Hearing Loss Help  

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man wrote:

I hope you can help me It all started on March 11. I got to work and started walking to the job and got dizzy and light headed. During the next 3 hours, I felt worse and worse. I got sick to my stomach. I called my wife to come and take me to the hospital. As we were going to hospital my chest, hands and feet felt numb. At the hospital I told them my chest hurts, my hands and feet feel numb, and I’m spinning. I was in the hospital 10 days.

After I got out, they sent me to an ENT doctor because I had lost the hearing in one ear. He put me on Prednisone and some other drugs. My hearing came back quite fast. However, since this happened, I need to use a walker because I am dizzy. My wife drives me around, and just the motion of the car, and seeing cars whiz by makes me dizzy.

I am just 54. They have done an MRI and found nothing. They say only my left ear was involved. The neurologist said today that a small blood vessel going to my ear could have caused a small stroke. Of all of the stories that I’ve read on the Internet, no one talks about numbness. Furthermore, I can’t believe that hearing plays that much of a role in having to use a walker.

That’s quite an experience you have gone through. I agree with you that numbness is not a part of “ear problems.” Typically, numbness is the result of a lack of blood flow to the affected parts of your body. Hence the sensor nerves there (pain, heat/cold, pressure, etc) temporarily cannot send their messages to your brain. Thus you have the numb feeling (or rather lack of feeling).

Whatever you had obviously affected your whole body, including one of your ears. When the blood flow was cut off to this ear, it immediately affected the two things your ears give you—your hearing and your balance.

Since the vestibular parts of your inner ears are the main balance organs in your body, when one or both of them are damaged, you typically get violently sick and the room spins— just as you experienced.

Thankfully, your hearing came back, but you are now left with what appears to be some permanent balance problems. Let me explain what happens in your ears that causes you to have these balance problems.

Your inner ears consist of two parts, the cochlea and the vestibular system. When something damages the cochlea, you lose hearing. Apparently the same thing that affected your cochlea also affected your vestibular system causing your dizziness and vertigo. Often both are damaged together since both structures lie side by side and share the same fluids.

Perhaps you don’t know this, but you actually have 3 separate balance systems in your body. First, and the most important, is the vestibular system in your ears. Second is your eyes. Trailing a distant third is your proprioceptive system (pressure sensors in your legs and feet).

Since there are two of each of these subsystems, you really have 6 separate parts of your balance system—all sending balance information to your brain. If all 6 send the same consistent information, you have normal balance.

However, if one (or more) of these parts is damaged and begins to send different (false) balance information, then instantly your brain is confused. The result is the dizziness and vertigo (spinning) you experienced.

Fortunately, over time, your brain generally learns how to ignore the bad signals. When this happens, the vertigo and much of the dizziness goes away. It can take a few months or more for your brain to adjust.

One thing that helps is to do balance exercises that teach your brain to ignore the bad balance signals, and only use the good ones.

One more point. You mention, “My wife drives me around, and just the motion of the car, and seeing cars whiz by makes me dizzy.” This is often the result of damage to your vestibulo-ocular reflex. This is just a fancy way of saying that the vestibular system in your inner ears and your eyes are tied together in intricate and wonderful ways so that when you are moving around your eyes have a stable horizon or reference point.

When this vestibulo-ocular reflex is damaged or broken, then your eyes move independently, rather than being coordinated by your brain to move in unison with your body movements. One of the results is the dizziness you feel when you, or something around you, is moving.

When you wrote, “I can’t believe that hearing plays that much of a role in having to use a walker,” you were only thinking of your ears as hearing organs. By now you realize they are so much more—they are critical to proper balance. When you don’t have good balance as you have unfortunately discovered, you cannot always function independently.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man explained:

I have a high-frequency hearing loss. I use two hearing aids with telecoils. I have heard about a neckloop, but I am unclear if I just need a neckloop, or something additional to make the neckloop work.

Yes, you need something additional. Think of a neckloop as equivalent to a pair of ear buds. You have to plug the ear buds into an audio device in order to hear anything. The same is true with a neckloop. You can plug a neckloop into any device that you can plug ear buds into.

This man continues:

I sometimes have trouble hearing when I use (or try to use) my cell phone if there is even just one person nearby talking. Will a neckloop help me?

When you switch your hearing aids to t-coil mode, you will instantly eliminate all the voices and noise around you. That is one of the advantages of using your t-coils in noisy situations.

However, regular neckloops won’t work in cell phones. They have the wrong size of plug. Special neckloops are available that have the correct plug and the integrated microphone that you need in order for them to work with cell phones.

However, in my experience, neckloops—unless they are amplified—don’t have enough power to effectively work with cell phones. (Incidentally, amplified neckloops cost a lot more and require batteries. If the batteries die on you, so does the conversation.)

Since the above are not problems with the T-links, when using a cell phone, I’d recommend using the T-Links instead of a neckloop. Then you could listen to your cell phone with both ears via your t-coils and not hear the outside interference. You can see the T-links here.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

When she set her hearing aids to t-coil mode, a lady had trouble with interference when using her phone around florescent lights. She wrote:

The florescent light is in my kitchen is an old fixture, but I also tried the new florescent bulbs that screw into a regular light socket in the ceiling fan I have in the kitchen, and I would have to leave the kitchen to talk at all on the phone. As soon as I switched the light bulbs back to the regular ones, the noise quit (except when I stand near the sink where the old fixture is located above the sink.) The old kitchen fixture still causes a buzzing noise in my hearing aids.

What you have discovered is one of the few problems when using t- coils—they are subject to interference from stray magnetic fields. This stray magnetic field is typically caused by the alternating current in your house wiring. You hear this 60 cycle A/C as a loud humming or buzzing sound.

Certain electrical fixtures and appliances cause a lot of interference. Florescent lights, particularly older fixtures, are one of the culprits. Sometimes just changing the old ballast for a new one largely eliminates the problem. Other than that, just moving a few feet away often reduces the interference to a low level.

Another source of interference are TVs and computer monitors that use CRT tubes. Again, just moving back 3 feet or so generally reduces the interference to a very low level. (Note: flat screen LCD TVs and computer monitors do not cause this kind of interference.)

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady wrote:

I have just purchased a Williams Sound PockeTalker and neckloop. I was wondering if your dual Music Links can be used with the PockeTalker instead of the neckloop? They would appear to be somewhat lighter and easier to use.

For sure! They work just fine. Since the PockeTalker has a mono jack and the Music Links has a stereo plug, get a stereo to mono adapter from Radio Shack (Part #274-882, $3.99, or Part #274-368, $2.99), then just plug the adapter into the PockeTalker, and the Music Links into the adapter, and you’re all set. (If you don’t use an adapter, you’ll only hear sound in one ear. The other channel will be shorted to ground.)

The Music Links are definitely lighter than a neckloop. However, I don’t think there is really any difference in their ease of use. You wear the neckloop around your neck. You wear the Music Links hooked over your ears. You can check out the Music Links here.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A person explained:

I have behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids that are programmed to amplify high frequencies only. I would like to listen to an iPod but would need a device that would use both my BTE hearing aids and my ears themselves? Do you know of any such device?

Interesting question. You obviously have the typical ski-slope hearing loss where you hear low frequency sounds at normal or near-normal levels (hence the reason your hearing aids are not programmed to amplify low-frequency sounds) and at the same time, you don’t hear the high frequency sounds much at all (so those frequencies need a lot of amplification).

I see two solutions to your problem.

First, if you have open-fitted ear molds, which let the low-frequency sounds pass through to your ears unimpeded while passing the amplified high-frequency sounds from your hearing aids, you could wear big headphones that fit over both your ears and your hearing aids. This way, your hearing aids will hear and amplify the high frequency sounds while your open-fitted ear molds will allow the low-frequency sounds to pass through. You shouldn’t experience any feedback if your hearing aids have feedback suppression built in. This is a somewhat clunky solution in my opinion but it will work.

Second, a more elegant solution is to have your audiologist program the t-coil memory in your hearing aids to amplify all frequencies of sound (since none will be coming through the air because the iPod doesn’t have any speakers), and then use Music Links or a neckloop to couple the iPod to your hearing aids. Both of these devices work very well with iPods—at least they do with mine.

This way, when using your hearing aids in the microphone mode you’d hear via your hearing aids (high-frequency sounds) and your open-fitted ear molds (low-frequency sounds).

However, when you switch over to t-coil mode, you’d hear only via your hearing aids—but since this program is now set to amplify all frequencies of sounds (less for low-frequency sounds and more for high-frequency sounds) you would hear all frequencies of sound when listening to your iPod via Music Links or a neckloop.

Note that if you want to hear true stereo sound, then you need to use the Music Links as these are true stereo devices. A neckloop will only give you dual-mono sound.