine on the way to the destination, but suffered a loss on the way home after transferring planes (in a high altitude location—Denver—flying to a low altitude location—Seattle). She suffered a “vestibular attack” (i.e. eyes squeezed shut, wanting to lie prone, vomiting nonstop). An audiogram a week later indicated a drop of 15 dB. Prior to this trip her hearing was progressive in nature. This child had also flown prior to this incident with no apparent hearing loss.

As you can see, most kids with LVAS can fly with no hearing side effects, and even those that did experience side effects had flown before without any problems.

Thus, you do not need to unduly restrict your LVAS child from flying unless past history indicates it is not a wise choice.

If you would like to learn more about LVAS or join the LVAS on-line support group, go to http://www.hearinglosshelp.com/articles/lvas.htm.

 by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. 

 A lady wrote:

I had an incident yesterday trying to give blood. I was stunned when I was not allowed to give blood because I had marked (under previous surgeries) that I had a cochlear implant (CI). The head screener (an RN) argued with me that I didn’t know what I was talking about—any time someone has an organ or tissue implanted from a cadaver or live donor they can never again give blood. I explained that my implant was all man made, but she insisted that was impossible. She had never heard of it. Two supervisors (one an M.D.) got involved, and then one made a call to my surgeon and got the misconception cleared up. Incredibly, the staff running the drive just happened to be from my CI center hospital.

I know that a lot of the general public are in total ignorance about cochlear implants, but I find it incredibly hard to believe that so many of the medical community (doctors and nurses) are also still totally ignorant about cochlear implants. This major medical advance is not new. It has been around for almost 30 years!

 by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Supplements of folic acid may prevent age-related hearing loss in older men and women, says a new double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial from the Netherlands. (as reported in Health Truth Revealed, January 3, 2007, http://www.healthtruthrevealed.com/full-page.php?id=08491323508&&page=article).

Sounds wonderful and pretty authoritative, doesn’t it? Now we will be able to prevent hearing loss as we age. Wow!

However, let’s look at the study results before we get too carried away. Before the study, the average participant’s hearing loss in the low frequencies (0.5 to 2 kHz) was 11.7 dB. The average hearing loss in the high frequencies (4 to 8 kHz) was 34.2 dB.

What do you think the change was after the study—something significant, right? Hang on to your hats. The change in the low frequencies was a miniscule 0.7 dB (too little difference for the human ear even to detect) and absolutely no difference in the high frequencies. And this is supposed to be so wonderful?

You always have to discount the hype in news items and see what the results really mean before you get too excited by the latest research findings. Folic acid is definitely needed for a healthy body—just don’t expect it to preserve your hearing by itself, or you’ll be sadly disappointed.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

If your tinnitus is bothering you, maybe you should try Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). CBT is just a fancy way of saying that how you think about something reflects how you will react physically and emotionally to it.

Thousands of years ago, wise King Solomon wrote, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he (or so he becomes)” (Proverbs 23:7). This was true back in Solomon’s time, and it is just as true today. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that it is also just as true in regards to how we think about our tinnitus.

Although about 50 million Americans have tinnitus (I’m one of them), only about 12 million are bothered by it.

Why is it that roughly 75% of the people with tinnitus are not distressed by their tinnitus? Just as importantly, why is it that the other 25% are bothered by their tinnitus?

For most people with tinnitus,

after an initial stress reaction, they simply stop reacting to the same boring tinnitus sound and become largely unaware of their tinnitus for most of the time. This process is called habituation. It occurs naturally as long as the person regards the tinnitus as meaningless.

In contrast, generally the people who suffer from tinnitus perceive their tinnitus as a threat to their physical and mental well-being. Their thoughts

reflect despair, persecution, hopelessness, loss of enjoyment, a desire for peace and quiet and a belief that others do not understand. Other common themes are resentment about persistent tinnitus, a wish to escape it and worries about health and sanity.

They often complain of “feeling depressed, sad, irritated, anxious, frightened, panicky, agitated, angry or ashamed.” In addition, they may become restless or withdrawn; they can’t sleep and have difficulty functioning; they feel the need for antidepressants, sleeping pills or other tranquilizers.

You see, it is the psychological processes, not just the audiological ones, that make the real difference in whether or not a person habituates to their tinnitus, or is distressed by it.

Distress due to tinnitus involves a lot of worry, or overly negative thinking, and a high level of stress, anxiety or tension.

In fact, those that suffer from tinnitus often either get tinnitus in the first place, or notice their existing tinnitus getting worse during or after a period of high stress.

Furthermore, people who suffer from tinnitus think about it much more than people who have tinnitus but do not complain about it. Therefore, if you are constantly worrying about your tinnitus with thoughts such as:

I will have a nervous breakdown if this tinnitus keeps up

• I will ruin my physical health
• I won’t get any peace and quiet ever again
• I can’t enjoy my life now
• I can’t do normal things anymore
• I must avoid loud sounds and/or silence

don’t be surprised if these thoughts become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

All these negative thoughts increase your anxiety. This increased anxiety not only makes you tense, but also causes you to focus ever more narrowly on your tinnitus, which you perceive to be a threat to you. As a result, you begin to focus your attention on your tinnitus to the exclusion of other things. This makes your tinnitus seem much louder and more intrusive.

Therefore, if you are distressed by your tinnitus, probably the largest key to reducing that distress is changing how you think about your tinnitus.

If you carefully examine your thoughts and beliefs about tinnitus, you will realize that the above thoughts are obviously not true since the vast majority of people with tinnitus are not distressed by their tinnitus.

Tinnitus is important—not because it exists, but because of what you believe it does, or will do, to you. As we have seen, these ideas you harbor are seldom accurate. Thus, if you change these ideas, you change your reaction to your tinnitus. The result will be that it becomes less intrusive in your life.

That’s Cognitive Behavior Therapy in a nutshell. (Adapted from the article “Changing Reactions to Tinnitus” as reported in http://www.hearingreview.com/issues/articles/2007-08_01.asp?)

You can learn about Cognitive Behavior Therapy and many other ways to help yourself control your tinnitus in our book “When Your Ears Ring! Cope With Your Tinnitus—Here’s How“.

 by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. 

 A man asked:

What is the difference between the Music Links and the T-links other than the T-links have a built-in microphone and use a different sized plug?

The big difference is in how the plug is wired. The Music Links are wired exactly the same way stereo earbuds/earphones are wired—one channel to the tip, second channel to the ring and ground to the shank.

The T-Links, because of the microphone are wired with both ears to the tip, microphone to the ring (or vice versa, I don’t really know) and ground to the shank.

Thus, the Music Links work with all regular audio device jacks (3.5 mm), and they let you can hear in true stereo. The T-links only work properly in headset phone jacks (2.5 mm), and you hear dual mono.

If you used an adapter so you could plug the T-links into an audio jack, you’d hear one stereo channel in both ears and the other stereo channel would go to the microphone (which wouldn’t do it much good at all!)

As far as the ear hooks themselves go, they are exactly the same for both units.

You can see pictures and explanations of the Music Links and T- links at http://www.hearinglosshelp.com/products/earlinks.htm.

 by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

 Recently as I was surfing the web, I came across an audiological web site that blew my socks right off. This audiological practice provides an impressive array of services to hard of hearing people, but what really arrested my attention was that this particular audiology practice had an “Ototoxicity Monitoring Program,” something that I have been saying for years that audiologists need to implement, but until now I had never seen advertised on any audiologist’s website.

The thing that really got my attention was that they tested hearing right up to 20,000 Hz—the upper limit of human hearing. In contrast, conventional (normal) hearing testing is only done to 8,000 Hz. Thus, conventional hearing testing misses the early stages of hearing damage from drugs, which typically first occurs at the highest frequencies the person can hear.

By the time hearing loss has progressed down to 6,000 to 8,000 Hz where it can be detected by conventional audiological testing, it is much too late to do anything about preventing hearing loss. By that time, drugs have very likely permanently destroyed the person’s high-frequency hearing.

Upon seeing this website, I couldn’t let this pass, I just had to phone Dr. Lisa and find out more about her high-frequency hearing testing program and why she was doing it.

It turns out she used to work for a cancer clinic where she did high-frequency hearing testing to monitor the effects of the highly-ototoxic drugs given to cancer patients. Thus, she knows the importance of high-frequency hearing testing. Therefore, when she moved into private practice, she purchased an audiometer that could test the high frequencies and set up her own monitoring program.

Incidentally, for years, when I have talked to audiologists, they kept telling me that normal audiometers only test to 8,000 Hz. and that it requires special audiometers to test hearing to 20,000 Hz, and that such audiometers were not readily available. Well, I have news for them. Audiometers that test to 20,000 Hz are indeed readily available. The one Dr. Lisa uses is the Grason-Stadler GSI-61 audiometer. Hard of hearing reader, you might suggest to your own audiologist that they get one of these audiometers so they can monitor your high-frequency hearing.

Another unusual thing I noticed about her website that really pleased me was that she carries all sorts of assistive listening devices (ALDs). Few audiologists do this, so I needed to find out why she places such emphasis on ALDs. It turns out Dr. Lisa is hard of hearing herself, and well knows the value of such devices. In fact, her hearing got so bad that she now has a cochlear implant. So not only is she an audiologist, she is also one of us hard of hearing people at the same time.

Her Colorado Tinnitus and Hearing Center carries a wide selection of ALDs including “Amplified telephones; Cellular phone adaptors, Personal Infrared and FM Television amplifiers; Personal Pocket talkers; FM Systems for students; Sonic alarm clocks with bed vibrator; Door bell alerts and much more!”

If you live near Denver, Colorado you might want to stop by for your audiology needs. You can reach the Colorado Tinnitus and Hearing Center by phone at 303-534-0163, or visit their website at http://www.tinnitusandhearing.com/services2.asp.

 by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. 

 A lady wrote:

I’m interested in a service that provides text conversion for voice mail messages. What company provides this service?

The name of the service some hard of hearing people use to automatically transcribe and send text messages to their cell phones and computers is SimulScribe (www.simulscribe.com).

As one person explained,

If I’m out of the house and away from my CapTel phone, I can access and understand my voice messages. Very easy and very simple—well worth the $10/month in my opinion. It’s very popular with the hearing world also and was highly recommended by the Wall Street Journal’s tech guru Walter Mossberg. It’s just another tool I use to cut down on the stress of phone use.

So there you have it. If you are interested in such a service, you might want to give SimulScribe a try.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady wrote:

I was diagnosed last year with a mild reverse-slope hearing loss. Since then it has not worsened much—just slightly. My question is: can this type of hearing loss fluctuate? There are days when I hear just fine. Other days I am constantly asking people to repeat themselves. I have trouble mainly with male voices. I am 46, and hearing loss runs in my family.

There are a few reasons for a fluctuating hearing loss. Perhaps the most common one is from colds or allergies. For example, people with stuffed ears/head colds/allergies can have fluctuating hearing depending on just how stuffed their ears are on any given day.

Also, people with Meniere’s disease do have fluctuating hearing losses. Often Meniere’s disease begins with a mild to moderate reverse-slope loss. If you have Meniere’s disease, you should also be experiencing dizziness/vertigo and tinnitus as well as the fluctuating hearing loss.

Another possibility is if you have large vestibular aqueduct syndrome (LVAS). Such people are also prone to fluctuating hearing loss—it often comes with mild head trauma or rapid pressure changes. However, in my experience, people with LVAS don’t seem to have reverse-slope losses.