by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. If you or your child experience ear pain when flying, here’s some things that can help ease the pain. First, a bit of background on why flying can cause ear pain in some people. Your middle ear is an air-filled cavity about the size of a pea situated right behind your […]

  by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. Hearing people typically have little or no clue what a hard of hearing person hears and doesn’t hear. That’s where hearing loss simulators come in. Hearing loss simulators give hearing people an inkling of what it is like to be hard of hearing. In fact, hearing people are often shocked […]

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. Robert explained, I am 68 now, have tinnitus, a hearing loss of 20-40 dB in the lower frequencies and 70-80 dB in the higher frequencies. The Veterans Administration just denied my claim for hearing aid assistance on the basis that it is not military service related even though I was a […]

  by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.   From time to time people ask me whether they are eligible for Social Security Disability (SSD) because they now have a hearing loss. This most often occurs when someone has had normal hearing and then experiences a sudden hearing loss. Compared to before they lost their hearing, it now […]

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. A lady asked, Have you ever looked into ‘ear candling’? It removes a lot of wax and is safe (if done properly). Ear candling is one of those “quack cures” that unfortunately became popular a number of years ago. It was supposed to “deep clean” your ear canals and remove wax […]

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. I came across an alarming statistic recently—37 million children in America have hearing loss. (1) That’s a lot of our kids that can’t hear well. The 2000 census counted 72.3 million children in the USA under the age of 18 (2) and no doubt that figure is even larger now. 37 […]

  by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. A lady asked, How do you explain to people that you can only hear certain frequencies of sounds—that your hearing is very selective? My friend, Michele, replied, “My favorite analogy is to use a music box—the kind that has the metal drum with the raised dots and tines that strike […]

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. A recent study, published in the Journal of Nutrition, showed that low levels of folate (one of the B vitamins found in spinach, black-eyed peas, beans and other leafy greens) are associated with a higher risk of hearing loss in people over the age of 50. (1) “Those with the lowest […]

Why does hearing get worse as we get older?

This article explains why hearing loss is not really a product of aging, but is really the cumulative effects of three factors caused by living in modern society.

A lot of people are not completely happy with their audiologists. Obviously, audiologists are missing the boat somewhere. I am an audiologist just starting my own audiological practice. What is it that hard of hearing people really want from their audiologist? I want to meet their real needs and have satisfied clients.

Here is what audiologists need to do (besides fitting and selling hearing aids) in order to really help us.

What are some of the challenges facing researchers in their quest for hair cell regeneration? Are they unlocking the secrets that make hair cells “tick”?

This article explains what has been done and what still needs to be done in order for hair cell regeneration to work in humans.

Hair cell regeneration has been in the news for some time now. Will it soon restore hearing for the millions of hard of hearing people? I’d love to know your thoughts about this.

Stripped of all the media hype, this article gives a realistic view of what hair cell regeneration may do for hard of hearing people.

I hear the terms “hearing impairment,” “hearing handicap” and “hearing disability” used seemingly interchangeably. Why do we have these terms if they all mean the same thing? Also, how do you calculate the degree of hearing disability?

This article explains the difference between a handicap and a disability and how to calculate the degree of disability we suffer as hard of hearing people which, in turn, is used to calculate how much of a disability pension you may be eligible for.

From time to time, I see people writing, “I have 78% hearing loss in my right ear and 95% in the left.” What does this percent mean? I thought sound was measured in decibels (dB), not percent? If this is the case what percent is 115 dB?

This article explains how to describe our hearing losses and why hearing loss cannot be expressed as a percentage, but must be expressed in decibels.

I recently lost a lot of my hearing. Now I feel so alone. My family and friends just don’t understand what I am going through. I don’t know any one else who is hard of hearing. Where can I go to receive the understanding, support and friendship I crave so badly?

Hearing loss so often cuts hard of hearing people off from society. Here is one way to reconnect so that hearing loss isn’t a problem any more.

I have something called a cookie-bite loss. I have no idea what it is, but that is what my audiologist called it. I have also heard of ski-slope losses and losses with other weird names. What are they anyway?

This article explains what these weird names for hearing losses mean and illustrates them with audiograms so you can see at a glance what they are.