.

Hello, I'm Jennifer Blomquist.

Welcome to HealthLine this Tuesday evening.

I'm so glad you joined us.

So we have a guest who is making another appearance with us.

He was here last month.

He's here this month and I just found out he's coming next month too.

So he has a hearing instrument specialist and he is awesome and he has tons of great information to pass along to you.

So you're in for a real treat and we are live in the studio and our guest is here to answer your questions live.

Should you have any during the show?

So that's why the phone numbers up at the bottom of the screen it's (969) 27 two zero if you're outside of Fort Wayne it's still a toll free call.

Just put an 866- in front of there.

The phone lines are open now they're open eight o'clock.

Feel free to call any time you can have a call now if you want you have two options.

They don't just throw you on the air in case you're a little nervous.

You'll talk to Nicole on the phones and she's very nice and she will ask you if you want to ask the question live or if you want to just tell Nicole your questions.

She can relate to me and I'll ask our guests that question for you so you have some options.

Don't be shy.

This is a great opportunity to get some free advice and in this economy nothing is free.

>> But I can guarantee tonight this will not cost you a penny.

>> So here he is are appearing guest.

This is Ted Blanford.

As I said before he is a hearing instrument specialist and I always have to make sure that I point out that he is a veteran and I thank you so much for your service and I'm always glad when I see people in public wearing a hat, you know, army that or whatever arm they were in wear that proudly because I like being able to thank people for their service.

>> So thank you very much.

>> And now you're providing a wonderful service to the people that you assist through your expertize.

>> We were talking before the show I never thought about this but you were pointing out that you know, we're pretty good about getting to the dentist a couple of times a year or most people go get their eyes checked.

>> You know, it's not unusual for people to get new glasses or contacts every year, every couple of years.

But not many people if they're hearing regularly 74 percent of folks get their eyes checked either annually or semiannually.

Yeah, you get your teeth cleaned or see a dentist about sixty sixty to sixty three percent of the folks get that yearly but only twenty three percent of us yeah.

Have our hearing checked either annually or semiannually and that is that's a statistic that I like to have changed and see we have so many things that are tied to our well-being that is tied to our hearing health and it's a very easy noninvasive evaluation and it does tell you a lot about what's going on with your whole health .

>> So is there any kind of a guideline I mean obviously if you're having some issues or people around you are concerned that you're having issues, you should get it checked.

But I mean in general if you feel like you're doing OK, I mean 50 60 is or what do you tell people?

>> But that's a good question because our boomers are baby boomers about more than half of them are having trouble with some sort of a hearing loss that does interfere with their with their daily life and less than half of them actually have their hearing evaluated on a regular basis or at first time oftentimes when you start noticing you're hearing loss it's seven to ten years before someone realize it or after they realize it that they finally take that step to have a test just to find out what I recommend and what most of the audiology world recommends is find a baseline.

OK, go in, have your hearing evaluated so you know where you start because if you start noticing a problem later on in life at least you know where you started and see where you are today so you can compare where that where that change has occurred and it makes a big difference in how you are able to make a educated decision based on how your your hearing health has changed your mind me a lot the orthopedic docs that come on the show because they'll say things like people come see me when they're when they've had it when it starts to impact things that they enjoy doing.

You know, obviously in that with orthopedics, you know, some kind of feeling a pain or physical issue and it's not that hearing hurts.

>> It's not a painful thing but it can kind of be painful emotionally when people you can't see you when you can't hear the people you love all around you when we look at when we think of pain, when it comes to hearing, you know, it doesn't it doesn't leave a bruise.

It does there's no bleeding involved in or anything like that.

Anything there would be if they would say OK, now I need to get something done.

Most of it is emotional.

Most of it is isolation.

Most of it is a little bit anxiety paranoia.

How about this?

A person with a mild hearing loss is three times more likely to fall.

A person with diabetes is twice as likely to have a hearing loss or a person with a mild to moderate to severe hearing loss has a two to five hundred percent increased risk of dementia down the road.

So it's more than just a little bit of an issue but where does the pain come in?

>> Think of it how you interact with the people you love the most and when you start pulling yourself away from their world and they are no longer allowed to be in your world and it becomes difficult so we want to make sure that we understand that our hearing health doesn't just belong to us.

It belongs to those who we love the most and who love us the most as well.

It's very important to not just do it for you but do it for the people you love.

>> Well, you know, we were talking before the show.

It's it's frustrating.

I mean these are people you know, especially if you're living with somebody that you feel like can't hear you or I know when when I was a child I would get really there was one of my grandpa's one of my grandpa's hearing was fine.

>> My other grandpa could never really hear us and so we just didn't really I know as a child it's sad that I didn't really want to communicate trying to communicate with him because if I told him hey, you know, I'm doing this and this at school or you know, I got an A on this, he couldn't hear me and there's a difference between not hearing and and not understanding now most of us say we can't hear and it's reality is we hear we hear sound the low tones and the the vowel sounds we hear we know sound is present but it's the understanding portion that takes us away from the people we love.

Those are the high high frequencies, the consonants sounds, the sounds, the give words meaning and give conversation meaning and convey emotion.

Those are the those are the portions of the hearing that are diminished more readily and they're weaker.

So we have to be able to support them more and that's what is a difference between hearing and understanding.

So what we say we have a hearing loss.

We know that there's the understanding portion of a hearing is part of our hearing and hearing loss.

But we want to make sure we understand that it is the clarity that we are trying to achieve and clarity gives us the ability to communicate.

It's very important to know that because just seeing what you didn't hear me.

No, I heard you.

I just didn't understand you.

OK, and there's it changes the way we communicate with each other.

>> I didn't think about that.

Yeah, because I mean you could hear you know, even like vibrations or sounds or knobs and things but yeah.

>> Being able to understand it before we go any further I didn't I did want to address a question Lois called in but she's going to have me ask it for her.

>> So she said she feels like or or maybe it's Louis feels like he has better hearing in the morning than in the evening does and sounds like it could be possible auditory fatigue.

>> Oh yeah.

It's just like anything else in her body we after a good night's sleep everything is nice and fresh and strong and and my hearing is good.

I and then at the end of the day Lewis that was a fantastic question because a lot of folks who will go into their car in the morning after they come back from work on a long, hard day and they turn on the car and the radio is really, really loud.

>> You didn't remember it being the loud the night before.

Yeah, that's called auditory fatigue and just like anything else in your body after a long day's work or long days out there and interacting the your ears do fatigue as well and and that's what that is.

>> I mean should they show somebody who experiences that?

Because I think it was they're telling me now it's Lewis so I apologize.

I thought it was Lewis but it is a Lewis so sorry Lewis so should someone like Lewis if there is that just common or should it be addressed like decent people?

>> OK, you don't need this hearing aid.

Yeah, that's more common than anything.

>> It's just part of your body being tired and then in the morning you're refreshed and that's auditory fatigue.

Yeah OK that's interesting if it continues on all day and you and you just have that chronic dullness to your hearing that's something that you should probably address.

>> Yeah that's funny you say that because yeah I can see why you're just tired you get the radio on pretty loud on the way home more so than you did in the morning.

Why don't you go ahead because we have all of these examples of different hearing aids and instruments on the table.

They're all very, very small.

I mean I don't know if you can watching on TV if you can appreciate I mean, you know, here's my pen.

>> I mean some of these are not these big clunky things.

No, these are not you know, you're looking at you're looking at custom ability for your custom fit for your ear and the technology today that gives us a effortless ability to hear and understand and also a comfort .

>> Now one of the stigmas that we fight with hearing especially is are they visible even the instruments that go behind the ear today are very, very discrete and they come in rechargeable the rechargeable types of hearing instruments.

We have custom instruments to go all the way into the ear.

There are there are instruments to go so deep into the ear they're called they're called invisible hearing aids and this is just a variety of styles of hearing instruments and each one of these has a specific need for a specific patient and a lot of folks will be looking for something that's not only effective but discrete and those are important to our to our patients to because for some reason out there having a hearing aid has a used to at least and we're trying to destroy the stigma but there is a stigma to it and we want to make sure our patients are comfortable and we put I shouldn't have we the industry as a whole the technology that is put into those teeny tiny little instruments is tremendous with artificial intelligence and Bluetooth capabilities and being able to connect to your phone because we are now all connected our phone connects us to the world.

So now we're hearing it's also connected to to the phone so we can be connected to the world through our hearing aids.

>> I like what you have said in the past is that this isn't something where it's not a cookie cutter type of , you know, a remedy for somebody and you were saying that sometimes you'll spend an hour and a half just presenting the different options and having people try you.

>> This is something important.

Hearing is important and you when you see when you see your hearing specialist or your audiologist, they will take the time with you to have you understand where your hearing is because every individual is different, every brain is different.

>> So every treatment needs to be different when it comes to the hearing with a hearing aid or whatever treatment it is needed for your type of hearing loss and not every hearing aid is right for every person.

>> So we want to make sure that when you are going to see your specialist that you that you are able to have a good honest conversation with them.

They're going to be able to be to see what the needs are and then go through the choices.

>> And we also had talked before the importance of bringing someone with you and I'm thinking especially because you know, I would know my mom or dad's habits better than you know, I a specialist who were just, you know, maybe seeing for a short amount of time I might say something like Dad , you have a hard time picking stuff or you know, you're always losing real little things.

Do you want something that little?

I'm just thinking of other things that would be helpful if you had someone go with you.

>> Well, if we look at it this way, if the the the expectations of having the evaluation done, you're going to have your back a background check.

You're going to be with a loved one so you're going to find out if there's any issues, any health issues, anything that we need to look at.

Also check insurance if it's applicable.

But we're going to look inside the patients here and the specialist will be able to pinpoint if there's any malformations or anything that would be causing the hearing loss that but the next is a familiar voice in speech understanding and a familiar voice.

My voice or this audiologist voice or professional voice is going to be different than the person that you're with most and someone that you that you know intimately and you have you want to make sure that the person that you're trying to connect again is the person that they're with the most.

So having a person that is close to you, a family member, a spouse or a close friend or an adult child with you lets them understand your hearing loss as well.

So there's there's a lot going on there.

And then of course the audiogram where we find what you can hear, what you can't hear, we tie all that together and the input and the the understanding of the patient and the patient's loved one.

>> All that information is gathered together so a professional can make the best solution a parent for them and it is for it is for the family members as much as it is for the patient.

>> I'm glad you said that because yeah, it's going to impact the people in that person's life certainly.

Yes.

We have so much more that we're going to talk about but we'd love to hear from you guys watching out there.

So if you have a question you want to ask Ted, like I said, he's he's the expert on all of these things.

I'm hearing instruments and even if you're just having some concerns maybe want to be pointed in a certain direction or things to maybe think about, you know, why don't you go ahead and ask it?

It's (969) to seven to zero again if you're outside of Fort Wayne it's still toll free.

If you put 866- in front of there and again the phone lines are only open until eight o'clock so call sooner rather than later.

>> I know you had said you know, not everybody can use any kind of hearing instrument that certain ones work for certain individuals.

But is it almost like I'm just wondering you like if you get you know what they called the transitional lenses for your eyes or bifocals where you have to literally like train like retrain yourself to like look at things.

Is it kind of like that with hearing where you have to train your brain?

>> Certainly yeah I understand that have most of the time when a person going in to have their hearing evaluated they've known that there's been an issue for seven to ten years that's seven to ten years that your brain has been trained that there has been a problem and but they but that problem has become normal to them and when they're reintroduced to the natural sounds and everything they're supposed to hear, it is it's amazing really it is it's very moving for the most time for the most part.

>> But there's also a lot that is coming at them at one time so they have to learn how to hear again and this is where going to your specialist and your audiologist will allow you to have a nice smooth transition into learning how to hear again and that's what we call it.

You're learning how to hear again because your brain has to adapt to the new sounds that it's going to be hearing on a daily basis.

>> Yeah, it's I guess I always just thought you put them on and it's almost like it would kind of amplify everything not just and I even think about it in those terms you just experience it's it's a very prescriptive it's a very, very prescriptive correction to a very serious problem and knowing that that problem's been there for quite a few years and being able to suddenly move them into the right amount of of hearing and understanding, it does sometimes take a little bit of time but it's well worth it and this is what we have to understand.

Don't be afraid to call your specialists and call your audiologist and say I need said can we at least find out where I'm at and allow yourself to be part of the world again.

>> And you know, we have the help we've talked about this before.

We have holidays are coming up.

I think my husband said it's like less than one hundred days to Christmas countdown is already on.

>> Yes.

If you're a parent that's kind of a scary thought but you know, it's the time of year when people are going to be getting together.

>> You might be seeing people you don't see for a while and sometimes I feel like yeah, if you haven't seen Uncle Joe since last year you might you know somebody hasn't seen you for a while.

I might notice a bigger change then you know grandma who lives with with him or something like a typical paradigm if you don't notice how much your children have grown when you're with them every day but grandma and grandpa really have seen the shoot shoot up like a weed.

>> Same thing with hearing loss.

It's a very slow, methodical process of losing and and weakening of the hearing and if you have maybe missed a couple months here are there and all of a sudden you start seeing a little bit more noticeable.

But I'll tell you your spouse and the people who love you the most notice it the most and they and when they are telling you that there's an issue, it's because there is an issue and it's in the the best thing to do is to investigate it and yeah, I think people are afraid they don't want to make somebody feel uncomfortable and sometimes, you know, the patient may have a different way receiving that type of information from others around us and they may feel very hurt by it or insulted.

So I'm sure there's a wide range of emotions that you deal with besides just physically dealing with what can be used to fix it.

>> Hearing loss is an emotional sense.

I understand that it's a first since we have before we're born.

>> It's the lessons we have to have before we go home and it is something that is oftentimes tied to age is oftentimes tied to a a disability or something.

>> But it's not it's something that happens to almost everyone eventually and it does it need to have that stigma on and the best way to to attack that stigma and to take care of the stigma is to go in and take charge of it yourself and to be emboldened by the fact that there is help and there is hope out there and there's a broad range of excellent audiologists and specialists in the area that are more than capable to be able to guide you through that that that journey of being able to hear better and to connect with the people that you love the most.

>> Yeah, I'm glad you said that journey.

I mean because it's not like you're going to go see Ted and you'll be cured and you don't ever have to deal with it again.

>> It's a process.

>> It is a process.

It is a journey and it really does and it takes more than just trying to muscle through it yourself.

>> All right.

And that is good advice.

We do have somebody named Tommy who had a question I think is a question about hearing impairment and medicine.

Tommy oh, can you hear me?

>> Yeah, we can hear you now go ahead.

Good luck.

Last October I had a flu shot and ever since that my ears tend to ring.

Most days most days they ring in and I just didn't know if it was because of the medicine or my ears or what could be.

>> Tommy, that's a great question.

We have to understand that there's several different types of medications up over there's over 200 over the counter and prescription medications that a side effect is going to be ringing in the ears or weakening of a hearing to be very specific with if it's a if it's a vaccine connected to covid or if there's an illness there's the studies have ah broadened the range.

I couldn't tell you specifically but generally if there is something that you've taken and it's been as a prescription to help you with other ailments that are very vital to your to your your health and it does cause hearing it causing ringing of your ears check with your pharmacist, check with your doctor to find out what those side effects are so you can identify them.

And tinnitus is one of the side effects to a lot of our medications we have out there the ringing of the ears.

>> Tommy, did you want to ask Ted anything else?

Well, I do take a couple medications and also when I well, it's just that I'll check with my doctors and see what it would be my high blood pressure medicine or something like that.

>> Yeah, those are those are all those are all portions of of oral toxic type of medications that could have that side effect and it's best that you had that that Frank discussion with your family care physician and they'll be able to answer those questions as well.

>> All right.

Tommy, thanks for calling.

We wish you all the best.

I didn't think about that.

I have not heard that I knew that tinnitus was ringing the ear but I didn't know that medicine could impact that has caused a lot of toxicity.

>> Yes.

it's very it's very common.

>> All right.

Good to know we have a couple more calls actually Jaka I think he's brave enough to ask his life just like Tommy did.

>> Go ahead, Jacob, with your question.

Okay, Doctor, my past experiences with the hearing your community has not solved my problems and I just wondered maybe the latest answers do solve that those problems and no one that is completely resolved the background noise issue no one and no to understand the women that are speaking quickly and number three, understanding old television programs and those are the three things that I need to concentrate on before I commit to having a you know, a hearing aid.

>> Let me make sure I understood your question.

First is background noise.

That's one of the most common things one of the common problems we have with the world of hearing again what was number two again?

>> Jacob, I'm sorry.

OK, number two is understanding women especially when they're speaking quickly.

>> OK, OK, well let's talk let's start with the background noise.

Background noise is going to be something that is going to is going to be an issue when there is a signal to noise ratio.

But understand that if you've had a hearing loss for quite a long time your brain is going to try to separate the primary and secondary sounds and a a hearing professional can help you with that.

Nothing's going to completely eliminate background noise.

That's not how sound works but what the hearing aids will do and you're hearing profession will be able to help you understand it is it's going to be able to reduce the background noise so your brain can focus on the on the conversations that you have in front of you and when it comes to understanding women, especially when they speak quickly, those are high frequency voices for the most part.

And if you have a high frequency loss and you're in you're struggling with that.

That's where their voice is the most.

>> Make sure when you see you're hearing professional that you have a person with you a of your lady friends with you or your wife or your daughter or family member to go with you so you can have that voice available to help you see if you can take care of that problem.

>> Jacob, thank you so much.

I hate to interrupt.

They just showed me we only have less than thirty seconds.

My goodness.

I know time flies.

The good thing is I want to make sure everybody remembers this market on your calendar.

Ted is coming back.

It'll be the third Tuesday in October I believe that's the 18th.

So put on your calendar because you know we only get half an hour with him.

We could use more like an hour.

So mark that on your calendar.

Ted will be back October 18th and and I'll be fortunate enough to be here to host that show.

So thank you so much to everybody.

Great questions tonight, Ted.

>> It's always a pleasure and it was it's always fun and thank you for the calls.

You're so kind and nice and you put everybody at ease so I appreciate that.

>> So thanks again everybody.

Have a good night and we'll see you next Tuesday