Hearing Loss Help  

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lot of people think that t-coils and loop systems are a relatively new invention. I’ll bet you’ll never guess just how long t-coils have been available in hearing aids.

If you’re like most people, you probably guessed some time in the 1970s or 1980s. If you guessed that, you’d be way off base. In actual fact, the first hearing aid to have a t-coil was a vacuum tube table model that Tel-Audio came out with back in 1936!

Two years later, in 1938, Multitone of Great Britain produced their model VPM (vest-pocket model)—the first wearable hearing aid with a t-coil. Here in the USA, it took until 1946 before RadioEar produced their Multipower “Phonemaster”, the first American hearing aid with a t-coil. Since the 1950s, t-coils have been standard features on a number of hearing aids.

As some of you may know, I am the owner of the largest on-line hearing aid museum in the world.

Recently the museum acquired a Sonotone Model 200 transistorized body-style hearing aid made in 1956 with a built-in t-coil. That is nothing unique. But what was unique is that it came with a small loop pad that you could hook up to your TV and so listen to your TV via this loop pad. (I’m not aware of any other of these loop pads still in existence!)

You hooked the loop pad to your TV by simply clipping two alligator clips to the TV’s speaker wires. Then you set the loop pad down beside you and placed the body of your hearing aid on the loop pad and turned the mic/t-coil switch to the t-coil position.

If you’d like to see this Sonotone 200 hearing aid set on the loop pad, it is shown on the 11th picture down. Cool isn’t it? (For more information on this loop pad, click on the “Sonotone Miniature Loop Pad” link beside this picture.)

Compare this antique loop pad to a modern loop pad that is in use today. (Scroll down to the 4th picture.)

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady explained:

Our condo has high ceilings and a wood and tile floor. The reverberation makes it really difficult to hear. Do you have any ideas for improving this situation?

Reverberation is caused by all the hard surfaces in your condo. The obvious solution to dampen such reverberations is to soften the surfaces. You can do this by using throw and area rugs on the wooden floors, use sound deadening draperies, use lots of upholstered (cloth-covered, not plastic or leather) furniture. All these things will break up and deaden reverberations so you can converse better with people.

If you own your own place, you could use acoustic tile on your ceilings to absorb sounds and prevent reverberation.

In addition to doing the above things to lessen reverberation you need to practice effective hearing loss coping strategies. One of these is to get close to the person you are talking to. Reverberation becomes more and more noticeable the greater the distance you are from the person you are trying to hear.

Another effective strategy for hearing your TV, radio or stereo when reverberation is a problem is to use assistive technology. For example, use a room loop or an FM system to pipe the sound from your TV right to your ears, totally bypassing the reverberation in the room.

To learn more about the wonders of room loop systems read “Loop Systems—The Best-Kept Secret in Town“

 by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man wrote:

I have extreme sensitivity in my hearing and some distortion as well. My ears buzz slightly to my own voice and others that have a deep tone in their voice. I believe this was sound-induced from my iPod and loud video gaming with head phones. My hearing is good except most everything with a high frequency hurts my ears and causes me distress. I have had this for a month and a half. Do you think it is permanent?

I think your extreme sensitivity to high frequency sounds will slowly go away if you protect your ears from louder sounds from now on. It may never completely go away, but it should be a lot better given enough time.

Very often exposing your ears to loud sounds results in damage to your ears such that you now perceive some sounds as being much too loud—in your case, the high-frequency sounds. This is called hyperacusis.

The problem can result from just one loud sound, but the “fix” often takes several months. It is generally a slow process. Think of it like a sprain—you get it in one sudden wrench—but healing takes weeks or months—slowly getting better. However, if during this time, if you wrench it again, you have to start all over again.

Your ears are the same way. That is why you must be so careful not to expose your ears to those damaging levels of sound again. Wear ear protectors in such situations if you can’t turn the sound down.

At the same time, don’t overprotect your ears by wearing ear protectors all the time, or you can make the situation even worse. I can’t emphasize this enough. Your ears need adequate sounds reaching them all the time to keep your hyperacusis under control—just not too loud.

 by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A concerned mother wrote:

Our daughter, aged 25, has been on Wellbutrin for about 3 years now. There were problems with getting the right dosage so the psychiatrist added Desipramine 10 mg about 2 years ago and this was upped to 25 and then 50 mg about 1 year ago. She has also been on Zopiclone 7.5 mg for 3 years or so.

Suddenly over the past year she has had progressively worse hearing problems. She has been seen by hearing specialists who are now trying to determine the cause by trial and error. The concern is that this is not a normal type of hearing loss, but rather “reverse slope hearing loss”. She has seen an immunologist and neurologist, received a CT scan and her blood work and all appears OK. She is now awaiting an MRI as the next step.

She had no hearing problems prior to the last year. It seems odd that this coincides somewhat with the increase in the dosage of the Desipramine. Neither her psychiatrist nor the other specialists feel that the drugs should create any hearing problems. We have our suspicions that they may be missing something. What are your thoughts.

Most drug-induced hearing loss typically begins in the very high frequencies and works down the frequency spectrum to the lower ones (below 8,000 Hz) where it is finally detected.

Thus I can see why her doctors are at a loss to explain her reverse-slope hearing loss as being drug-induced. However, a few drugs are known to initially cause hearing loss in the lower frequencies. As far as I know, the drugs your daughter is on have not been reported to have this side effect.

Bupropion (Wellbutrin) can cause auditory disorders including hearing loss and tinnitus as well as balance problems such as ataxia, dizziness and vertigo.

In addition, I have an anecdotal report of a lady on Bupropion that noticed the longer she took it, the more hearing she lost. This may now be happening in your daughter’s case as well.

Desipramine can cause tinnitus and hyperacusis (and balance problems such as ataxia and dizziness), but it is not listed as causing hearing loss. Therefore, on the face of it, upping the dose of Desipramine shouldn’t have affected her hearing.

However, sometimes low doses don’t cause a specific side effect such as hearing loss, but higher doses do. Many times, this kind of information never makes it into the literature if it is only noticed after the drug studies have been completed. I’ve seen this a number of times. Thus, this could be a possibility.

Zopiclone is not known to affect hearing, but it can affect balance (ataxia and dizziness).

Another possibility, is that the combination of Bupropion and the higher dose of Desipramine together may have caused the hearing loss. Unfortunately, little is really known about the ototoxicity of these drugs individually. Dramatically less is known about how they affect ears when taken together.

My guess is that if her hearing loss is drug-related, it is likely from both the long term effects of the Bupropion and the increased dose of Desipramine.

One way to test this would be for her doctor to put her back on her original dose of Desipramine and see if her hearing returns (or stops getting worse). If that is the case, this would prove that Desipramine was the culprit (even though the literature doesn’t list hearing loss as a side effect).

Getting off Bupropion wouldn’t be a bad idea either (from her ears point of view). Perhaps her doctor could prescribe a different drug that doesn’t have the harmful ototoxic side effects of Bupropion.

To learn which drugs and herbs are (or can be) ototoxic, see “Ototoxic Drugs Exposed“. This book contains information on the ototoxicity of 763 drugs, 30 herbs and 148 chemicals.