by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. A lady wrote: I’m interested in a service that provides text conversion for voice mail messages. What company provides this service? The name of the service some hard of hearing people use to automatically transcribe and send text messages to their cell phones and computers is SimulScribe (www.simulscribe.com). As one person […]
Fluctuating Reverse-Slope Hearing Loss
by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. A lady wrote: I was diagnosed last year with a mild reverse-slope hearing loss. Since then it has not worsened much—just slightly. My question is: can this type of hearing loss fluctuate? There are days when I hear just fine. Other days I am constantly asking people to repeat themselves. I […]
Is Ciprofloxacin (Cipro) Ototoxic?
by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. © Oct 11, 2007; revised Jan 9, 2019 A person asked: “Is Cipro ototoxic?” Cipro is one of the brand names of the generic antibiotic Ciprofloxacin. Ciprofloxacin belongs to the Quinolone class of drugs, all of which can be quite ototoxic. Ciprofloxacin can cause severe hearing loss, loud tinnitus, ataxia, dizziness, […]
Absenteeism Higher Among Hard of Hearing Employees When Proper Workplace Accommodations Are Not Made
by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. Some researchers have apparently discovered that hard of hearing people call in sick more often than employees with normal hearing. Here’s the salient parts of the story. The extra energy expended on overcoming hearing problems takes its toll on hearing-impaired employees. This may explain why hearing-impaired employees are likely to […]
Are We Hard of Hearing or Not?
by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. From time to time, the issue arises as to what we (people with a hearing loss) call ourselves. Many of us refer to ourselves as “hard of hearing”. One person with a hearing loss commented: “It’s a stupid expression if you ask me. Hard-of-hearing makes no sense.” Everyone is free […]
Air/Bone Gap
by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. A lady wrote: My hearing loss has been described as “an air gap in the bone.” Whatever do they mean by that? What you really mean to ask is, “What is an air/bone gap?” When your audiologist does the pure tone hearing testing (the series of beeps at different frequencies and […]