Hearing Loss Help  

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Olmesartan is mildly ototoxic—it can cause vertigo in some people, but that appears to be the least of your worries if you take this drug. Our drug watchdog, the FDA, in their latest email bulletin (1), reports:

The “FDA is evaluating data from two clinical trials in which patients with Type 2 diabetes taking the blood pressure medication, Benicar (Olmesartan), an angiotensin II receptor blocker, had a higher rate of death from a cardiovascular cause compared to patients taking a placebo.”

Notice that! Olmesartan, a high-blood pressure medication, causes death more often in those taking it, than in those who have high blood pressure but don’t take it!

This report admits, “An unexpected finding observed in both trials was a greater number of deaths from a cardiovascular cause (heart attack, sudden death, or stroke) in the Benicar-treated patients compared to placebo.” (1)

Now the reason you supposedly take a high blood pressure medication is to prevent heart attacks, strokes and sudden death—yet this drug apparently actually causes them—based on the results of not just one, but two, long-term studies.

After hearing this, any normal person would conclude that taking the drug could be dangerous to their health and quit taking it, yet does the FDA reach the same conclusion? Not on your life (and it is your life they are talking about)!

Here’s what they say. The “FDA’s review is ongoing and the Agency has not concluded that Benicar increases the risk of death.” (Yet the two studies they reviewed showed just the opposite.)

So what is their recommendation? You’re not going to believe it. (Remember, this is your tax dollars at work.)

The “FDA currently believes that the benefits of Benicar in patients with high blood pressure continue to outweigh its potential risks.”

What I want to know is what benefits are they talking about—since the supposed benefits of high-blood pressure medication are to reduce the risk of heart attacks, strokes and sudden death—and these studies clearly show that taking this drug results in more heart attacks, strokes and sudden death!

As I have emphasized many times before, you must always consider all the side effects of drugs, not just their ototoxic side effects—although I typically only talk about the ototoxic side effects—because if a drug kills your body, your ears won’t work any more either!

(1) “FDA MedWatch – Benicar (Olmesartan) Ongoing Safety Review”. June 11, 2010.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Williams Sound recently released their brand new bluetooth neckloop called the CM-BT Bluetooth Audio Amplifier. Since Williams Sound makes top quality equipment (they make the PockeTalker for example), I just had to check it out for myself to see if it really had the goods.

The result was, I was impressed!

The CM-BT is not only a quality device, but it has all the features you’ll need for cell phone use and for listening to music.

It includes the standard features of hands free operation, one button answer/hang up, rechargeable battery, etc., etc., but it also has some cool features that are not included in most bluetooth neckloops.

For example, you can unplug the neckloop from the unit. This means that if the neckloop wire should ever break, instead of throwing the whole unit away like you need to do with the other bluetooth neckloops out there, all you need to do is get the replacement neckloop part. That alone could save you a lot of bucks.

Another cool feature is you can use it with the neckloop, or you can use ear buds. In that case, you don’t even need to have hearing aids and t-coils to use it.

When using ear buds you can listen to music in true stereo. (Note: neckloops only let you hear mono sound.) I’ve even figured out a way you can listen to true stereo via your hearing aids and t-coils. All you need to do is plug a pair of Music Links into the earphone jack instead of ear buds. If you are interested, here’s a link to the music links.

If you want to listen to music via ear buds or Music Links, (and don’t want the bluetooth amplifier hanging around your neck), you can unplug the neckloop and clip the bluetooth amplifier to your belt or pocket via its built-in belt clip.

Depending on the kind of hearing loss you have, you can switch the incoming sound to have high-frequency emphasis or low-frequency emphasis. In practical terms, since most hard of hearing people have a high-frequency loss, speech will sound better in the “HI” position and music will sound better in the “LO” position.

Recharging this unit couldn’t be simpler—just drop it into the charger—no fiddling with batteries or plugging a charger cable in.

Those are just some of its cool features. There are lots of other features to the CM-BT. To learn more about the CM-BT Bluetooth Audio Amplifier, or to get one for yourself, click here.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man explained:

I lost my hearing when I was 26. I even tried a cochlear implant, but I’m still deaf. I need to learn sign, but since I don’t have a job, I have very limited income. I need a free way, let me repeat “free” way to learn sign so I can at least join the deaf community and get friends, a job, a life worth living again! I’ve found schools but all are talking about fees. I can’t pay fees without a job. I can’t get a job without knowing sign. Please help me.

I’m not sure why you think you need to learn to sign in order to get a job. Very few, if any, people on the job know how to sign so they wouldn’t be able to communicate with you anyway.

Since you had hearing to age 26, I assume you have good speech skills and people understand you well. Therefore, all you need to do is be able to understand them. You can do this by speechreading (lip reading) them, having them gesture where appropriate, and have them write down whatever you still miss.

Depending on the job, your boss/coworkers can email you or instant message or text you and you reply back. You don’t need hearing to communicate this way. Thus, there are many things you can do in order to communicate without learning sign.

Now, I’m certainly not against learning to sign—as long as you have people that can sign back to you—family, friends, coworkers, etc.

There are several sources of free signing classes. The most likely is a church near you that has a deaf ministry. Very often they offer free signing classes.

Another source of free signing classes are agencies that work with deaf people. In my county, the Lutheran Social services run a “deaf center” and offer sign language classes. When I took ASL classes there, if you were deaf or hard of hearing, you could attend free.

A third option is to find a deaf person that is willing to teach you some sign. Become friends with them. That is what my daughter did to help her improve her signing. Some deaf people are wonderful and willing to help you when they see you really want to learn to sign.

Another option, if you can prove that learning sign will help you get a job, is the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (or whatever name they go under in your state). They may fund signing classes for you.

So there are some free, live hands-on ways to learn signing.

In addition to these, some agencies that work with deaf people have signing videos that you can borrow—either VCR tapes or CDs or DVDs.

Then, too, your library may have some signing CDs or DVDs in their collection, or if you ask, may be willing to get some for you.

Also, you can find good on-line signing websites. There are a number of these.

Here is two such websites: http://www.lifeprint.com

and http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi.

Here’s a good one to learn/practice fingerspelling.

These should get you started.

Just be aware that to become fluent in signing, it will take you several years of constant work. It is learning a new language and that takes lots of time and practice.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Some people have been longing for a completely implantable hearing aid. Besides the (dubious) advantage of being completely invisible (people won’t be able to tell if you are hard of hearing so won’t make allowances when you don’t hear them), there are a few real advantages to a totally implantable hearing aid.

For example, if you spend time in the water swimming or splashing around, you’ll still be able to hear. Ditto when you are in the shower. Furthermore, you can leave it on all night as you sleep so if you are a mother with young children, you’ll be able to hear them if they cry during the night (assuming you don’t roll over and sleep on the implant side so the microphone is buried in the pillow). Also, if you live in a humid location, or sweat profusely, or work in a dirty environment, all that extra moisture and dirt won’t “gum up the gearworks”. Furthermore, if wearing hearing aids/ear molds causes problems in your ear canals, with an implanted hearing aid, your ear canals will be totally free of any apparatus.

The good news is that if you are so inclined, you now can get such a hearing aid. Otologics of Boulder, CO has introduced their new fully-implantable hearing aid called the Carina.

Here’s how it works. The microphone, which is implanted under the skin, sends the sound signals to the amplifier which is surgically embedded in the mastoid bone behind your ear (much like the internal parts of a cochlear implant are embedded). The output of the amplifier is sent down a wire to a transducer (vibrator), the point of which touches, and thus pushes on, the incus (anvil), the second of the three bones in your middle ear. This mechanical motion amplifies the normal sound signal that is then sent in the usual fashion to the incus (stirrup) and from there to the inner ear.

Incidentally, the amount of movement the transducer imparts to the incus is very small—only 1 to 2 micrometers. That is only 1 to 2 thousandths of a millimeter, (or about one 25 thousandths of an inch) an imperceptible movement even under a microscope.

Since it is all internal, you need a remote control to adjust the volume and turn the hearing aid on or off. Unlike the remotes in typical hearing aids where you just hold the remote in your hand in front of you and press a button, the Carina remote has to be placed right over the implant behind your ear before you press any buttons.

The implant is programmed according to your specific hearing needs just like any regular digital hearing aid. The Carina is designed for adults with moderate to severe hearing losses.

Since the battery is also internal, the folks at Otologics had to come up with a way to recharge the internal battery. The charger system consists of the base station, a charging coil, and the charger body. To recharge the implant, you remove the charger body from the base station and place the coil on your skin over the implant. The charger body contains a clip so you can attach the charger to your belt during charging. Typically, charging time is about 1 hour. You must recharge the Carina daily. While recharging, you can go about your normal daily activities, turn the implant on and off, and adjust the volume.

One cool thing about the Carina is if the battery dies or the implant quits working for any reason you won’t be left totally deaf—you can still use your residual hearing. You see, the implant does not affect your residual hearing. Thus you could even temporarily wear a backup hearing aid in your implanted ear.

There are some downsides to implantable hearing aids. For one thing, upgrading your “hearing aid” as new technology comes along is going to be a real problem. Second, you will need surgery to replace the battery when it finally dies. This won’t happen often as the battery has a projected 20 year life span. Third, you cannot have any MRIs unless you have the whole implant surgically removed. Fourth, if you like diving or scuba diving, you will have to limit yourself to a depth of 10 feet or less. And fifth, it is pretty expensive—$12,000.00 and $15,000.00 each, and that does not include the surgery and related costs.

However, if having a fully-implantable hearing aid turns your crank, the Carina may be the hearing aid for you.

To learn more about the Carina, point your browser to the Otologics web site.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man asked:

I have a question about hearing strategies. Say you’re in a room and you’re trying to understand something. I’m wondering if I should learn how to read lips. It doesn’t seem like it could hurt. Do you need to take a course, or just practice?

How about if you try and guess what’s just been said? I find I do this. After I hear someone say something, and I don’t quite get it all, my brain reviews possibilities until it matches one that makes sense in the context of the situation and what else has been said.

By all means learn to speechread! Speechreading is most important in helping you understand speech better. I have been speechreading all my life. Some of my earliest memories are sitting on the floor and staring up at the faces of those giant people (parents) towering above me (at least they sure seemed tall to me way back then) and watching their faces so I could understand what they were saying.

Both my younger daughter and I became good speechreaders when we were tiny tikes. It was a coping strategy we both just naturally picked up from necessity at a very early age. We were both good speechreaders by the time we were 3 or 4.

To become good at speechreading you need to practice. In fact, you need lots of practice. If you are around me you’ll notice I always “stare” at the person with whom I am conversing. That is how I hear and understand what they are saying. Of course, I’m using my residual hearing too, but I’ve constantly been “practicing” speechreading for more than 60 years now.

Taking a speechreading course can help you fast-track your speechreading skills and get you on the right track. Unfortunately, speechreading classes are hard to find—but if you have one in your area, by all means enroll in one.

If there aren’t any speechreading classes near you, all is not lost. There are some good speechreading CDs available so you can practice in the privacy of your own home in front of your computer. This way you can practice at your own convenience and for as long or short a time as you want. Furthermore, your computer will never get tired or exasperated at you if you make a mistake, or ask it to repeat something a “million times”!

Probably the best speechreading CD around is the Seeing and Hearing Speech CD program.

Speechreading is not perfect by any means. The best estimates are that only around 30% to 35% of English sounds can be speechread. That leaves a lot of room for educated guessing. The more you know of the structure of English, and the topic under discussion, the better your “educated guessing” becomes.

When we speechread, our brains run through the possibilities we see and hear and tries to give us the most likely word we missed. However, it can come up with completely wrong solutions because of several factors.

For example, if we don’t know the context, we can’t put things in context to get the right word. Or, if we have the wrong context, our brains will try to fit what we see (speechread) into this “wrong” context and come up with totally “off the wall” solutions as to what has just been said.

Furthermore, many words in English have identical mouth shapes, although the words sound different (if you could hear them). Thus depending on your mindset at the moment, you may “see” a different word than what was said—and again come up with an “off the wall” interpretation.

We call such words homophenes. The three words “pat”, “bat” and “mat” are examples of homophenes. So are the words “shoot”, “shoes”, “chews”, “juice” and “Jews”. So are the words “queen” and “quiet”. You cannot tell these words apart unless you can either hear the difference, or you are sure you know the context.

“Is this process made easier if you know what sounds people with a rare hearing loss such as a reverse slope hearing loss often miss? So you think, ‘well, I usually can’t hear these sounds, so chances are the word I missed was _____.”

You know, in all the years I have been speechreading myself and all the years I have been teaching and writing about speechreading, this is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone ask this question. It’s a wonderful question—and just as those of us with severe reverse slope hearing losses hear “backwards” to those with the common ski-slope losses, so also we also speechread “backwards”—thus there are notable differences. Let me explain.

People with the common ski-slope hearing losses hear lower frequency sounds reasonably well, but do not hear high- frequency sound well or at all.

Furthermore, you need to realize that most of the “power” or volume of speech is contained in the lower-frequency sounds, while most of the “intelligence” in speech is carried in the higher- frequency sounds.

Since people with ski-slope losses hear the lower-frequency sounds, but not the higher-frequency sounds, they generally hear people talking, but can’t understand what they are saying.

This is where speechreading helps them. You see, typically, the higher frequency sounds such as “s”, “f”, “th”, “ch” and “t” (all air hissing around your teeth with your voice box turned off) are relatively easy to see so you can speechread them well. Thus you can fill in the missing “intelligence sounds” and understand what the person is saying.

In contrast, those of us with severe reverse-slope hearing losses don’t hear the lower-frequency sounds (which are formed in the middle or back of the mouth so are hard or impossible to speechread), but we hear the higher-frequency sounds which are also relatively easy to speechread, thus we have more difficulty in speechreading. As a result, we have to concentrate on learning to speechread the “difficult” sounds in order to become good speechreaders.

In any case, even though speechreading is more difficult for us, it is still an indispensable skill to have, and one I’d never want to be without.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady asked:

Can Amlodipine cause roaring in the ears? I have only been taking it for 6 weeks. Can I stop without a problem? My doctor doesn’t think that is the cause of the roaring. I would like to stop for a period and see if the roaring stops.

Roaring in your ears is one of the many tinnitus sounds. According to the PDR, Amlodipine (Norvasc) causes tinnitus in between 1 person in 1,000 and one person in 50, so tinnitus is a relatively common side effect of this drug. Also, realize that the “official” figures are always low by their very nature, as not all tinnitus occurrences are reported, and thus included in the “official” figures.

You need to talk it over with your doctor about whether you can stop cold turkey, or need to taper down or what. Then together you can make the decision what you want to do.

If you stop taking this drug for a couple of weeks or so, and if your tinnitus goes away, that is strong circumstantial evidence that this drug is causing your tinnitus in spite of what your doctor says. (Doctors typically know little about ototoxicity.) Don’t expect the tinnitus to stop immediately after stopping the drug. It may take some days or weeks or longer.

Then, if/when your tinnitus stops, and you decide to begin taking this drug again—if the roaring comes back, that is proof that this drug is the culprit. If that happens, I’d suggest you ask your doctor for a different drug that will do the same job.

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