Hearing Loss Help  

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A high school teen wrote:

Thank you for taking the time to answer 10 questions which I hope will enrich my knowledge on the subject of hearing loss in teenagers. I would love to learn some new information to not only better my understanding on the topic, but to better the lives of my peers and allow them to live more hearing-friendly lives. Here are my questions:

Question 1: In words that any teenager could understand, what are the risk factors that are most likely to cause hearing loss at a young age?

By far the most common risk to hearing is exposing your ears to loud sounds, especially for extended periods of time. The louder the sound and the longer you listen to it, the greater the risk of resulting hearing loss and tinnitus (ringing or other sounds in your ears). Keeping all sounds below 80 dB (decibels) will eliminate this risk.

A second risk factor is hearing loss resulting from middle ear infections. Ear infections are quite common from birth up through elementary school, but ear infections at any age can cause hearing loss. Fortunately, hearing loss from ear infections in often temporary and hearing comes back when the “gunk” (to use a fancy medical term) drains out of your middle ears via your Eustachian tubes in the back of your throat. However, if the doctor prescribes an antibiotic to kill the infection, the antibiotic can itself may cause hearing loss. (See below).

A third risk factor is taking one of the many drugs that can damage your ears. These are called ototoxic drugs. There are hundreds of these ototoxic drugs. Some can cause hearing loss within a few days, while others require taking the drug for extended periods over several to many years. The end result is  the same—hearing loss, tinnitus and/or balance problems.

Those are 3 of the main risk factors for young people. Of course there are many others such as infectious diseases (measles, mumps, chickenpox, etc), viruses, genetics (I was born with a severe hereditary hearing loss), trauma to your ears, etc.

Question 2: How frequently do you hear about teenagers with some degree of hearing loss?

The statistics reveal that about 1 in 5 teens has a significant hearing loss (19%). That means a LOT of school age young people have some hearing loss whether they realize it or not. Since hearing loss typically begins in the very high frequencies, people typically aren’t aware they have a hearing loss until it works its way down into the speech frequencies. By that time the person has a significant hearing loss that makes it hard for them to understand speech, particularly in noisy situations.

Question 3: In your opinion, what is the most common type of hearing loss in teenagers?

There are two common kinds of hearing loss—conductive and sensorineural.

A conductive loss is a mechanical loss in the middle ear. Such losses are often temporary or can be treated medically. A typical cause is gunk (fluid) in your middle ears caused by a middle ear infection. This is probably the most common kind of hearing loss in young children.

The second kind of hearing loss is a sensorineural hearing loss. This is an inner ear hearing loss. A common cause in teens is exposing their ears to loud sounds. About 90% of adults with hearing loss have a sensorineural hearing loss.

Question 4: What kind of research is being done to try and find a cure for hearing loss?

The all time best “cure” for hearing loss is prevention of hearing loss in the first place. Don’t expose your ears to loud sounds, especially for extended periods of time.

One line of current research is looking at anti-oxidants and other things that can help prevent hearing loss after being exposed to loud sounds—such as soldiers are exposed to (gunfire, explosions, etc.)

Another line of research is finding the genes responsible for various genetic hearing losses. Once doctors know which genes are responsible, they want to see if they can find a way to alter the genetic mutations to prevent such hearing losses in the future.

Yet another line of research is delving into the secrets to regenerating hair cells in the inner ear. If this proves successful, some degree of hearing may be restored. Quite a bit of effort is being poured into this line of research and researchers are optimistic they will have results within the next 20 years or so.

Question 5: What kinds of activities/hobbies do teens participate in that are most damaging to their hearing?

Loud noisy situations are the main culprits. This can range from loud music concerts, listening to iPods/MP3 players at high volumes, attending loud sports venues (crowded stadiums, race car tracks, etc), using loud recreational vehicles (motorcycles and ATVs), using firearms without wearing ear plugs, etc.

Question 6: Tinnitus is usually a common warning symptom of hearing loss. Is this treatable?

Tinnitus may be a sign of hearing loss or impending hearing loss, or it can be a stand-alone condition. About 70% of the people with hearing loss have tinnitus associated with it.

There are a number of ways to treat tinnitus—none of which work for everyone. Most people with tinnitus are never able to eliminate it completely. Rather, they learn techniques to reduce the volume and intrusiveness of their tinnitus so that it doesn’t bother them. This is called becoming “habituated” to your tinnitus.

Question 7: Many people believe that iPods and MP3 players are dangerous to people’s hearing. What is your opinion on this?

Without a doubt, this is true IF you crank the volume way up. Some of these devices can put out 110 dB of sound. That is much too loud for hearing health. However, if you listen to these devices at volumes such that the music peaks are always below 80 dB, then there is no problem with them damaging your hearing. At least that is the current thinking. A good rule of thumb is to listen to your music at the same volume as you hear people talking.

Incidentally, having your ears exposed to sustained sounds at 80 dB all the time is not the best either. Our ears (and our brains) like respite from noise. It is best to not expose your ears to sustained sounds for long periods for your general well-being. Silence at times is good.

Question 8: How would having hearing loss affect a teenager’s daily life?

Hearing loss affects your daily life in many different ways—too numerous to mention here. However, here are four significant ways.

First, you feel left out when you can’t hear the chit-chat around you, so you tend to withdraw from your friends and family. This can lead to depression and other psychological problems. Also, when you can’t hear others, they tend to leave you out, and this makes you feel unwanted and worthless. Loneliness and poor feelings of self-worth are real problems with hard of hearing people of any age.

Second, you have much more difficulty in school maintaining good grades since you miss a lot of what the teacher says and most classroom discussion.

Third, you have much more difficulty making and maintaining good relationships with the opposite sex. Dating can be a real “minefield” when you can’t hear well.

Fourth, you have difficulty understanding the radio, TV, telephone and movies so you tend to avoid those activities. This leaves a big hole in your social development.

Question 9: For a teenager with hearing loss, what would be the best treatment for their condition?

If you have a conductive loss, then seeing an ear specialist (ENT or otologist) is a good first step. Often an ear specialist can help fix the loss since conductive losses are really just mechanical problems in the middle ear and often can be successfully treated medically or surgically.

However, if you have a sensorineural hearing loss, there is typically nothing medically that can be done at this time (apart from getting a cochlear implant if you have little to no hearing left). In this case, the best “treatment” is to have a complete audiological evaluation by an audiologist to determine exactly your type and degree of hearing loss. Then, get, and wear, properly-fitted hearing aids if your audiologists recommends them, and do the following things.

A. Use assistive devices when your hearing aids don’t help you much such as in noisy situations, or where you are at a significant distance from the speaker. Assistive devices include personal amplifiers, FM systems, loop systems, etc. (Incidentally, you can listen to most assistive devices with ear buds if you are not wearing hearing aids.)

B. Learn to speechread (lip read). Speechreading together with your residual hearing can really make a difference. I used my speechreading skills all through school and college. It was critical to my success.

C. Finally, learn and use the many, many coping strategies that help you hear better. These include such simple things as get close, have the light on the speaker’s face, cut out background noise, speak face to face, and so on.

Question 10: What is your advice to every teenager to protect their hearing on a day to day basis?

Turn the sound down! Don’t become addicted to loud sound in the first place. Don’t listen to iPods/MP3 players at volumes more than 80 dB. Either avoid loud venues, or wear properly-rated ear protectors when in noisy environments. You can get good foam ear protectors at almost any drug store for a few bucks. Get ones rated at 25 or 30 dB of protection. Just doing these things can help prevent most noise-induced hearing loss in teens.

Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to help me further my education, understand my condition, and also educate my peers about protecting something that most people take for granted. You have my gratitude for sharing your wealth of knowledge and your time.

You’re welcome. I wish more teens were as interested as you in protecting their precious hearing, because once it is gone, it is gone! Thus, the time to learn good hearing conservation habits is right now before it is too late.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man asked:

When an audiologist says you have a ‘mixed’ hearing loss, what exactly does he mean?

Hearing loss basically comes in 4 “flavors”.

First, there are conductive losses. Conductive losses comprise about 10% of all hearing losses. They are typically mechanical hearing losses in the outer and middle ear and often involve the lack of free movement of the 3 tiny bones in the middle ear—the hammer (malleus), anvil (incus) and stirrup (stapes).

Second, there are sensorineural hearing losses. Sensorineural (pronounced SENS-sore-ree-NOO-rawl) hearing losses are the most common kind of hearing losses, comprising about 90% of all hearing losses. These hearing losses have to do with the auditory sensing nerves in the inner ear and auditory nerves (hence the name sensori—sensing, and neural—nerves). In the past this was referred to as “nerve deafness”. However, this is really a misnomer as the hearing loss almost always occurs because of the death of the hair cells that connect to the very tips of the auditory nerves, not to the nerves themselves.

Third, is the rare central hearing loss. Central hearing losses occur when something is wrong in the auditory processing parts of the brain. Your ears can be working properly but you still can’t hear well because your brain can’t process these sound signals correctly.

Finally, and also rare, is a functional hearing loss. Functional hearing losses are psychological hearing losses that can occur after severe trauma, for example. Such people have been so traumatized that they block out all sounds so don’t hear them, although the entire auditory system is working properly.

Now that you know the kinds of hearing losses, it is easy to answer your question. A mixed loss is where you have 2 or more of these hearing losses occurring at the same time.

Typically, when audiologists refer to a mixed hearing loss, they are talking about your having both a sensorineural hearing loss and a conductive hearing loss at the same time.

They can tell this because there is an “air-bone gap” on your audiogram. Unlike its name suggests, there is no physical gap between two bones in your head letting air in. Rather, this is your audiologist’s shorthand way of saying that the results of your air conduction test (what you hear through your ear canals when wearing earphones) and your bone conduction test (what you hear through your skull when wearing a bone vibrator behind your ear) are not the same—the two lines do not overlay each other as would happen if you only had a sensorineural hearing loss. Instead, there is an gap or space between the “air” and “bone” conduction lines when plotted on your audiogram.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A mother explained:

My son has had a few bouts of tinnitus followed by a hearing drop in one ear. This always seems to be as a result of, or following, strenuous exercise. So far the ear has always recovered to its old level. I reported the last episode to my doctor who has now raised the question that it could be “labyrinthine hydrops.” The drugs that he recommended we consider are Betahistine or Cinnarizine, but the side effects seem severe. Up until now, these episodes only occur when my son has congestion, and this has thrown even more questions into the pot! I’d appreciate your advice.

Strenuous exercise can raise the internal pressure in the head, just like a blow to the head can. If your son has large vestibular aqueduct syndrome (LVAS), this can cause hearing loss. This is nothing new. Actually, it doesn’t even have to be exercise—any form of extreme straining can cause this in people with LVAS if they are susceptible. Fortunately, not all people with LVAS are susceptible to this.

It’s great that his hearing comes back after each episode. Of course, there are no guarantees that his hearing will always return, but it seems you can go by your son’s previous history—which is, it is a temporary hearing loss.

It could be labyrinthine hydrops or anything else, but if your son has LVAS, that would be the most likely cause. Maybe your doctor considers LVAS to be a form of labyrinthine hydrops?

Personally, I’d not take either Betahistine or Cinnarizine if I were in his shoes. To me, the solution is much simpler—just don’t strain so much when exercising. He should be able to find the level below which this doesn’t happen, and then limit himself to that much straining effort.

Incidentally, labyrinthine hydrops is an inner ear condition, whereas congestion is a middle ear condition.

If his hearing loss only occurs when he is congested, then it could be that the strenuous exercise is causing “gunk” (to use a fancy medical term), to clog up his Eustachian tubes and middle ears causing some degree of conductive hearing loss. When the gunk drains out, his hearing returns to normal. If this is the case, it has nothing whatsoever to do with LVAS.

One way to determine which is which is to go to an audiologist and have an audiogram done as soon as he loses some hearing from straining. If the audiogram shows only a sensorineural hearing loss, then it is LVAS (or another inner ear condition). If it shows a conductive loss, it is likely gunk in the middle ear or Eustachian tube. If he already has a sensorineural hearing loss from LVAS, and it is gunk in his middle ear, the audiogram should show an air-bone gap indicating the conductive component. Once you know what the audiogram shows, then you’ll better know how to proceed.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Hard of hearing people are impatient for hair cell research to bring forth positive results so they can have their hearing restored to normal or near normal. That is their desire, but this reality is still far in the future.

In spite of all the advances that have been made in recent years, hair cell regeneration in humans is still at least 20 years away according to Dr. Douglas A. Cotanche, an Associate Professor in the Departments of Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery, and Anatomy & Neurobiology, at the Boston University School of Medicine in MA.

Dr. Cotanche explains, “We are still in the very early stages of developing techniques for inducing hair cell regeneration in damaged mouse and guinea pig ears. To date, we have not yet perfected a technique that leads to full, or even partial functional recovery in a damaged cochlea. We need to accomplish this before we can think of trying therapies in humans. I would project that a potential therapy will not be available for at least 20 years.”

Before human trials can begin, according to Dr. Cotanche, “We would need to be able to show that the therapy did not somehow cause a reduction in the surviving hair cell population and lead to further hearing loss.”

You see, some unexpected negative results have shown up in the animal research undertaken so far. As Dr. Cotanche explains, “We know that mammal cochlear hair cells will not regenerate on their own when the native hair cells are lost. But experimental models have shown that we can induce some levels of regeneration by stimulating genes that cause cells to divide. So we do see an initial burst of hair cell regeneration, but then the ear somehow senses that these new hair cells are not normal—that this should not happen—and eliminates these cells.”

Dr. Cotanche continues, “Now we need to find a way to keep these newly regenerated hair cells in the mammal ear from dying off, and determining if they can regain function.”

As a result, hair cell regeneration in humans is not just “around the corner”. At present we need to use the hearing aids and cochlear implants that are available to us, and not wait for the possibility of hair cell regeneration to give us better hearing.

Although hair cell regeneration is still a long way in the future, Dr. Cotanche confidently asserts, “We’re getting there slow but sure!”

To read the full November 9, 2009 chat transcript with Dr. Cotanche, point your browser to the Hearing Loss Association of America web page.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man explained:

I am the father of a seven year old hard of hearing (moderate and profound) child. Recently he was diagnosed with enlarged adenoids and an Adenoidectomy was advised by the ENT. The Dr told me it would improve his hearing. My question is, in what way do adenoids affect hearing, and how will an Adenoidectomy help to improve his hearing?

Good question. The adenoids are a part of the body’s immune system in children. Therefore, it is generally not a good idea to take them out like they once did back in the 1950s because the child is then left with a somewhat weakened immune system. Incidentally, the adenoids naturally “disappear” as a child grows into a teen.

At times, the adenoids become enlarged from doing their jobs and “grabbing” any viruses that try to enter the child’s body via his nose. This is not a bad thing—they are just doing their jobs and should be left alone in my opinion.

However, sometimes the adenoids become so big that they interfere with a child’s breathing, or block the Eustachian tubes from draining properly. If this happens, doctors typically recommend taking them out. This procedure is called an Adenoidectomy. (Personally, I think you should strengthen the child’s immune system so they shrink back to their normal size.)

When the adenoids become sufficiently enlarged, they can prevent the Eustachian tubes from working properly. The result is that fluid cannot drain from the middle ears. When that happens, the child often has chronic middle ear infections. These infections fill the middle ear up with a thick mucus-like fluid. Temporary hearing loss occurs because the 3 tiny bones in the middle ear can’t vibrate freely in this “gunk”. When the fluid eventually drains away and is replaced by air, the bones again vibrate freely and hearing returns.

When doctors remove the adenoids, they no longer block the Eustachian tubes so fluid can drain from the middle ears, thus hopefully not causing bouts of temporary hearing loss.

Doctors also typically take the adenoids out if a child has too many ear infections each year. However, removing the adenoids does nothing to reduce the number of ear infections a child has. That is why I believe you should strengthen the child’s immune system in the first place, rather than removing the adenoids. The adenoids are really part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Now that you know what is going on, you can make an informed decision together with your doctor.

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.

Most people know that if you have diabetes, you run the risk of microvascular complications that can affect the retina of your eyes and your peripheral nerves, especially in your feet. Diabetes can also damage your hearing. That is not new.

What is new is just how many people with diabetes also have resulting high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss. Here is what a couple of studies have revealed.

The first study (1) revealed almost six times the odds of high frequency hearing loss associated with peripheral neuropathy and coronary heart disease. In addition, this study of 472 people showed that sub-optimal glycemic control (defined as a hemoglobin A1c level (HbA1c) greater than or equal to 7%) was associated with almost 3 times the odds of high-frequency hearing loss.

The second study (2) compared the hearing of 50 people with diabetes to 50 controls matched for age and sex.

The results of pure tone audiometry found that 94% of the people with diabetes had hearing loss compared to just 18% in the control group. That’s a pretty significant difference!

When comparing people with a glycemic control of 7% or greater to people with a glycemic control of less than 7%, those with a glycemic control of 7% or greater all had hearing loss. Their hearing losses broke down this way: mild to moderate loss, 56%; moderate to severe, 35%; and severe to profound, 9%.

Of those people with a glycemic control of less than 7%, only 40% had hearing losses and all their hearing losses were only mild to moderate. Thus, it appears that it is vitally important to your hearing health to keep your glycemic control (hemoglobin A1c levels) to less than 7% if at all possible.

When comparing severity of hearing loss to the length of time a person had diabetes, the results generally revealed that the longer you have diabetes, the more severe your resulting hearing loss. For example, for those people with diabetes for more than 8 years, 8% had mild to moderate losses, 75% had moderate to severe losses and 17% had severe to profound losses. The corresponding hearing losses for those with diabetes for fewer than 8 years were 69%, 18% and 5%.

Notice the enormous shift from those with mild to moderate losses in the fewer than 8 year group (69%) to moderate to severe losses in the more than 8 year group (75%).

Although these are preliminary findings, it appears that getting your diabetes under control as soon as possible, and maintaining a glycemic control of less than 7%, will give you the best chance of retaining your hearing and preventing increasing hearing loss the longer you have diabetes.

(1) Bainbridge, Kathleen, and Catherine Cowie. “Correlates of Hearing Impairment in the U.S. Population with Diabetes, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999-2004.” Bethesda, MD. Abstract No. 957-P. American Diabetes Association.

(2) Ismail, Mohammed, and Prcasanna Venkatesan. “Diabetes and Auditoryneuropathy” Mangalore, India. Abstract No. 28-LB. American Diabetes Association.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Hearing loss is typically misunderstood by the general population. Thus, it is not surprising that many hearing people have bought into the following 7 myths regarding hearing loss and the people with these losses.

Myth No. 1. Hard of hearing people are less intelligent than “hearing” people. Thus, they attach this social stigma to having a hearing loss. This myth is so deeply ingrained in the general population that even today most hard of hearing people refuse to wear hearing aids for fear of being thought stupid. The truth is, hard of hearing people are just like other people. Some are smart and some are not. Don’t blame any perceived lack of intelligence on hearing loss. Place the blame where it should be—on communication difficulties.

Myth No. 2. Wearing hearing aids returns hearing to normal. Not true. Hearing aids can improve hearing—typically reducing the hearing loss by half—but never bring it up to normal. Thus hard of hearing people still have a hearing loss even when wearing their hearing aids. They often need to supplement what they hear by using assistive devices, by speechreading and by using other effective hearing loss coping strategies.

Myth No. 3. Hard of hearing people have selective hearing. They only hear what they want to hear, but they can hear if they really want to. While it is true that hard of hearing people do indeed have selective hearing, it is not because they don’t pay attention. Rather, it is because their ears do not hear certain frequencies of sounds. They have no choice over which sounds they hear and don’t hear.

Myth No. 4. Only old people have a hearing loss. Not true. Because of excessive noise exposure, taking medications that damage ears, ear infections and other factors, hearing loss affects children, adults and seniors alike. One study showed that on any given day, 15% of the children in elementary schools have a significant hearing loss.

Myth No. 5. When you have a hearing loss you somehow (magically) become a good lip reader. Thus, since hard of hearing people can read lips, it doesn’t matter whether they hear or not. Fact: lip reading, (now more correctly called speechreading) while invaluable, is far from perfect. Only about 30% of English sounds can be easily read on a person’s lips. That leaves the hard of hearing person guessing at the remaining 70%. While a few are remarkably good at this, no one is perfect.

Myth No. 6. If a hard of hearing person can’t hear you, raise your voice at them. The truth is, most hard of hearing people need you to speak up just a bit, but they really want you to face them, then speak slowly and enunciate clearly. This is because when you lose some of your hearing, you hear people talking, but often you can’t understand much of what they are saying.

Myth No. 7. Hard of hearing people understand sign language. Therefore, in order to accommodate people with hearing loss at meetings, you just need to provide a sign language interpreter. Fact: of the 70 million people with hearing loss, fewer than 1% know how to sign. Hard of hearing people typically need to use, in addition to their hearing aids, various assistive devices and real-time captioning (CART).

And one bonus myth—Myth No. 8. If you speak normally, you obviously can’t have much of a hearing loss, therefore you are really faking it when you speak properly but say you can’t hear. The truth is, the vast majority of hard of hearing people speak normally. Some people that have more severe hearing losses and don’t wear hearing aids talk louder than normal. Other people with profound hearing losses speak in a flat tone (deaf speech). And surprise, some people with severe to profound hearing losses speak perfectly normally too. I’m one of them!

 by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
A man wrote:

I was browsing on a website and want to know whether what it said about sound therapy is true. The website said that:

‘The Sound Therapy Program is a rehabilitation of the inner ear muscles, thanks to high frequencies.

It can help in all ear disorders as:
· Hearing loss
· Tinnitus
· Meniere’s disease, vertigo and dizziness
· Cocktail party syndrome (difficulty hearing in noisy places)
· Noise sensibility (hyperacusis)
· Short term memory loss
· Language disorders (dyslexia, stuttering)
· Learning (ADD, ADHD, autism, Down’s syndrome)
· Sleep disorders
· Brain damage (accident, stroke, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s)’

The above “blurb” came from near the bottom of this web page. It’s quite an impressive list of conditions that sound therapy is supposed to cure, isn’t it?

You are right to be cautious, and want to know whether it is real, or just a bunch of hype.

I’m not an expert in sound therapy, but I have investigated and written about it in the past, and even have the sound therapy tapes myself so I know a bit about it.

First, let me say that the above blurb is somewhat misleading (just like much of the advertising today is). Yes, sound therapy does work for all those conditions to some degree or other for some people, but no, is is not the cure for all those conditions for everyone.

If sound therapy did indeed work for everyone and cure hearing loss or tinnitus, then everyone would be using it, As a result, no one would need hearing aids or have tinnitus anymore—and we know that is not true. Thus, you have to
understand what sound therapy realistically can and cannot do for you.

Sound therapy is indeed a valid treatment for certain conditions, especially for children with learning disabilities, ADD, autism and related conditions. In fact, this is where sound therapy excels.

One lady just wrote me and stated, “I have seen incredible results in all 3 of my children with special needs from listening [to sound therapy music using an] 80 GB iPod with bone conduction headphones.”

This lady is now herself a sound therapy practitioner. When I asked her how it had helped her tinnitus, she told me that although she had been using sound therapy on herself for the past 9 months, she hadn’t seen any difference in her tinnitus. This reinforces my point that sound therapy does not work for everyone, not even for some firm believers in the program. On the other hand, it does work miracles for some people. Thus, you really can’t know if it will work for you unless you try it.

I found, that with my particular reverse slope hearing loss, listening to the tapes grated on my nerves, so this therapy isn’t for me either.

In general, for the average person with conditions such as hearing loss, hyperacusis, tinnitus and Meniere’s disease, I don’t think sound therapy by itself has a very high success rate. However, if you have certain particular variations of the above conditions, for example, certain conductive hearing losses rather than sensorineural hearing losses, then sound therapy can do amazing things.

Sound therapy is simple to use. It consists of listening to special tapes/CDs/iPods of classical music that have been specially electronically altered to give your ears a “workout”. You can listen while you are working or relaxing.

Sound therapy was developed by French ENT, Dr. Alfred Tomatis in the early 1970s, so it has been around for about 40 years.

Another doctor, Guy Berard made some modifications to the sound therapy program and called it “Auditory Integration Training”. He brought this program to the USA in 1992.

The mother and daughter team of Patricia and Rafaele Joudry made yet another variation to the sound therapy program and explain it in their book, “Sound Therapy: Music to Recharge Your Brain”. It explains how to listen, and what benefits you can expect for conditions such as tinnitus, fatigue, insomnia, stress and anxiety, hearing loss, sound sensitivity (hyperacusis), dizziness, Meniere’s syndrome, jet lag and learning, memory and concentration problems.

Rafaele also authored, “Triumph over Tinnitus”. This book explains sound therapy’s role in helping people with tinnitus. You can get these books through her Sound Therapy International website.

Sound therapy is one of the many tools you should have in your “ear repair” toolbox, and take it out and use it when appropriate. If it works for you, great. If not, put in back in your toolbox and try another “tool”.

You can read more about Sound Therapy, Auditory Integration Training and Biomental Home-Retraining Therapy and how they specifically apply to tinnitus in my book, “When Your Ears Ring! Cope With Your Tinnitus—Here’s How“.

If you have tried sound therapy or one of its variations, I’d love to hear how it worked for you.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Shanna Groves, herself hard of hearing, and one of our HearingLossHelp eZine readers has just completed her first novel about a hard of hearing family.

Here’s your chance to read this brand new novel. (She just finished the final chapter on December 24th!) You’ll find the first chapter grabs you, and before you know it, you’ll have read the entire novel in one sitting—all 30 chapters. At least, that’s what happened to me!

To read the pre-publication version, simply email Shanna and ask her for access to her “Lip Reader” blog, because access to this blog is “by invitation only”. She’ll gladly send you the invitation link so you can enjoy it too. Let her know you learned about her novel right here in the HearingLossHelp eZine.

Now, here’s the “official” blurb on “Lip Reader”.

Young Woman Shares Hearing Loss Journey in Book, Blog

OLATHE, KS – Most people don’t expect to deal with hearing loss until their old age, but one person has years of experience and she is in her mid-thirties. Shanna Bartlett Groves has dealt with hearing loss in online support groups, speaking engagements, relationships and now in a new novel.

Groves, a freelance writer, completed the novel “Lip Reader” based on her own experiences with hearing loss. “I wrote ‘Lip Reader’ to tell the story of a family dealing with hearing loss. This is a story that not only tells about their experiences with being hard of hearing in a hearing world, but also some of the reactions that other people have had with their deafness.

“My own hearing journey inspired the two main characters in the story, 12-year-old Sapphie Traylor and her mother Rea. The extended family—the grandparents, uncles, aunt and cousins—were inspired by my father’s family, some of whom still live in the Fort Cobb/Anadarko, Oklahoma, area where I was born.”

She has written about her hearing loss journey in Hearing Loss Journal, The Kansas City Star, MOMSense and the book “A Cup of Comfort For Nurses”.

Read the Full Story here.