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Do You Have to Worry about Ototoxicity if You’ve Already Lost Your Hearing?

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady asked,

After you’ve already lost all your hearing, what difference does it make whether the drug you are taking is ototoxic or not?

That’s a good question. If you now have no useful hearing remaining, you wouldn’t think you’d have to worry about taking ototoxic drugs, would you? I mean, you don’t have any hearing left to lose—or do you?

This would be true if you are deaf and are planning on staying deaf for the rest of you life. However, if you want to hear via cochlear implants (CIs), taking ototoxic drugs can still cause you hearing problems even though the electrodes in your cochlear implants effectively bypass the dead hair cells in your inner ears.

This is because some ototoxic drugs affect the retrocochlear auditory system. “Retrocochlear” is just a fancy medical term that refers to the auditory system on the far side of (after) your cochlea—specifically your auditory nerves and the auditory parts of your brain.

Anything that damages or negatively affects your auditory nerves or the auditory circuits in your brain will affect how well your CI works. Unfortunately, some ototoxic drugs affect how your auditory nerves transmit the sound signals to your brain, and/or affect how well your brain processes these sound signals. This can affect how well you hear with your CI.

In addition, there are many other reasons for avoiding ototoxic drugs besides just hearing loss. What about tinnitus? Do you really want tinnitus—where your ears ring, roar, buzz, sizzle, hum, click, hiss, chirp, whistle, rumble, etc.—even though you can’t hear? More than 520 ototoxic drugs can cause tinnitus.

What about the many vestibular (balance) side effects? Are you, for some strange reason, looking forward to experiencing horrible vertigo (spinning sensation), dizziness, ataxia (staggering gait), nystagmus (jerking eyes) or oscillopsia (bouncing vision) because an ototoxic drug has damaged your vestibular system?

Furthermore, the side effects of ototoxic drugs damaging your vestibular system can affect your vision, your memory and your sense of well-being. In addition, you may end up fatigued, nauseous and suffering from muscular aches and pains, including ear pain.

All of these are ototoxic side effects. As you can now see, the side effects of ototoxic drugs can damage far more than just your hearing. that is why you want to be careful, and only take ototoxic drugs when it is absolutely necessary.

Don’t let ototoxic drugs inadvertently damage your ears and cause hearing loss, tinnitus or balance problems. To learn which drugs are ototoxic, get the 3rd edition of  Ototoxic Drugs Exposed. This book contains information on the ototoxicity of 877 drugs, 35 herbals and 148 chemicals.

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Free Visor Cards

Download your free Visor Cards for hard of hearing or deaf people here.

Loop Systems

Loop your home or meeting room. Discover how you can hear wonderfully clear sound again when listening to the TV/radio, etc, or when listening to a speaker at a meeting.

Loop systems are one of the best-kept secrets in town. To learn more about Loop Systems and what they can do for you, click here.

Take Control of Your Tinnitus—Here’s How

If your ears ring, buzz, chirp, hiss, click or roar, you know just how annoying tinnitus can be. You do not have to put up with this racket for the rest of your life. This book teaches you many things you can do to help bring your tinnitus under your control so it no longer bothers you.

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Sounds Now Too Loud for You?

Hypersensitive to Sound front coverIf some (or all) normal sounds seem so loud they “blow the top of your head off”, or make you wince or jump, or cause you headaches or ear pain, or affect your balance, or result in fear or annoyance of sounds so you feel you have to avoid these sounds, this book is for you!

Learn More | Add to Cart—Printed | Add to Cart—eBook

Hearing Phantom Sounds?

When hard of hearing people begin hearing phantom voices or music, they immediately worry they are going crazy. It never crosses their minds that they are sane and are just experiencing Musical Ear syndrome.

To learn more about the strange phantom sounds of Musical Ear syndrome and what you can do about them, click here to read a comprehensive article about Musical Ear Syndrome.

Or get the book—Learn More | Add to Cart—Printed | Add to Cart—eBook

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Center for Hearing Loss Help

Neil G. Bauman, Ph.D.

1013 Ridgeway Drive, Lynden,
WA 98264-1057 USA

Email: neil@hearinglosshelp.com

Phone: 360-778-1266 (M-F 9:00 AM-5:00 PM PST)

© 2025 Center for Hearing Loss Help – Help for your hearing loss, tinnitus and other ear conditions

"The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life [which also includes perfect hearing] through Jesus Christ our Lord." [Romans 6:23]

"But know this, in the last days perilous times will come" [2 Timothy 3:1]. "For there will be famines, pestilences, and [severe] earthquakes in various places" [Matthew 24:7], "distress of nations, the sea and the waves roaring"—tsunamis, hurricanes—Luke 21:25, but this is good news if you have put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, for "when these things begin to happen, lift up your heads [and rejoice] because your redemption draws near" [Luke 21:28].