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>> Hello, welcome to HealthLine.

I'm Jennifer Bloomquist.

I'll be hosting the show tonight.

I'm so glad you joined us.

We have one of our regulars here tonight.

We have our hearing instrument specialist and he is here to take your questions.

This is a great program.

You will definitely learn a lot .

>> Ted knows everything there is to know about hearing instruments and any hearing related issues maybe having concerns about yourself or maybe a loved one.

Ted is your guy so please call and sadly we only have him here until about eight o'clock.

>> So that's why we keep the number up at the bottom of the screen.

It's (969) 27 two zero 866- in front of there will be a toll free call for you.

>> The phone lines are open now and we welcome your calls at any time.

>> Again, you can call live during the show and ask a question or you can call and I can relay a question to Ted.

So if you want to just tell the call screener what you want to find out, they will relay that to me and I will pass it along to Ted.

So without further ado, let's go ahead and introduce you to Ted for those of you who don't know him but he does come out regularly.

>> We're so grateful for that.

Ted, why don't we start tonight with how do we hear there's a lot of people don't think about that.

You know, it's just something that unfortunately most of us you know, we just take it for granted.

>> That's a great way to start actually sound is pressure and pressure travels into your ear through the ear canal and it hits the but the ear drum and a series of bones called the articular chain and goes through there into a good cochlea where there are nerve center where they are called hair cells and we're going to talk about those later on this evening and that goes into what they call the auditory nerve to the auditory section of your brain.

>> We do not hear with our ears.

We hear with our brain and that pressure pushes those those nerves or there's hair cells to send a proper signal to the brain so we can hear and understand.

So when we talk about hearing we're talking about how a here is the mechanism of the of transport of sound is our ear but where we hear is our brain people don't think about that.

>> Oh it's we just think about the connection hearing is equating to the brain.

>> Yes, absolutely.

And it's you something I think gosh we stereotype you know and and always think of somebody who's quite elderly as being hard of hearing.

>> So I don't have want to talk about how common it is.

>> I mean are we all going to get there at some point all I have some I have some patients that are Centurion's that are that are they're hearing is relatively good considering their age.

>> But I also have there are there are patients out there that are younger one in four one five patients or one in five people over the age of 65 are experiencing a hearing loss that will impede their life one way or another.

One in six we're talking about we're talking about those over fifty or fifty five there's there's not really an age group that is escape's hearing loss.

>> But as you age your hearing does diminish and when you start noticing that you're experiencing some difficulty hearing or understanding or if someone mentions to you a family member especially hey, I don't think a hearing as well, that's the time to find your hearing professional and get a baseline of where you are.

And so twenty years old to eighty years old, there's somewhere in there that hearing loss is going to affect your life one way or another and it just depends on how bad it can be or how fast you can you can hit it off at the pass if you will and I know you've always said that that's usually how people they themselves don't diagnose the hearing issue.

It's usually somebody around them and some people take offense at that from your loved one.

>> Yes.

Hearing loss is a very sensitive subject regardless and to breach that is hard it but is so gradual that we with hearing loss don't realize we don't know what we don't know and it takes such a long period of time to get to where we finally accept the fact that there's something missing there.

But our family members and the people who love us the most, they notice it quite often and they will bring it to our attention.

>> We should take that to heart and it never hurts to find out where you really.

>> Yeah, and like I said, I mean you might just go get a hearing test just to prove them wrong.

How about that?

Yeah, I was going to say you've taught me some funny stories about you know some sometimes people say yeah they got to the point where I knew it.

He was he but I mean in serious you know in a serious matter I mean it doesn't just impact your hearing, you know, when you can't hear well you've talked about other health related issues that come along with that and I was I'm always shocked to hear about serious issues and especially those that hit home to to the whole family.

A mild to moderate to severe hearing loss has a two hundred to five hundred percent increase risk of dementia, the risk of dementia and that's Johns Hopkins University study a thirty to forty percent faster decline of cognitive activity.

So we are talking about A how the brain slows down for decision making when you don't correct a hearing loss.

A person with a hearing loss is three times more likely to have a history of falling.

A person with hearing loss is a person with diabetes is two times more likely to have a hearing loss.

So our body and our hearing are very much in tuned hearing is our very first sense that we have before we're born and it's the last chance we had before we go home.

So it is it's obviously very, very important and it uses the entire brain to help it when it starts to struggle hence using our eyes to help us here, our other senses to help us here.

And hearing also is correlated to our balance as well.

So we have to take the one since that is that important to centralizing in our entire body and how we feel holistically and take it a little bit more serious I would say.

>> Well yeah, when you think about all the other factors that come into play, certainly I'll fall for and I was just at a band concert marching band concert of course tons of family members go and you know, leave in the bleachers.

>> It was an elderly woman who fell and you know I mean you just think that's going to be that's a that's a long road to recovery for an elderly person.

>> It's you know, it's so all these other issues that come into play before we have a lot more that we want to talk about including walking you through what to expect with an appointment when you're getting your hearing checked.

But I didn't want to miss thisp.

Sure.

So somebody called they wanted me to relay this to you.

Ted it was Terry wanted to know what causes sudden hearing loss and can it be reversed?

>> That's a really good question, Terry.

Thanks for bringing that up.

Sudden hearing loss for instance, if you were to wake up one morning one of your ears you didn't hear anything out of that ear could be several things but primarily what we're talking about when there's a sudden onset of hearing loss is generally a viral infection or some sort of infection in the inner ear, not the not the middle ear orptr where those herself is where those nerve endings live and it grabs them and destroys them and now can it be reversed?

>> There are some techniques that have been able to help reverse some if you catch it fast enough and some some doctors in some institutions say that if you get it within the first 72 hours of the first 24 hours or how the faster you get to medical help when you have a sudden hearing loss the the higher you likelihood you are able to at least save some or reverse it now after that and it occurs reversal of hearing loss is generally not a it doesn't have a high percent of a percentage of success but catching it soon reacting quickly and finding a professional to help you with that very, very fast on sudden hearing loss Serie A. or or get to the emergency room very quickly and it'll be able to increase your risks or increase your chances of of getting at least saving some of that hearing.

But that's generally how when we talk about sudden hearing loss unless there's physical trauma to the head or physical trauma to the ear or something that you know what is the absolute easy reason why that hearing loss suddenly stopped or suddenly happened is generally a viral infection that occurs and it is very scary.

It causes a lot of other issues when it comes to your balance you'll have difficulty standing out.

There's a lot of vertigo involved.

There's a lot of nausea and things like that that also have also you'll know that that it's occurring.

Just make sure that you can find someone to help you get to a professional very quickly to to have that taken care of .

>> Yeah, no that is a great question and what yeah that would be a terrible way more than we realize really does it OK.

Absolutely.

Gosh that would be very frightening and yeah you were talking about all these other things that come into play physically but the other thing and you've mentioned this before is just the social issue which I just think this is tragic and sad.

You know, when you see an older especially a lot of times you'll see an older person maybe off in the corner and nobody's conversing with him because it's too much effort, you know, and and I'm just thinking about the lonely place at that person's and what you said that you hit it right on the head.

Oftentimes those around us it's fatiguing to them to try to continuously communicate with someone who has a hearing loss like that.

But it's not it is compassionate know but also a person with a hearing loss is likely to bring themselves away from social contact.

Well, that causes a whole other category of issues anxiety, depression.

>> Those are those are are symptoms of something that could easily be taken care of if you catch fast enough and you take care of it properly and it may not even be a very, very severe hearing loss that could cause those those that are suffering from it to take themselves away from the people who love them and so the social aspect I think sometimes is even more devastating than the physical aspects at least in the physical aspects.

You know it's happening.

You can understand why it's there but the social aspects and the anxiety and the depression that radiates and it really hurts on the inside to imagine.

>> Yeah.

And you know, we experience it firsthand in our family a temporary hearing loss for my husband and I'll tell you who was totally you know, just I saw a huge change in my kids like they always interact with my husband but when he couldn't hear them they were just like, you know, didn't want to try.

>> It was just so hard because they had to shout and you don't realize how devastating to the person with they it is.

Yeah, it really is especially you know, somebody older too.

They want to be with their grandparents or younger children.

So yes, I keep all these things in mind.

Take Ted's advice to heart please.

So Terry asked a great question and we have somebody else calling in as well.

Jane wanted to why can't I hear certain things?

>> Is it my brain not registering certain words or noises?

Hmmm.

Jean, that's very, very good question.

Now there's a few other questions I would ask also with this but we're not able to talk to each other over the call.

But yes, and no if the if the hair cells or the nerves in your cochlea are not sending the proper signal to your brain, your brain has nothing to register and it has nothing to to to recognize as a word.

>> And oftentimes it's we're going to talk about this later.

I thought maybe possibly but there's a great time to introduce it.

The high frequencies are what helps you understand words and the low frequency lets you know that the sound is there.

So if you're having difficulty hearing certain noises or understanding specific words, there might be a chance that you are having a deficiency in the high frequencies where those consonant sounds are where if you're if you if you hear the word Ferit or instead of the word Perret or if I hear if you say math instead of mess there's might be something in that high frequency that might be a little deficient and a simple hearing test would be able to identify that and help you figure out what to do to get those sounds back to your brain so you can hear and understand the sounds that you might be missing.

But that's a really good question because that's exactly what our professionals in the hearing industry are talking about are hearing health care professionals are helping others understand is there's a difference between hearing and understanding an opportunity to see this is if you were looking at it from your screen the right side of your hearing is are the high frequencies.

Those are the understanding portion of your hearing.

I here and I understand I hear is on the left side those are the low tones or the vowel sounds that lets the brain know that sound is there and it identifies that there is something there whereas the right side on the high frequencies or the fricative sounds that allows you to hear and understand.

So when we talk about hearing a hearing loss may not necessarily be what you think it is because deafness is not what we're talking about.

We're talking about being able to identify and understand speech and sounds and that's generally in the higher frequencies.

>> I hope that answers your question.

Well, we appreciate her calling in and I just want to remind everybody that's why we keep the phone number at the bottom of the screen because Ted's only here till eight o'clock so take advantage of getting his advice.

He can definitely point in the right direction if you reassure you about yourself issue having yourself for a loved one it's (969) 27 two zero 866- in front of there makes it a toll free call in case you're outside of Fort Wayne and again Jane and Terry, they both called and gave the call screener their question which is great and then we relayed that to Ted.

But another really nice option is if you feel comfortable calling live and staying on the line that's really nice because then like Ted could have talked to Jane and maybe asked more questions to get more specifics and give her more more detailed answers.

>> So take advantage of that if you're if you're brave actually it's a really easy thing to do.

>> You don't have to be brave.

Talk to me.

No, we're very laid back over here so well that is a good Segway though.

The things you were talking to Jane about a hearing appointment.

So do you want to walk us through what that is?

>> Because you know what I haven't had I mean I shouldn't have had this but I haven't had my hearing check since I was in grade school and they would just come in and I raised my hand and that was it.

>> You shouldn't say things like I know I shouldn't tell you that I should get in trouble.

>> Well, so what's to expect when you see a hearing professionals?

Of course we're going to be you'll be giving your information to them so they can understand who you are, what's going on with your hearing so that you'll be doing a basic intake, what kind of medications you might be taking any any any history of injuries or surgery or something that would give the hearing professional an idea of what to expect before before we actually even look in the ears.

>> And then of course if there's insurance involved, having your insurance information ready to be to be to be checked into him in case there is something that isn't a bit of a benefit for you to hearing loss otus otoscope exam examination or OTUS copy if you will.

Most practices have what they call a video otoscope and what we're looking for when we look in your ear and when we do it on the video otoscope this allows us to to see inside the ear and allows you to see what we're looking at is the eardrum intact?

Is there wax clogging and if it's wax that's what we're all hoping for is that it's just a bunch of wax keeping them keeping me from being able to hear well is there an injury to the ear canal?

Is there something that's keeping us from being able to actually continue with the hearing examination and of course a speech understanding test we talked about that just a few moments ago.

Can you hear or can you not understand that's the difference and we want to find out how well you hear and understand speech a familiar voice test now the hearing professional usually will do the the the speech discrimination test or the speech understanding test.

But having a familiar voice there allows them to understand because there is a familiarity and there's context to that voice.

Can you hear and understand the people around you and people of course the basic audio commentary.

>> Let's find out what you can hear and what you can't hear and that was one of that that graph we saw on the on the screen earlier.

It says Can I hear or can I understand that allows us to see where you are most efficient and how we can fill in the spaces that are best for you.

This gives us a what you would we call it a map of how you hear and this gives us a graphic of being able to formulate help for you or having a solution being able to help you hear and understand better.

>> So there's it's an easy it's an easy step by step process.

>> It's painless.

Yeah.

And that's why I get to see that with the hearing test and it gives you a great deal of information and if you don't have a hearing loss you have a baseline of where you are.

So when something is not quite right, you know where you started and now you find out where you are today and you can see if there's something that you need to do today tomorrow or is it something you can hold off to the future?

>> Yeah, no, I mean that's would be great news if you didn't have any hearing issues.

But like I said that does give you something to work with.

>> Absolutely future for sure.

We have lots more to talk about but I do want to get to a question that somebody called in so somebody named Ciani wants to know why do some people lose their hearing after flying?

>> Oh, shiny.

That's a really good question.

After flying now this is something that involves the middle ear generally and I'm going to use this as the general rule when our ears need to pop.

>> What happens is this your ears will inflate in the middle ear and cause pressure on those bones that we were talking about and me either stretches them out or pushes them together and those bones have the they play a crucial part of your hearing and it pushes sound up a little bit so it goes through the nerve center and when they are not working properly it feels like a as much as a 30 decibels hearing loss and that is all controlled by what they call the station tube and that regulates the pressure between the outside world and the middle of your ear.

And when you are flying your you're going to 8000 to 10000 pressurized feet in a tube thirty five thousand feet above the ground and that pressure makes the ear either inflate or compress depending on if you're sending or descending and what that does, it makes you feel like you have a hearing loss and over it usually takes a couple of days.

It may take up to a couple of days for it to regulate.

But if you blow your nose or you chew gum or you give a good yawn, sometimes that just relieves it easy is that not everybody can know.

>> But that's exactly what happens when you're flying and you feel like you have a hearing loss.

That was a great question.

Yeah, I haven't had that one yet.

>> That's really neat.

I've heard that yeah I've heard the chewing gum like you're supposed to do it while you are ascending or descending.

>> Yes.

And keeping it going and opening and closing that station to letting it relax letting the air regulate and that's what happens.

>> That's what I always feel bad for little kids when they fly because it's that scare it's kind of scary you know it's painful and I learned that it can be really, really painful especially for little ones.

>> Right.

They don't understand what's going on here and there are two little things and sometimes it really is it hurts.

>> Sometimes it does.

Yeah.

No, it's typical to hear little babies or little ones fussing during the going up or down process.

So yeah, just something to keep in mind but that was a good question.

We have another question.

Thanks for everybody calling in tonight.

These are really great questions.

Laura wants to know is there anything that you can do with severe tinnitus?

Yes.

Which we were going to talk about tinnitus anyway and that's the typically the ringing ringing in the ear.

Yes, Laura, there's there's a few things about tinnitus that everyone needs to understand.

Number one, it's a precursor or red flag that there might be something going on with the nerve cells of the ear and you see here it is a sound and a defining tinnitus.

>> Before you answer the question, tinnitus is a sound that you hear inside your ear or inside your head that does not have a source outside.

So trying to tell us to ask somebody do you hear that buzzing, that ringing that wishing that that hum sound and they look at a little funny and they say Well I hear it.

Why can't you?

It's because the nerves that are sending the signal to your brain through the auditory nerve are damaged in one way or another and they are they're struggling to send a random sound to do their job and it is sending an erroneous sound to your brain and that's the ringing you hear and it's simply simplifying at Cannes.

Is there something that can be done?

Yes, there's ways of managing it but there is no cure right now for tinnitus.

There are new techniques out there that are approved by the FDA, FDA just recently that have with the use sound and electrical impulses on the tongue that have been shown that has some some success to tinnitus management.

It's a little bit more cumbersome than actually the way the using hearing aids with tinnitus blockers and tinnitus maskers in it.

But there's other techniques it can help with tinnitus out there.

They just haven't been completely proven through yet.

But yes, to to answer your question, Laura, there is something that can be done for severe tinnitus or tinnitus however you wish to to say it but you need to identify where that is first.

And the first step to that is to find a hearing professional be able to help you with that with that testing to find out where it is so there can be a plan on how to manage that for you.

>> Yeah, and we actually had someone else well while you were answering that question, somebody else had called in and wanted to know if you know, tinnitus is a sign of hearing loss and if there's anything you can do to prevent well, tinnitus those that have reported 50 million of us by the way, are reporting in the United States that they have they have tinnitus severe enough that it interferes with their life .

Fifty million Americans now 90 percent of them have an associated hearing loss with it, 10 percent show within normal limits on a on a hearing test.

But that doesn't mean that there's not damage to those hair cells.

That's exactly what it is.

It's the same mechanism as you're hearing and the same landing spot as you're hearing.

But tinnitus is not caused by hearing loss and hearing loss is not caused by tinnitus.

They are just using the same road and they're using the same machine to get to to get to the brain.

>> But they are indicative of each other about 90 percent of the time.

>> All right.

Well and yeah, we've have people call in and I mean you talk about it interrupts our daily life .

I mean how could you sleep well when you've got some of these if it causes serious issues with sleeping?

>> Yes.

I don't know if we can squeeze us into but I'm so grateful you brought this hearing instrument and AIDS with you and we've got less than a minute but I don't know if you want to quickly show people things are very small today compared to how they used to.

>> Well, they're wonderfully small and they also have other things such as maskers.

But I want to make sure that everyone understands that even with the modern technology of artificial intelligence, Bluetooth technoogy, tinnitus blockers and everything that goes into these wonderful pieces of technology, hearing aids do not stop hearing loss hearing aids help the hearing loss as you have left to be able to get as close to normal and natural as possible that these right here are small, they're discrete and they help they really do help miss millions of people every single day and find a hearing professional that if this is right for you, let's see if we can get the world hearing better and Ted will be back next month.

>> So maybe bring those back next month and talk more about them.

So thank you to all of you for watching time for your questions.

You did a great job.

Appreciate it, Ted, as always.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much.

And take take care.

Have a good night again.

Ted is back next month I believe is October 24th.

So put it in your calendar and be sure to call us.

I'm Jennifer Bond.

Please take care.

>> Have a good evening.

Bogi