Hearing Loss Help  

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady explained:

In my townhouse, I have an interconnected smoke alarm system that is powered, and which also uses 9-volt batteries. In the master bedroom on the third floor, the vaulted ceiling on which the smoke alarm is placed is very high, so it would require a tall ladder to change the battery. It’s thus a hassle to change the battery for that alarm. I’d like to get a very long-lasting 9-volt battery to put there so it won’t have to be changed as frequently. Got any ideas?

I would suggest getting a 10-year Lithium smoke alarm battery for the smoke detector on your vaulted ceiling, and maybe doing the same for the rest of your smoke detectors as well, while you’re at it!

Needless to say, it’s still important to regularly check for the low-battery alert since any battery can fail prematurely!

The Ultralife 10 year lithium UltraLife battery from batteries plus.com is $7.29.

The Ultralife 10 year lithium Smoke Detector battery from Amazon.com is $5.80. Just go to Amazon and in the search box type “Ultralife upvl”

Important: be sure the battery you are getting is listed for use in smoke detectors.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Musical Ear Syndrome (MES) is a condition where a person hears phantom, non-tinnitus sounds—typically music, singing, voices or other sounds.

Although it is quite common, especially among people with hearing loss, few people openly talk about it for fear of being thought crazy.

The good news is that Musical Ear Syndrome is not a psychiatric condition, but rather something not working quite right in the auditory system. In other words, yes you can hear phantom sounds; but no, you are not crazy.

I have been studying MES for several years, and have written several articles and a book on the subject based on the hundreds and hundreds of people that contact me for help.

Unfortunately, medical doctors do not recognize Musical Ear Syndrome as a “real” condition, and many even tell their patients that there is no such thing as MES. This needs to change.

As a result, I have teamed up with Dr. Richard McCollum, a psychiatrist, to study MES in greater detail with a view to having it become a valid medical diagnosis. When this is done, people suffering from MES will hopefully be correctly diagnosed and treated, rather than being thought “crazy” and being drugged with anti-psychotic medications as so often happens now.

To help us in our further research, we would like to hear more stories of your experiences with MES. Therefore, if you “hear” sounds that no one else hears, please fill out our survey form at the bottom of my article “Musical Ear Syndrome“. It will help us to help others with Musical Ear Syndrome.

In the meantime, if you have Musical Ear Syndrome, my book, “Phantom Voices, Ethereal Music & Other Spooky Sounds” explains what Musical Ear Syndrome is, and what you can do to help bring it under control.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

In the USA in 2006, there were 412,500 home fires that killed 2,580 people and injured another 12,925 people. That’s scary! On the average, these same fires killed one person with hearing loss every 15 hours, and injured a person with hearing loss every 3 hours. That’s really scary if you are one of the 70 million Americans with hearing loss!

You don’t have to become one of those statistics. Although having a hearing loss puts you at a decided disadvantage when using standard alerting devices to warn you of fires, you can put the odds decidedly in your favor if you follow these four basic steps…

Thus begins my latest article “Fire Safety for People with Hearing Loss“. Click this link to read the rest of this article.

This article explains a number of practical coping strategies for preventing fires from happening in your home and discusses wonderful new alerting systems to quickly get your attention—even if you have a hearing loss—if a fire should happen to break out.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

From time to time the news media reports that scientists have identified yet another gene that causes deafness, and always there is the statement that this will help end hearing loss, as though a cure for hearing loss was right around the corner.

Here’s an example of one that just came out, “Scripps research scientists identify genetic cause for type of deafness. Discovery could lead to new therapies for progressive hearing loss.”

The article begins: “A team led by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute has discovered a genetic cause of progressive hearing loss. The findings will help scientists better understand the nature of age-related decline in hearing and may lead to new therapies to prevent or treat the condition.

The findings were published September 3, 2009, in an advance, online issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, a publication of Cell Press.”

This release is like many before it—sounds good, but promises little. However, this article contains an interesting gem of information. A bit further down it states, “It is thought that mutations in several hundred genes can lead to deafness,” said team leader Ulrich Mueller, a professor in the Department of Cell Biology and member of the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at Scripps Research. “However, for many forms of deafness, we don’t know what effects the genes have.”

The truth is, hearing loss is a complex condition. There are not just one or two or even a few genes associated with hearing loss, but hundreds of genes and combinations of genes. At present, scientists are nowhere near close to identifying all these numerous gene combinations, let alone understanding how they cause deafness, or how they can use this information to reverse or prevent hearing loss in the future.

I’m glad researchers are busy investigating the many genetic causes of hearing loss. Every little discovery is a step in the right direction, and I’m all for it. However, just don’t hold your breath believing that a cure for your hearing loss is going to be forthcoming any time soon.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A veteran asked:

I have a hearing loss now. In my earlier years after finishing High School I joined the Navy. I spent most of my 4 years in the Navy in an engine room aboard a ship. After the Navy, I spent most of my working life in situations that did not expose me to any excessive noise. I am now in my senior years, and for the last 15 years have noticed a hearing problem. Could the years in the engine room be a possible cause for my hearing loss?

Look at it this way—your years in the engine room probably caused some hearing loss back then, but probably not enough that you or anyone noticed, but it “used up your reserve” so to speak so that when other contributing factors began affecting your hearing, it didn’t take much to make the hearing loss obvious.

There are lots of likely contributing factors besides your navy stint. Here are a few of the more common ones.

1. The loud sounds your ears are exposed to in daily life. For example, traffic, sirens, horns honking, loud music at parties and receptions, lawnmowers, chainsaws, snowmobiles, motorcycles, shooting guns, and so on over time all take their toll on your ears.

2. All the drugs and medications you have taken over the years (assuming you have). There are hundreds of drugs that can cause hearing loss. As you get older, typically you take more and more drugs. Their combined effect can result in increasing hearing loss.

3. Simply getting older negatively affects our ears and hearing.

4. The cumulative effects of our lifestyles affects hearing. For example, when our arteries get clogged up, less oxygen gets to our inner ears and the result is loss of some hearing acuity.

5. Smoking and drinking can, and do, cause hearing loss in some people.

These are just 5 possible factors—but you can see that a little bit of hearing loss here from one cause, and a bit there from another cause, added up over a lifetime results in major hearing loss. No doubt, your initial hearing loss began in the navy, but your hearing loss continued throughout your life from other causes. Now that you are a senior, you really notice how bad your hearing has gotten. It’s not fair to place the blame solely on any one factor because that is not how things typically work in real life.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady asked:

Have you heard about potassium gluconate having ototoxic effects? I have been diagnosed with Meniere’s Disease. My ENT put me on a diuretic and a daily dose of 550 mg of potassium gluconate, Almost as soon as I started on it, my tinnitus started to roar and I was hearing very little. I experienced slight to severe vertigo at least two out of every three days during that time. When I stopped taking the potassium gluconate, I noticed an improvement in my tinnitus after only one day. After 2-3 days it was back to its familiar hiss. The vertigo stopped completely the first day, and has not come back in the week I have been off the potassium gluconate. Also, my hearing rebounded almost back to normal in the week I have been off the potassium, but an audiogram confirmed I have lost a bit more hearing. My ENT doesn’t think there’s a connection. Do you know if there is any evidence beyond my anecdotal experience that potassium gluconate could be the cause?

This same lady, a few weeks later, wrote,

I recently decided (again) that it was time to lose weight, and though I’d use SlimFast to get a jump start on it. I immediately experienced extreme tinnitus and hearing loss. When I checked the label, I found that it is high in potassium—in fact it contains 550 mg—the same amount I was taking in the supplement that caused me trouble before. I stopped the SlimFast and the problems decreased again. I have not gotten back to where I was before the 30 days on potassium, but at least it’s no longer getting worse.

One reference says that taking potassium gluconate can cause ringing in the ears (tinnitus) and sudden hearing loss so obviously you are not alone. (1)

Also, in the same article it explains “Potassium gluconate can decrease blood flow to the optic nerve of the eye, causing sudden vision loss.”

If potassium gluconate can do this to our eyes, it seems likely that it also does the same to the tiny arteries in our inner ears. This would starve the hair cells of oxygen, causing them to be “sick” (to use a fancy medical term). The result could be instant tinnitus and a temporary sudden hearing loss, as well as balance problems such as vertigo when taking potassium gluconate in higher doses.

When you stop taking potassium gluconate, inner-ear blood flow (hopefully) returns to normal. As a result, some/all hearing returns and the tinnitus goes away or decreases. However, this is only true if the hair cells were “sick” from lack of oxygen. If they actually died (and some may die) then you would be left with some degree of permanent hearing loss. I think the longer you take this medication, the weaker the hair cells become and some begin to die—thus resulting in permanent hearing loss. That is why the sooner you stop taking the drug, the better your chances are for near-normal recovery.

Adequate potassium intake is necessary to a healthy body. However, it seems that the potassium dose you were taking was too high for you. From what I can gather, 500 mg a day is about the safe upper limit. After that, ear damage can begin. A more conservative dose is 100 mg, 3 times a day as the maximum.

You may find you can take potassium gluconate, but at a lower dose. It is something you might want to try if you think the potassium gluconate was helping your body (apart from your ears).

In any case, whenever your tinnitus suddenly increases when you start taking a drug, consider it a warning that the drug is causing ear damage at that dose. You need to pay attention to that warning before other ear damage also becomes apparent. Either reduce the dose or stop taking the drug, but run this by your doctor first of course.

(1) Potassium gluconate.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Did you know that loud music can blow out your lungs? It’s true. I recently came across a scary news item entitled “Loud music lung collapse warning” (1). It explains the cases of 4 young men that literally blew their lungs apart from being too close to big loudspeakers when they were playing loud music.

One man was driving around in his boom box car—with a 1,000 watt “bass box”. Another man was standing next to a loudspeaker in a club. A third man was standing near several large loudspeakers while attending a pop concert. The fourth man blew out his lungs, not just once, but several times, while attending heavy metal concerts. (Talk about a slow learner!) These are just a few of the many people that have damaged their lungs from being too close to loudspeakers.

These four men suffered what is called a “pneumothorax” or “collapsed lung” in lay terms. A pneumothorax is when air gets into the space between the lungs and the membrane that covers them when breaks occur in the lung walls. Doctors think that the intense pulses of low-frequency, high-energy sound causes the lungs to rupture.

Since these loud sound waves are bursting people’s lungs, imagine the damage they are doing to the sensitive structures in their ears. These people are foolishly sentencing themselves to a lifetime of unrelenting tinnitus, and ever-increasing hearing loss.

Unfortunately, they don’t seem to care because they are clueless, or think they are invincible.

Don’t be like them. As a minimum, when in places where loud music is played, keep well back from the big loudspeakers and wear ear protectors. It’s that important to your physical and aural health!

(1) Loud music lung collapse warning. BBC News. August 31, 2004.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady wrote:

I know a stereo plug has two rings, and a mono plug only one. That is easy to see, but, how do you know whether the device you are plugging into has a stereo or mono jack?

One manufacturer of assistive devices says in their instructions, “do not plug a stereo plug into this device, because it will damage the product” (or something like that). Not all devices come with adequate instructions (and in some cases, no instructions). Also, some instructions that are translated from another language into English can leave you scratching your head as to what they mean.

As you know, you can’t tell just by looking at a jack whether it is made for a mono or stereo plug. The easy way to tell is, if ear buds (for example) come with it, I check the plug on them, and if it is a mono plug, then the jack will almost certainly be mono as well. The same for stereo plugs and jacks.

Since you can’t tell by looking, and its easy to forget later whether the jack was mono or stereo, what I do with my assistive devices, adapters and ear buds/neckloops is put a color-coded dab of nail polish by each male plug and female jack—a blue dab means it is mono and a pink dab means it is stereo.

This way you always know which is which. When using any assistive devices and adapters, it is very simple—you plug blue to blue and pink to pink.

So when I use my PockeTalker (mono) with my stereo ear buds (which I much prefer to the ear buds that come with the PockeTalker), I have to use a stereo to mono adapter. I have a blue dab beside the PockeTalker jack and a blue dab at the male adapter plug. I have a pink dab at the female (stereo) end of the adapter, and pink a pink dab on the stereo ear bud plug. When plugging all this together, all I have to remember is “blue to blue and pink to pink” and I never have to wonder whether I’ve hooked it up correctly or not.

This is a great idea to use with elderly people and people that are not “electrically” inclined. Put all the appropriate colored dabs on the jacks and plugs of their assistive devices, and then just tell them always to match colors and they won’t have problems.