Better Health & Living: Article: Say What?

Issue: February 2006

Say What?

The newest boomer plague: hearing loss

by Sarah Mahoney

Published in health •living_well | 0 Comments, Talk about this article »

When Toni Barrent was 19, she danced the night away. It was 1970, she was wearing bellbottoms, and it never occurred to her that the fuzzy feeling in her head the next day (“Like having cotton in my ears,” she recalls) signaled the beginning of persistent hearing loss. The doctor she worked for gave her a hearing test. Yes, he told her, she’d lost hearing, but because it was a single assault, in time her hearing might return to normal.

From then on, she was more careful, avoiding loud noises whenever she could. And she got used to living in a world where low tones—men’s voices, thunder, trains—were easy to hear, and higher tones, not to mention most telephone conversations, were very difficult to follow. “I was in denial about my hearing loss for most of my adult years,” she says. Then, in 1995, it got a little worse, and coworkers began to complain about the way she took phone messages. “That’s kind of funny,” she says, “because I was working as a telemarketer!”

Barrent had her hearing tested again and even took the next step after being diagnosed with moderate to profound hearing loss: She was outfitted with hearing aids. “But I was too embarrassed to wear them at work, and they sat in the drawer for the next six years,” she says.

Can You Repeat That?

Increasingly, baby boomers like Barrent—the generation that proudly wore T-shirts that proclaimed “If it’s too loud, you’re too old” at Led Zeppelin concerts—are now saying, “Say what?” An estimated 28 million Americans currently have some level of hearing loss, and the number is expected to reach 78 million by 2030. And, it turns out, rock ‘n’ roll is only partially to blame.

The surge, explains Mark Widick, M.D., an otologist based in Boca Raton, Florida, is driven mostly by demographics. “Almost everybody loses hearing as they get older. Noise exposure makes it worse.” To a large degree, it’s a genetic crapshoot. “I see people in their nineties who’ve been exposed to lots of noise with great hearing, and I see people in their forties who’ve had quieter lives and are already experiencing problems.”

While aging and genetics are hard to combat, it is possible to control our exposure to the noise around us. Airplanes, traffic, computers, machinery, and constantly ringing telephones all can damage the nerve tissue found in the “hair cells” of the inner ear, Dr. Widick says. While some hearing loss is temporary, any destruction of those cells is permanent.

Some work situations pose special problems. Military personnel, for instance, are subjected to a range of loud noises—from explosives to jet engines—that make them especially at risk, not just now but also in the future. (“I see an awful lot of World War II veterans,” says Dr. Widick.) Even pediatricians have been known to have hearing loss after dealing with squalling babies. Music continues to be a threat: While speakers may have gotten smaller since the 1970s, the Walkman and iPod are potentially putting a whole new generation at risk.

When you can’t—or just don’t want to—get away from the noise, protection can be as simple as cheap foam earplugs, explains Dr. Widick. “My kids have a garage band, and I’m constantly handing them out,” he says.

Stop Kidding Yourself

While protecting healthy ears is one thing, helping hearing-impaired people is quite another. Many people with severe problems have kidded themselves for so long that they don’t realize how much they miss in most conversations. “I’ve always joked that the best way to find people with hearing problems would be to run a seminar called ‘How to Keep Your Spouse from Mumbling,‘“ says Tina Mullins, an audiologist with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).

Some telltale symptoms: You often have to ask people to repeat themselves, have trouble taking phone messages, and often don’t understand why people are laughing at movies. Experiencing ringing in the ears, or tinnitus, after noise has stopped is common. (For a complete quiz, go to www.asha.org/public/hearing/disorders/Self-Test.htm.)

If you think you may have lost hearing, the ASHA site can steer you to qualified audiologists in your area; your doctor may also provide referrals. And Dr. Widick recommends that everyone get tested—even if you don’t think you have a problem. “That way, if you experience difficulty later on, we’ll have a baseline to compare it to,” he says.

Of course, denial isn’t the only reason people avoid testing. Often, they dread the diagnosis and the hideous hearing aids they’re afraid will come with it. “I recently had a 90-year-old woman tell me she didn’t want a hearing aid because she didn’t want to look old,” says Todd Ricketts, Ph.D., assistant professor of hearing and speech sciences at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

The good news is that hearing aids have advanced greatly in recent years, with some as sleek as the way-cool earpieces worn by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in the movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The bad news is that ultimately, your choice of device is dictated by the nature of your hearing loss. “Some models do a better job of screening out background sounds,” says Dr. Ricketts. “Some are more useful for people who can’t hear high tones, and others are better for people who can’t hear low tones.”

Hearing aids can be pricey and often aren’t covered by insurance. Some may cost a couple of hundred dollars, not including the fee of the professional who fits you, “but it’s not unusual for people to spend between $5,000 and $6,000 for two hearing aids,” Dr. Ricketts says. (In most cases, hearing loss will vary from right to left ear.)

Once people accept the need to wear hearing aids and have a chance to hear the way they used to, however (and their spouses can quit repeating Jay Leno’s punch lines), they’re delighted with their ability to fully communicate with others again—as Barrent was, finally. In 2001—30 years after her initial hearing loss—she saw a notice for a group called SHHH: Self Help for Hard of Hearing People (www.shhh.org).

“I felt isolated and depressed, so I dragged myself to a meeting. I hated it at first—many people were older, and I felt I didn’t belong. But soon it really helped; I didn’t feel so alone,” says Barrent, who now works for SHHH fulltime. “I put the hearing aids back on and have been wearing them ever since.”

Maine-based freelancer Sarah Mahoney writes regularly for many national publications, including Prevention, More, and AARP, The Magazine.

What about the Kids?

While most hearing loss happens to people as they age, pediatricians are constantly on the alert for hearing difficulties in young children, and they hope parents are, too. While newborns are routinely screened, and many schools have testing programs, it’s easy to miss problems and early warning signs. Constant ear infections can erode hearing, for example. Vigilance pays off: Corrections of impairments detected by age 3 are among the most dramatic success stories out there, says otologist Mark Widick, M.D., thanks to innovations such as cochlear implants and other surgical solutions. “If Helen Keller had been born today,” he says, “it’s likely she would have been able to hear.”

Self-Defense for Troubled Ears

Wearing earplugs can help protect against hearing loss and reduce symptoms of tinnitus, strong ringing in the ears that continues after noise has stopped. Simple earplugs are available in drugstores, but you may want to buy in bulk. Check out the website of H.E.A.R., a group of musicians, at www.hearrecords.com/shop/index.shtml.