When you have mid-range listening to loss, your audiogram shall be formed like a bell, or the letter U. That is also referred to as cookie-bite listening to loss.
“It obtained that identify as a result of when a affected person with this sample of listening to loss has an audiogram and the listening to thresholds are graphed, the sample is a ‘U’ that appears as if somebody took a chunk out of it,” explains Dr. Jordan Glicksman, MD, MPH, FACS, FRCSC, an otolaryngologist, rhinologist and cranium base surgeon, and a part-time lecturer at Harvard Medical Faculty.
Cookie-bite listening to loss is a kind of sensorineural hearing loss—which means it’s as a result of an impairment within the cochlea or auditory nerve, and never a conductive downside (comparable to fluid within the center ear or earwax build-up), Dr. Glicksman says.
Any such listening to loss is way much less frequent than different forms of listening to loss, comparable to age-related hearing loss, he says.
Study extra concerning the signs, causes, and remedy choices for this number of listening to loss.
How cookie-bite listening to loss impacts what you hear
Human ears can usually hear a variety of pitches, from low to mid to excessive. However if in case you have cookie-bite listening to loss, your capacity to listen to mid-range listening to frequencies shall be affected. A whole lot of human speech and music is within the mid-range, between 500 Hz and a couple of,000 Hz.
Your high-frequencing hearing will not be affected, so that you’ll nonetheless be capable of hear high-frequencies noises (i.e., larger pitch seems like girls and kids’s voices and chicken chirping). And, you’ll additionally nonetheless be capable of hear low-frequency sounds (low-pitched sounds comparable to thunder or a person’s voice).
Since you possibly can nonetheless hear these frequencies, you should still be capable of determine what persons are saying, even when you’re not listening to absolutely, notes Gallaudet College’s Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center.
Signs of cookie-bite listening to loss
As with many types of listening to loss, it could be the folks round you—your family and friends—who first suspect you’re having issue listening to.
Chances are you’ll end up elevating the quantity on the TV or radio, experiencing lowered readability, or having issue listening to in a crowd, says Dr. Glicksman. “Since speech frequencies are generally affected sufferers can have communication difficulties if the loss is extreme,” he provides.
As with many types of listening to loss, it could be the folks round you—your family and friends—who first suspect you’re having issue listening to.
Causes of cookie-bite listening to loss
Usually, cookie-bite listening to loss is a genetic situation, Dr. Glicksman says. “A household historical past is a threat issue,” he says. Cookie-bite listening to loss will be congenital (aka, one thing you’re born with) or develop over time as a result of genetics, he says.
There are some much less frequent causes cookie-bite listening to loss is developed past genetics. As an illustration, a uncommon benign tumor, often known as vestibular schwannoma or acoustic neuroma, can result in this mid-frequency listening to loss, Dr. Glicksman says.
How mid-range listening to loss is identified
The prognosis course of for this type of listening to loss is easy: An audiogram will reveal the distinctive sample that factors to cookie-bite listening to loss.
The truth is, the largest problem for prognosis could also be requesting the take a look at. “It’s generally a light type of listening to loss,” Dr. Glicksman says. That would make folks sluggish to appreciate that their listening to has worsened, and lead to them not having the audiogram carried out early on. Plus, he notes, this mid-range frequency loss can happen over an extended time period, versus a sudden listening to loss, which is likely to be extra noticeable.
Remedy choices
No treatment exists for cookie-bite listening to loss—there’s no surgical procedure or remedy that can restore an individual’s listening to talents.
Nevertheless, there are remedy choices obtainable to assist handle the situation. Per Dr. Glicksman, these embrace:
- Making diversifications: Easy adjustments, comparable to altering the place you sit in eating places and different social gatherings, in addition to in lecture rooms, will be useful, says Dr. Glicksman. Goal to maneuver near the particular person talking, or be sure to can simply see their lips. If an individual is talking right into a microphone, shifting nearer to the amplification gadget will be useful, he notes.
- Listening to aids: Sporting hearing aids may help amplify the mid-frequency sounds.
Remedy choices rely on how extreme the listening to loss is, and the way keen somebody is to rehabilitate their listening to, Dr. Glicksman says.
If you happen to or a cherished one suspect you will have cookie-bite listening to loss, do not hesitate to go to a hearing aid center near you.