Hearing Loss Help  

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
 

A man took me to task. He wrote: “You keep saying what cannot be used for ear infections, but you do not mention what can be used. It would enlighten us all if you explained some safe treatments for ear infections.”

You’re right. I’m not being very helpful, am I? I warn you about various unsafe ear treatments, but I don’t explain what some good alternatives are.

Before I begin, you need to remember that I’m not a medical doctor and therefore cannot (and do not) diagnose conditions and prescribe treatments.

However, I can (and do) provide an educational service by explaining the various drugs that can damage your ears and the kinds of damage they can cause. Now, as per your request, I’m taking the next logical step and providing you with information on some of the remedies that are not harmful to your ears.

Here are a number of things you might want to consider.

1. Boost your immune system. Recurrent infections are a sign that your immune system not functioning properly. If you boost your immune system, you will likely find that your susceptibility to ear infections drops dramatically. Two herbal preparations that help boost your immune system are Echinacea and Astragalus.

Echinacea (Echinacea angustifolia, E. purpurea, E. pallida) is a powerful immune-system booster. A typical dosage is up to nine 300 to 400 mg capsules per day. (If you are allergic to asters and ragweeds, you may also be allergic to Echinacea. Also, don’t use if you have an autoimmune disease.)

Astragalus (Astragalus membranaceus) is a herbal you can take long-term if you are prone to recurrent infections. A typical dosage is eight or nine 400 to 500 mg capsules a day.

2. Eliminate refined sugars (white sugar, high-fructose corn syrup) and refined carbohydrates (things made from white flour) from your diet. This can greatly reduce your susceptibility to infections since the various fungi (including yeasts) need sugar to thrive, not to mention improving your overall health.

3. Identify and eliminate any food allergens you might have. Allergies often are the cause of middle ear infections.

4. There are a number of herbs that are natural antibiotics. Here are 3 of them.

Oregon Grape (Berberis aquifolium) contains the antibiotic berberine. Berberine kills many types of bacteria. Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis) also contains berberine and has the same antibiotic properties. A typical dosage is up to six 500 to 600 mg capsules a day. (Do not take this if you are pregnant.)

Garlic (Allium sativum) kills many nasty beasties including bacteria and viruses. The good news is that garlic attacks some of the viruses that cause colds and flu–which often sets up your ears for ear infections. A typical dosage is up to three 500 to 600 mg capsules containing 4 to 5 mg of allicin—the active ingredient—a day.

Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis) is not only an antibacterial and an antiviral, but it also has a calming effect on you. A typical dosage is up to nine 300 to 400 mg capsules a day. (Much of the above information is contained in the excellent book, “The Herbal Drugstore” by White & Foster. 2000. Rodale, Inc.)

5. Take high doses of vitamin C (to your tolerance level). This could be as high as up to 10,000 mg a day. When you are fighting an infection,100 to 300 mg of Vitamin C a day just doesn’t cut it. Vitamin C is an excellent antioxidant and works on infections of all kinds. This is what I’ve used over the years, and only once did an infection fail to respond so that I had to take a prescription drug to kill it.

6. If you have infections in your ear canals you might want to try one of the following. Note: never put anything into your ear canals if you have a hole in your eardrum. (This includes having tubes in your ears.) This is just asking for trouble.

a. Acetic acid ear drops. You can get fancy bottled ear drops at the drug store (two brands are VoSoL and Swim-EAR) or you can use plain old vinegar (which is basically acetic acid) to discourage ear infections. (Just dilute the vinegar about 50% in water.)

b. If you’d like to make your own ear-drop potion, here is one antibiotic remedy you might want to try.

1/4 cup white vinegar, 1/4 cup rubbing alcohol, and ONE of the following: 2-3 drops grapefruit seed extract, or 3 drops of garlic tincture, or 3-5 drops Echinacea tincture.

Sterilize a 4 ounce bottle by immersing it in boiling water for 10 minutes. Mix all the ingredients in the bottle. Cap tightly and store out of the light.

To use, put a few drops into the ear with a sterile eyedropper. Allow it to run out of your ear.

7. Amoxicillin: If you want to use a prescription antibiotic, and your doctor thinks it will do the trick, Amoxicillin is the one antibiotic of which I know that is not listed anywhere as being ototoxic. so it should not damage your ears. However, Amoxicillin, like all other drugs, has other adverse side effects—so you always want to check out all the side effects, not just the ototoxic ones).

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man wrote:

It is with great relief that I read your on-line article on Musical Ear Syndrome as printed in Hearing Health, Volume 20:4 Winter 2004.

My elderly mother (who lives alone after the death of my father several years ago) has been complaining to neighbors and her condominium board about other tenants playing loud music in the middle of the night.

Her most recent incident (last night in fact), resulted in her climbing a step-ladder and banging on the ceiling to complain to neighbors upstairs because she was convinced they were playing “U.S. marine corps” marching music. Originally, she thought it was her neighbor next door, until this woman convinced her satisfactorily enough it wasn’t her.

My mother is very hard of hearing. Given that she can barely hear a person 3 to 4 feet away speaking to her, I couldn’t see how she could hear music from an adjoining condominium! When I suggested that she might be experiencing auditory hallucinations (I used this term prior to finding your article), she was incensed that I might suggest she was “crazy.”

Nonetheless, I asked her to keep an open mind about it. Fortunately, I found your article, called her back (after she stopped fuming), and read excerpts from your article. She has now calmed and seems open to the possibility that her condition may be Musical Ear Syndrome (MES).

It is interesting to note that my mother is elderly, widowed and lives alone in an otherwise quiet environment. Also, she is prescribed by her family physician to take Effexor (an anti- depressant as I’m sure you know). I have read other articles on the Internet of people who seem to experience some symptoms, characterized by MES, who also happen to be on anti-depressants such as Paxil. I’m curious if some anti-depressants could be a compounding or contributing factor to MES?

Thank you again for your article. It may very well have saved my mother from becoming known by residents in her condo as the “crazy woman” downstairs!

In the same manner as this article helped your mother, a lot of people also find relief when they read it. Your mother’s experiences are certainly not unknown. I hear about such experiences all the time. For example, just yesterday I was talking to a lady—trying to convince her that what she heard was all in her head and not her upstairs neighbor.

You see, this phantom music sounds totally real, so it is almost impossible to believe that it has no outside source, but that it is generated completely in your head. As a result, you look for another logical source of this music (and often it happens to be your undeserving neighbor who bears the brunt of your wrath).

Like your mother, many people who hear such phantom sounds fail to realize that with their poor hearing, they can’t possibly hear real sounds outside of their apartments in the first place! Thus this is a strong indication that what she is hearing is phantom music, not real sound.

If you admit you are hearing phantom sounds, immediately you think you must be crazy because typically this is your only frame of reference. Few people realize that there are actually two kinds of auditory hallucinations—hearing one kind means you have a mental illness, but hearing the other kind (which I call Musical Ear Syndrome or MES) just means that your auditory circuits aren’t working quite right anymore—but it has nothing whatsoever to do with mental illness.

Being elderly, having a severe hearing loss and living alone are three of the common factors in people hearing MES. Being anxious and/or depressed are two more.

Since your mom is on anti-depressants it could be that these anti-depressant drugs that are causing her to hear the phantom MES sounds. (In case you didn’t know, both Effexor and Paxil are known to cause hallucinations.)

However, as I said above, depression is a factor in itself—and most likely, a relatively major factor—so the anti-depressants might not be the cause of the MES, but rather the underlying depression they are supposed to be treating may be a major factor.

Your mom might find reading my book “Phantom Voices, Ethereal Music & Other Spooky Sounds” will really help her. It is an easy book to read and includes hundreds of stories of others and their MES, as well as the causes of MES, and the 8 things a person can do to help themselves get rid of it. She will see that others hear exactly the same kind of things she hears (and react in similar ways too).

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

“If it’s to be, it’s up to me.” This was one of the slogans I heard repeatedly in one multi-level company I was once a part of. The meaning is clear. If you want something to happen, you have to make it happen yourself. Don’t expect someone else to do it.

What does this have to do with ototoxic drugs? Simply this. If you want to protect your ears from the ravages of ototoxic drugs, you have to be eternally vigilant. This means you have to become informed on the side effects of drugs before your doctor prescribes them for you.

One good source (I like to think it is the best source—but then I’m biased since I wrote it) of ototoxic drug information is the book Ototoxic Drugs Exposed.” If you take the time to look up any drugs your doctor wants to prescribe for you, you will know the risks to your ears from taking that drug. Then you and your doctor can mutually decide what treatment may work the best for you while still protecting your ears. If your doctor brushes you off, maybe its time to find a good doctor—one that is willing to work with you to save your hearing.

In the January issue of Hearing Loss Help eZine, a man told about his experiences with Ciprofloxacin. This was before he knew anything about ototoxic drugs. In fact, this is what prompted him to search for some answers in the first place! Subsequently, he bought Ototoxic Drugs Exposed“. Now he is advocating for himself. You would do well to “take a page out of his book” as it applies to your situation.

After reading the eZine article “Tobramycin, Tinnitus and Hearing Loss,” in the February edition, he wrote:

I read with interest your piece regarding the lady who was prescribed Augmentin and Tobradex [Tobramycin] for conjunctivitis. My own experience with Augmentin is consistent with your statement that it is not ototoxic. Having been prescribed Augmentin Forte for tonsillitis recently, I was extremely happy to not only find it absent from your book, but also to confirm that it had absolutely no detectable ototoxic effects whatsoever. It was actually wonderful to find there are antibiotic drugs out there that are not ototoxic.

Rather amusingly, whilst the drug did little for my tonsillitis, I did discover that it is a prostatitis “wonder drug”. I don’t know if this drug is prescribed for prostatitis specifically, but it worked far better, and just as quickly, as the severely ototoxic Ciprofloxacin that I took 6 months ago. By the way, that drug did not just give me severe tinnitus—it also caused severe insomnia and I felt the urge to physically destroy my house and run out onto the road in front of a truck. (I wonder how long this drug will be on the market before it is removed? It’s the devil and I will never forgive my doctor for requiring me to continue with the full course when I reported these side effects to him after only two days).

I really think a lot needs to be done to educate doctors about ototoxicity. I felt rather insulted when, after I reported to my doctor that all these side effects had settled down after finishing the Ciprofloxacin course, he more or less said that it did not mean anything.

So a person lives for 40 years with absolutely no history of insomnia, tinnitus or psychotic behavior, then gets all complaints within 1 to 4 days of starting on the drug. It does not seem to be rocket science to me, but then again whenever did a doctor admit to making a prescribing error of judgment?

It does not help that the prescribing information for Australian doctors often does not list the ototoxic side-effects of drugs at all. Did you know, for example, that tinnitus is not listed as a potential side effect for the drug Ciproxen (Ciprofloxacin) in Australia? I confirmed this with the doctor myself. But that is no excuse for my doctor. He should have taken me off the drug as soon as I had reported the side effects. It was clear there were alternatives that would have worked just as well.

In any case, I am currently in the process of changing doctors. In the end it all hinges around ototoxicity issues. These issues are at the absolute forefront of my mind whenever I am consulting with a doctor. The Ciproxen episode is just part of the reason for looking for a new doctor.

Since the Ciproxen episode, every time I have been prescribed something, I have asked the doctor about it’s potential ototoxicity in light of the Ciproxen episode (admittedly I already knew the answers thanks to your book—I was simply testing his reaction, since he has absolutely no idea that I have your book, or have any knowledge whatsoever on the subject). Not only does he not really care, but it is pretty clear what is going through his mind (”When will this patient shut up about ototoxicity!!??”). Oh—and the second thing he is thinking: “I wouldn’t have the faintest idea if this drug is ototoxic or not”. Having since been on the receiving end of two other ototoxic drugs, one of which also proved to be ototoxic to me, I think it is time to look for a new doctor.

The very last straw was a visit to a urologist on Friday regarding my prostate issues. Having been bombarded with antibiotics for 6 out of the last 8 months, this doctor wanted to give me two more antibiotics—concurrently—and both listed in your book! This, in addition to thousands of dollars of tests, some of which carry the risk of side effects that might require even more ototoxic antibiotics. My problems would have to be much worse than they are now for me to submit to this. I was rather hoping that as my symptoms have generally begun to subside, it makes much better sense to first consider non-drug therapy, or at least a little more watchful waiting.

So next week I make a fresh start with a new doctor who hopefully will be a little more empathetic to those patients who are actually educated on the issue of ototoxicity.

You would do well to heed this man’s warning. His is the voice of experience. Since you obviously can’t rely on doctors to tell you all about the ototoxic side effects of the drugs they prescribe, you have to become an informed patient yourself. Remember, “If it’s to be, it’s up to me!”

One way to do this is to check out any drugs you take in Ototoxic Drugs Exposed. This book contains information on the ototoxicity of 763 drugs known to damage ears.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Drag racing is exciting! So is watching drag racing. No doubt about it! In her article “Races Give Fans an Earful” (Gainesville Sun, Florida, March 18, 2007) Diane Chun sucks you right into the excitement.

Speed, a blur of colors, the smell of nitromethane and burning rubber. They’re all part of the experience that draws a huge crowd to Gatornationals.

But it’s the overwhelming noise that gets race fans where it hurts.

When a Top Fuel dragster throttles up, a wave of sound strikes your chest like a fist.

The smartest among thousands of spectators for Saturday’s qualifying rounds for the 38th annual Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway came equipped with both ear plugs and sound- deadening ear muffs.

The neophytes are probably feeling the pain of a day at the races today.

A nitro-powered dragster at full throttle puts out 120 decibels of sound. That’s not quite like standing next to a jet engine, which puts out 140 decibels, but who’d stand next to a jet?

On the other hand, spectators crowded as close to the Gatornationals staging area as they could get Saturday, not wanting to miss a split second of the action.

However the action wasn’t quite what some people expected. It took place in their ears, and it wasn’t fun! Bob’s son was there. Bob writes:

I talked to my son this morning and asked about the noise at the races, and about whether he and the kids wore ear protectors.

“Yes,” he replied. However, during a break in the action, he had taken off his earplugs. They were in his pocket as he was returning to the stands when it happened. Without warning, a nitromethane dragster revved out in full fury. He was about 100 feet from the car.

Before he could clap his hands to his ears, it was already too late. Instantaneously he said, it felt like somebody was pushing a pencil eraser into the ear closest to the car.

The next day he was still complaining of a definite hearing loss in that ear, and is quite concerned.

Unfortunately, this is how it often happens. Noise strikes when you least expect it. and when your have left your ears unprotected, even if it was just for a moment.

The results can be anything but thrilling. First can be the incessant ringing in your ears that may go on day and night, week after week, month after month, year after year—a constant reminder how you foolishly left your ears unprotected. Second is the instant hearing loss from which your ears may never completely recover. Third may be a lifelong sensitivity to normal everyday sounds that now seem far too loud and hurt. (This goes by the fancy name of hyperacusis.)

This is the real legacy of going to the races (or any other extremely noisy venue) that few talk about.

Thus you must not let your guard down—not even for an instant. Put your ear protectors on before you think you will need them and leave them on until you are well away from the noise. The one time you take them off for a few moments is the one time you may live to regret it.

However, if you are serious about protecting your ears, stay home and watch the races on TV. It may not be quite as exciting, but you will live to hear another day—and that is worth it!

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

No, CROS hearing aids are not angry. CROS is an acronym for “Contralateral Routing Of Sound.” “Contralateral” is just a fancy word that means “on the other side.” Thus, very simply, a CROS hearing aid takes the sound arriving on one side of your head and feeds it into your opposite ear.

CROS Hearing Aids

CROS hearing aids are for people who are deaf in one ear and have normal, or near normal, hearing in the other ear. They consist of two parts. The person wears what looks like two hearing aids in one of two styles—either a behind-the-ear (BTE) aid, or a large (full shell/half shell) in-the-ear (ITE) aid.

The “hearing aid” on the deaf ear basically consists of a microphone (to pick up sounds on the deaf side) and a transmitter. The transmitter sends these sounds (either via a cord joining the two “aids,” or more commonly, via radio waves) to the “hearing aid” on the good ear.

This second part of a CROS aid system basically consists of a (radio) receiver (if using the wireless system) and an amplifier. It amplifies the sounds it receives from the deaf side, and then feeds these sounds into the good ear via a plastic tube (if a BTE style), or directly into the ear canal (if an ITE style). CROS ear molds are of an open fit design so they don’t block the sounds the good ear hears naturally.

Incidentally, you don’t need a tightly-fitting ear mold as feedback isn’t an issue with CROS aids since the microphone is on the opposite side of your head—well away from the “ear mold.” Besides, since the person has normal or near normal hearing, the sound doesn’t have to be amplified much.

Bi-CROS Hearing Aids

Bi-CROS hearing aids are similar in many respects to CROS aids, but have this one major difference. They are for people who are deaf in one ear and are hard of hearing in their other ear.

The part that is worn on the deaf ear is identical to the CROS aid. The difference is on the side of the ear with the hearing loss. This part of the Bi-CROS system does the same thing as the CROS system did, but, in addition, it also includes a “regular” hearing aid for the hard of hearing ear.

The Bi-CROS unit combines the signals from both ears and then feeds them into the hard of hearing ear via a normal tightly-fitting ear mold, as otherwise there could be problems with feedback.

Why would you want CROS or Bi-CROS aids? The truth is, they are an excellent solution to your single-sided hearing problems, especially if you often sit so that people typically talk to you from your deaf side. For example, if you are driving a car and your right ear is deaf, you will have great difficulty (and be totally frustrated) trying to hear your passengers. A CROS aid can really benefit you in this and other such situations. With these specialized hearing aids, available from most major hearing aid manufacturers, because you will be hearing so well, you will be CROS, but not angry.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A young mother wrote:

My husband and I just found out over the past few months that our daughter is deaf, due to LVAS [large vestibular aqueduct syndrome]. She passed her newborn hearing test in her right ear and failed in her left, but a month later when we did the ABR [auditory brainstem response] she was not responding to sound at any level in either ear, which we were told is equal to being deaf. We are looking into a cochlear implant and are very hopeful. My question is, how likely is it that this will reoccur in future children? This is our first child, and I had always dreamed of having 3 or 4 children, now I am very scared.

Large Vestibular Aqueduct Syndrome (LVAS) is also known as Enlarged Vestibular Aqueduct Syndrome (EVAS).

With LVAS, doctors think that the extra-large vestibular aqueduct (really just a hole in your skull) allows the contents of the endolymphatic sac (on the inside of your skull) to flow (backwards) though the endolymphatic duct into the inner ear where it somehow causes hearing loss.

LVAS is a relatively new diagnosis, even though the underlying condition has been around for awhile, but no one knew about it until recently. Doctors just classified hearing loss from LVAS under “idiopathic hearing loss” which simply means hearing loss of unknown causes.

The good news is that I know a lot of kids with LVAS that have responded very well to cochlear implants. So I am hopeful that your daughter will have similar results if you choose to go through with it.

Don’t be scared about having more children. They are worth it whether they have hearing loss or not. You can find a lot of help and support on the LVAS list that I set up for people with LVAS. As a matter of interest, most of those on this list are mothers in just your situation. To join this special list, click here then  scroll to the bottom where you can fill in your email address and subscribe to the LVAS list. While you are there read the whole article on LVAS.

Don’t put off having more children just because there is a possibility of them having LVAS. Even if all of them had LVAS and lost their hearing, you would still love them. They will be normal except for not hearing well. I knew before my children were born that one or more of them would be born hard of hearing—and my wife and I are still glad we had them—even though one has a severe hearing loss like me.

Now to answer your question as to how likely any of your future children might have LVAS. (The following works for any other recessive hearing loss syndrome as well for that matter.) Since LVAS is a recessive hereditary trait, both you and your husband must already be carriers of the recessive LVAS gene. Furthermore, both of you need to pass this recessive gene on to your child in order for your child to have LVAS.

Remember, genes come in pairs, and you only pass on one gene of each pair to each child, so there is a 50% chance you will pass on the normal gene and a 50% chance you will pass on the LVAS gene. The chances that both you are your husband will both pass on the LVAS gene at the same time is only 25.

Here are the probabilities (assuming there is only one LVAS gene—but this is not certain, there may be more, so the probabilities may be even less than shown below.

25% chance your child will have LVAS (child receives an LVAS gene from each of you).

50% chance your child will be a carrier of the recessive LVAS gene, but will NOT have LVAS (child only receives an LVAS gene from one of you).

25% chance the child will not have any LVAS genes and thus will not have LVAS, nor be a carrier of LVAS. (child does not receive a LVAS gene from either of you).

So each of your future children only has a 25% chance of actually having LVAS.

Mind you, this is how it works out on the average. However, it could be that all of your future children will have LVAS, or none of them. Think of flipping a coin. On the average you’ll get heads 50% of the time. However, it is possible to flip a coin 10 times and get 10 heads in a row (possible, but extremely unlikely). This is the way it works with having children with LVAS too.

If it were me, I’d have all the children you want. We (hard of hearing people) live happy, successful and fulfilled lives in spite of our hearing losses. There is no reason your children won’t also.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady explained:

I am a full-time student returning to school after working for 30 years. Because of my hearing loss, I am now retraining in a back office setting. My hearing loss was caused by high doses of Erythromycin as a premature baby (25 weeks). One of the products I am searching for is software or something that will enable me to record my lectures in class, and have them typed out on my computer.

The voice recognition systems, like Dragon Naturally Speaking that I have looked into, do not quite do what I would like. I cannot have all my professors sit for two hours so Dragon can recognize their voices and even if they were willing, the recorded version of their voice is still different enough that Dragon software does not work. Do you know of anything else out there to assist hard of hearing people? With all of our technology advancements, certainly something has been developed.

As you have found out, the speech to text technology is not quite there yet—at least not when you have various speakers. With one speaker, a good microphone and lots of practice, it can be passable, but not perfect.

For example, I’m also trying out Dragon Naturally Speaking to caption my own presentations. Sometimes it does a fantastic job and other times what it produces is totally off the wall. I still need to work with it a lot more to get the accuracy up. Hopefully, it will prove to be quite good in the long run. However, getting it to work with any person’s voice, and without preceding practice, is still some years away.

As a result, you need something else at this time. The best that is available is real-time captioning, usually shortened to CART. If you are going to a public school or university, they have to provide you with reasonable accommodations, and for hard of hearing people like yourself, CART is a reasonable accommodation.

Real-time captioning can also be recorded so at the end of the class, you have a complete written transcript of everything said in the classroom.

There are two ways you can use real-time captioning. First is to have the CART reporter right there in the classroom with you. The CART reporter hears what is spoken and types it on their steno machine that is hooked to their computer. Their computer translates this “phonetic shorthand” into proper English and displays it on a screen at the front of the room so you (and anyone else that needs it) can read it (or it could be displayed on your laptop screen if only you need the captioning.

The other way is to use remote CART. In this case, you are connected to the captionist via the Internet—so you’d need a laptop computer and an Internet connection. Your professor would have to wear a microphone and you’d have to get this signal to your laptop. That’s it.

Remote CART is cheaper as there is no traveling time involved for the CART reporter and there are no minimum times. Also, if the local captionists are busy, they can hook you up with another captionist elsewhere in the country (or world for that matter).

I use remote CART for a number of my presentations. In fact, I’ll be using remote CART for my presentation this afternoon. It works just as well as if the CART reporter is sitting there in person.

If your classrooms have access to a fast enough wi-fi network, and you have a wireless enabled laptop, an FM mic for the professor and the FM receiver to plug into your laptop, remote CART could work very well for you.

Of course CART is relatively expensive—in the neighborhood of $85.00 to $150.00 per hour—but the school is required to pay for it if this is what you need.

If you want to learn more about CART, check out http://www.cartinfo.org and http://cart.ncraonline.org/Consumers.

Study the information on these two web sites and you’ll learn alot. The second one also has a list of all the certified CART(and remote CART) captionists in the USA.