.

Well hello and welcome to HealthLine.

Thanks so much for joining us tonight.

I'm Jennifer Blomquist.

I have the privilege of hosting the program this evening in case you are new to our show.

This is a live program.

We're here in the studio right now.

We have a live guest with us.

And the great thing is you can call to ask questions any time between now and a little before eight o'clock when the show ends.

That's why we keep the phone number at the bottom the screen for you.

So it's (969) 27 two zero.

It's a free call even if you're outside Fort Wayne you just have to dial in 866- in front of there and when you call in you have two options you can either ask your question live on the air or you can talk to the call screener and they will relay the question to me and I can ask it for you.

But I do want to let you know not to be nervous because they're not just going to throw you on the air.

They'll talk to you kind of get a feel for what you're going to ask and then they'll let you ask you a lot of if you like.

So call sooner rather than later.

>> A lot of times we end up getting a lot of calls at the end of the show and I don't want to miss you are you don't want to miss your opportunity to get some free advice familiar face joining us tonight has been great.

He's been with us the last few months.

This is Ted Blanford.

>> He is a hearing instrument specialist and full of a wealth of knowledge.

So thanks for coming.

Thanks for having me and always fun to come on.

>> It is we we do we've been I think this is our third program and I have done together recently recently.

Yes.

And and we've done others in years past but I know I always walk away learning something so Ted knows at all so we're going to be talking about hearing aids to start the show.

Yes but if you have something you might have a question about hearing aids or maybe of something else regarding hearing or audio issues.

Give us a call any time between now and like I said, the show only runs a little before eight o'clock.

>> I always thought until I did a program with you a few years ago I just always figured you need hearing aids.

>> You put them on, turn the dial up and you're good to go and boy was I wrong.

No, it's not that simple.

Oh, hearing is very complex as a matter of fact is one of the most complex sensors in our body is the first since we have before we're born.

It's the lessons we had before we go home and it is it's a foundational sense.

So to be able to care for it properly you have to understand a little bit more and understand that because you are not hearing clearly is a big red flag.

So when people say I don't hear there is there most of them are saying I don't understand what's being said because if things feel muffled so when we say hearing we want to make sure that we understand exactly what we're talking about.

>> One thing we've discussed before but a lot of times the person who has the issue can't always recognize it.

It's and I know when when people you you encourage loved ones or somebody to go with that individual if they're going to see somebody to address their hearing issues because the other people around him might be able to help the hearing specialist know what exactly is going on, what we say at hearing doesn't just a hearing loss does not belong to the person with the hearing loss.

Hearing loss belongs to the people that are around that person, the people that they love, their family members or friends and their spouses.

Now that's when we don't know what we don't know if we have a hearing loss.

So we have to rely on those that care most about us.

>> So let us know that those red flags are out there and you're absolutely correct.

Well, yeah, it's funny because I remember my in-laws my father in law went with my mother in law to her appointment.

She was having issues hearing and the reason I knew it was they were babysitting and one of the boys was crying and she had no idea and he was not that far away from her.

>> So my father in law when he went with he told this man that that was hoping that well she has the TV on so loud the house shakes and she said oh that's not true at all.

And it was so you have to be gentle though.

I mean because some people are very sensitive about it and they they feel like people are kind of dumping on them or attacking them or they may even feel like a burden to those and that's and that's important to to be graceful with the give give grace to those with a hearing loss because oftentimes it does have a stigma to it and to to understand how hearing works helps you help them as well because it's very it's a although a complex neurological sense basically what sound is pressure and pressure from some hair cells or nerve cells in the inner ear sending a signal to the brain so we don't hear with our ears the ears are a vehicle to our brain and we hear with our brain so when we're talking about loud TV's and not understanding speech, we have to understand also it's in the brain and we're going to be able to move forward with them if we have to help happen to understand hearing a little bit better and I know it sounds like it's not a cookie cutter solution.

I mean every what works for one person may not work for another.

So it's very individualized.

>> I mean do when if you're having an issue do you do you know I'm just used to seeing people have a hearing test.

You know, they're asked to raise their hand if you ever say they hear I mean is that kind of the first step toward determining what kind of instrument might work for ?

>> Yes.

And we have some marvelous audiologist and hearing specialists here in Fort Wayne that when you go into a test and you are trying to figure out where your hearing level is, yes, you're going to hear tones and tones are just part of and it gives us a map of your hearing and that's called an audiogram.

What we do we take that information from the audio Graham along with speech testing to find out how well you hear and understand speech and then we help you with the prescriptive type of hearing aid that's right for you.

And of course there's demonstrations of that as well and not every hearing is the same.

So we want to make sure that it's properly fit for you and they all have controls today.

We have we have hearing aids with Bluetooth and connecting Bluetooth to your smartphone and helping patients that have difficulty hearing the telephone difficulty hearing in crowds how hearing instruments use multiple microphone technology to help with background noise.

Some of these things that our patients that the patients and or some with a hearing loss complain the most about our how their own voice sounds, how harsh sound is or background noise technology today with hearing specialists and the audiologist today can be prescribed specifically for your type of hearing loss.

It's not something you just stand here, stand there and then move along.

>> It's very personal and it's very professional.

Yeah.

Now there's and there's a lot more we want to talk about.

But I do want to remind everybody that the phone lines are open again.

We keep the phone number up at the bottom of the screen call any time it's (969) 27 two zero still toll free as long as there's an 866- in front of there, we only have the pleasure of Ted's company for another maybe twenty minutes.

So call sooner rather than later.

The show does often go very quickly.

We're talking about hearing instruments but if you have another hearing related question please don't hesitate to give us a call.

We were talking last time too that I think some people are afraid that people will notice that they are wearing a hearing instrument.

>> People can be self-conscious about that.

Absolutely I understand it but they are so much smaller today than what you probably would then what I would remember from my grandparents wearing it's not your grandparents hearing.

>> Yeah.

Or really with just the fact that the technology is so advanced on the internal it's the same thing is happening with the hearing aids on the external they're very, very discrete even though hearing aids you say they go over the ear are very, very discrete.

I wear a hearing aid.

Most people do not know that I'm wearing a hearing aid until I show them.

So the discretion and being able to have something that is going to give you self-confidence and knowing that you're not only going to hear better but no one will know unless you want them to know it and you're absolutely correct hearing loss should not have a stigma and we want to make sure that we we can stamp that stigma out knowing that you're hearing loss is so much more visible than a hearing aid today ever would be that you have shown me some of the hearing instruments and they are really no bigger than some earrings that I see a lot of people wearing.

I mean and not gigantic earrings.

I mean they really just those over the ear ones just they almost look like a little like a little earrings you would wear so very small, very small.

>> We've often talked about the importance of hearing being able to hear because of all the like you said, you know, people kind of feel they can feel depressed or anxious.

You know, they kind of feel shunned by society.

So it's very and the stigma that a lot of people experience.

But what can people do if somebody is in here a hearing issue but they just don't want to address it, you know, and you just see them difficult conversation to have.

>> Yeah, that's what you advise.

Well, I understand that we have that in my family.

My my mother was was struggling with the fact that she had hearing loss love them know that the the people that are closest to you that love you the most are going to give you the give you the news is generally more difficult to hear and knowing that you are maybe not hearing as well as you might think so and your loved ones are reminding you that there is difficulty hearing take their advice General.

You're hearing the hearing loss or the hearing testing itself.

There's no pain involved and right on the worst case scenario worst case scenario you need help on the best case scenario.

You know exactly where you are and in case something does happen, you know where you started so it's always a good idea.

Most folks will go to their dentist once about sixty two percent will go there once a once a year they get their eyes checked.

Seventy four percent people get their eyes checked every year every other only twenty three percent of the folks will get their hearing checked and oftentimes since they were in grade school.

Yeah.

Now if you can know if you know you have a hearing loss there's also one other statistic it's a little bit alarming.

>> It takes most people wait seven to ten years before they realize they have a hearing loss and it just gets worse at least two months before the before they pick up a phone or they go to get tested to get help.

>> Remember we're dealing with the brain so we want to make sure that your brain is healthy and a hearing brain is a healthy brain because hearing health hearing health care is health care and we want to make sure that you are at your tip top.

>> And one thing I've ever asked you before is does it tend to be hereditary or is it just something that almost everybody as we age we we can expect to have some hearing loss?

>> Well, genetics does play a big role now we have folks in our in our local area there's a lot of industry involved and a lot of generational industry and loud noises.

People have good jobs and loud in factory jobs and things like this are Leo's our military personnel are Ms. folks.

They they they work in very loud environments so they have a tendency to have a hearing loss as well.

Now you combine the genetics, you combine these cloud environments and maybe some some medications that we need for other portions of our say diabetes or heart disease.

Those also have side effects.

>> So we want to make sure that we're covering all those candidates.

But genetics does does play a role all right.

Well, we do have somebody who'd like to ask you a question so I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to the phones.

Dave, are you still there?

>> Yes, I am.

Hi.

Thanks for your patience.

Go ahead and ask the question.

I'm 64 and retired and I have ringing in my ears like I have right now all the time.

It's usually in the evening and you know, I've been in office environment for the last twenty years.

Sometimes I see advertisers for hearing aid places and ringing in your ears, you know, come in you either hear in it or something.

I don't get that part of it.

So why does why does this happen?

Good question, Dave.

That's a good question.

Generally that's called tinnitus or tinnitus.

You pronounce it either way what it is is damage to the hair cells or the nerves inside your inner ear that are leaking electrical signals to the brain and the brain only knows how to interpret those those signals one way and that's causing sound if you look on your screen now you can see those they look like haystacks, those that are nice and uniform and and very strong.

Those are healthy.

But up in the upper left hand corner you might notice that there are some that are broken, bent or damaged.

Those are the ones that are leaking those electrical signals to the brain causing the ringing of rushing in the buzzing in your ear.

And Dave, that's called tinnitus and it's something to address for sure.

And Dave, did you want to ask anything else because I know you had said you didn't know if hearing aid is if you if you believe a hearing aid would help or yeah.

>> What what's the what's the result?

Oh, well that's a good question as well.

The hearing aid that will fill in that space where those damaged hair cells are those damaged nerve cells are to give a normal natural signal of the brain.

Let's let's look at it as a road with potholes in it.

If you fill that road with the potholes filled up to me nice and smooth, that's what the hearing aid would do.

They fills that area of sound correctly natural healthy sound to the brain and makes that road from your ear to your brain.

Nice and smooth.

And also there's other there's other secondary stimulus and masking devices and hearing instruments today that could also be a possible help for you as well.

>> All right, Dave, we wish you well a great question because we actually really wanted to talk about tinnitus as well because I know that's a very common issue for people.

So thank you, Dave.

Thanks, Dave.

We had somebody else who called in.

Teddy wanted to ask me to ask a question for him.

Terry wants to know if there's a way to reverse sudden hearing loss or are there some kind of methods that can help that what would cause sudden hearing?

>> Well, there's there's several reason to have a sudden hearing loss but generally the most common is maybe a viral infection.

Something happens usually on one side or the other.

If this is if I'm reading that question correctly and is there a way to reverse it?

There's if you catch it in time there's there's some treatments and seeing your E.A.

would be the better person to ask that advice as part of my scope of practice.

But there are methods for them to use steroids or other things, other methods to be able to capture it quickly enough.

There is a possibility to help you're hearing can I say it's going to be reversible?

>> I can't tell you that for sure.

If it was sudden I didn't think about that until you brought it up it would probably just be one side.

>> It's usually not going to impact us generally when you have something like that it would be a single side one right or left side.

>> Yeah, OK. Well and we all know you know, growing up I think that was the big one was all these kids you know with the when the you know headphones and everything from the boombox.

>> Yeah yeah.

They'd say are you going to you know you're going to kill your hearing.

So those are that's part of the hearing loss over over time.

>> Yes.

Well that loud stuff OK, we have another question from somebody named Steve.

He wanted to ask it for him.

What are your thoughts?

He wants to know what your thoughts are on hearing aids being sold over the counter at pharmacies.

>> Well, they are being enacted yesterday was the first day I was say I had to see that I had heard since we haven't seen quite a bit what we do know is that you are not required to have a hearing test sort of like going in and buying readers.

I know that we do know that they are being sold over the counter and there is from what I understand there's no refund and there's no returns on them because they are simply going to be putting in your ears.

We know that it is made there.

They're manufactured specifically for a perceived mild to moderate hearing loss and oftentimes there's multiple different manufacturers out there.

They have to give you a the manufacturer has to provide a address for you to be able to mail them in if they need to be repaired.

Those are the things we do know every every location that is a participating in the over the counter hearing a market right now each place has a different different method of how they're going to prescribe or dispense them.

>> Yeah, it's definitely a new thing.

So it is I'm sure it will evolve as time goes by.

So OK now a great question.

We still have time left so if you want to ask a question we've had some really good ones tonight.

Feel free.

You can do just like Steve did where he called in and had me ask the question for him or you can do it Dave did earlier in the show and he asked a question like either way Ways is great if you ask it live it's kind of nice because you can banter back and forth, Ted, you know, maybe there's you know, once you get his answer maybe there's a little more you want to ask.

So that's one nice feature about calling in and asking it life .

One thing we have to talk about I guess maybe it was because of the weather yesterday I started thinking, you know, Thanksgiving's not that far.

Christmas is not that far now that we're getting a little snow in the forecast and that's traditionally a time when you're going to see relatives for gatherings and so forth, many of whom maybe you haven't seen for a long time and that could be a tough time if you can't hear or you're struggling.

>> That is probably the time where we start to see a hearing loss is going to be much more visible in those environments because the people like I once again it all comes down to being part of your family, being part of the lives of the people you love the most and those that love you and hearing is a connector and when you when you don't hear well and you have a difficult time understanding you are disconnected from from that that group of people that love you so much.

So the holidays coming up is one of those extremely stressful times a a hearing loss that is untreated has a tendency to also promote depression, anxiety, isolation and things like this.

And you don't want to have that.

And when you are isolated in a room full of people that you love the most, you really have disconnect.

So this is when that gentle nudge towards your professional health care hearing health care provider is going to pay off really good dividends and being able to bring that person back into your life and you can be back in their life to because the people that love you the most want you to be part of their lives.

>> Yeah.

And you know, like you said it that might be just kind of the straw that breaks the camel's back for a lack of a better term that people say, gee, you know, I'm missing out.

I don't want it to be like this next Thanksgiving or whatnot.

So we have talked a little bit about this before but you said that different kinds of voices can be harder for someone with hearing loss to interpret and in particular I know you've mentioned women and children.

>> What you're going to do a lot of times you're going to see a lot of kids over the holidays.

Why is that?

>> Why is it sound different?

Well, let's talk about what types of hearing we're talking about if the low tones let you identify that sound is there there the there the the background sounds the low rolling tones they know that you are being spoken to or that there is sound to be heard the high frequencies, the constant of the consonant sounds are the ones that give words meaning those are high frequency and they don't produce a lot of energy and without help you are not going to be able to hear and understand them.

This is why when someone says a I can I hear a lot I can hear them over there but I can't understand the person across from me is general because they have a high frequency hearing loss and that has to be addressed.

>> OK, all right.

Yeah we had a caller one time I think ask about that so I just can't stand it when these women talk to me and yeah because you think about that it's a different you know, different voice.

So I have a couple of questions now Farouk's so let's see Tom called in and he must know can a stroke lead to tinnitus which remember we say in the tinnitus the ringing of the ear.

>> Yes.

And Tom, a fantastic question.

Yes.

Anytime they could possibly there's damage to the to the brain could also lead to ringing of the ears and ringing in your head or any any lack of blood supply could also do something very similar to it.

Is it the primary cause I'm not sure.

But also there have been cases where stroke does have tinnitus being a side effect of post stroke a side effect.

>> Yes, absolutely.

Good question, Tom.

Thank you because it was caused by a stroke.

Did it go away?

You know, sometimes people recover from their strokes general out generally not.

You've got to get that taken care.

>> Absolutely.

OK, I didn't know if that was just because the the ears have an incredible amount of blood vessels and nerve endings in there and when you have a stroke and if it affects one side of your body, it affects the nervous system on that side of your body.

It's going to affect your hearing possibly as well.

And if it affects the hair cells in the nerves inside the inner ear, it could cause tinnitus.

It could damage those hair cells and cause that that that leaking of the electrical impulses and messages to the brain.

>> Absolutely.

All right.

>> We had another question from Barb.

She wants to know if there is a fix for closed station tubes.

>> Oh, close your station to station.

I think that didn't sound OK. Yeah, I've heard of the station too but I don't know if there was something else going on but that's a little bit out of my scope of practice.

So that would be a question for a otolaryngologist or an EMT.

But I'm sure that they have techniques to be able to open up your station tubes or give the give you a clearer path to the to the middle here you station tube goes to the back of the throat to the middle ear to be able to regulate pressure in that middle ear between the outside in the middle ear and oftentimes it's either going to be a tube in your eardrum or opening up at your station to in various different ways.

But generally that's that's a question for your doctor and an EMT or an otolaryngologist.

>> And if you go to the pediatrician's office, there's always a picture of it, you know, because kids get your infections or ear infections so often.

One more from a woman named Julie and let's see Julie want to know what can you do with old hearing aids that maybe you don't need anymore?

>> That's a really good question because generally if Julie if you have if you have hearing aids it's you are no longer needing or no longer using find one of your dispensers in your area that would be and call them up and ask them if they take donations because there are so many other programs out there that they'd refurbish hearing aids and help those who can't afford hearing aids with those reconditioned technology.

>> It's a really, really good gesture.

Yeah, I've heard of that with eyeglasses too.

They're Sebnem very similar to you you know repurpose them.

So with the hearing aids, you know, going off of Julie's question, I mean can you expect you know, you get a pair of hearing aids, you know, just like with glasses maybe in another in a year or two could you expect to need a different kind of hearing?

>> Well, I would say the life of a hearing aid is generally right around five to seven years and it's not so much because of the hearing aids technology being obsolete because technology always flowing but hearing aids do not cure hearing loss.

>> They don't stop from has that.

>> So just like you're just like everything else in your body you're hearing does change over time and those hearing aids are made specifically for the prescriptive type in that particular period of time and oftentimes you're hearing gets beyond what they're what they hearing aids are effective for and that's why the prescription must change.

But that's another great question because oftentimes we think that if you put the hearing aids in that's all you need and know because hearing continues to get worse.

Hearing aids do not stop hearing loss.

They slow it down but they do not stop it.

But if you are if you are diligent and wearing your hearing aids consistently daily, we recommend eight 10 hours a day then it keeps those hair cells, those nerves strong enough where when they do weaken they're still viable and the next prescription will pick up back up and help you.

>> All right.

Gosh, we had so many we're even getting some more calls in now and I feel terrible.

We have 15 seconds left so Rosemary, call that call back another time so we don't want to miss your question.

Thank you so much everybody who participated tonight most especially Ted.

Thank you so much again, Ted Blanford is a hearing instrument specialist.

That is it for us right now.

Take care.

Have a great Tuesday evening.

Be careful with snowing on my way in tonight.

So be careful if you're out driving this evening.

>> Take care.

Bye bye.