- In this video,
I'm talking about the
cookie bite hearing loss
which happens to be
the same type of hearing
loss that I have, coming up.
(bright music)
Hi guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology
and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions
in Phoenix, Arizona.
And on this channel,
I cover a bunch of hearing
related information
to help make you a
better informed consumer.
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This is a special video for me
because I'm gonna be talking about
the same type of hearing loss that I have
which is the cookie bite hearing loss.
A cookie bite hearing
loss like you see here
occurs when you have a
sensory neural hearing loss
in the mid-frequency ranges,
with good hearing in the low frequencies
and good hearing in the high frequencies.
It gets its name because
it kind of looks like
someone just took a bite out of a cookie.
While most hearing losses
are caused by age and noise exposure,
cookie bite hearing losses
tend to be more genetic
and they are significantly more rare
than these other forms of hearing loss.
So here's my story.
When I was 19 years old,
I enlisted in the United
States Marine Corps,
but before they let you actually enlist,
you'd have to go through a physical.
So I went through that physical,
I went and stayed up in
Chicago for a full day,
and the whole day, is
one big, long physical,
and one of those things that you do
is get your hearing tested.
And I passed that hearing
test with flying colors,
completely normal hearing
in both of my ears.
But six months later
when I went to boot camp,
and in the first week of boot camp,
you go through another physical,
they identified a cookie bite
hearing loss in my right ear.
This is what they
measured in my right ear.
You can see that my hearing
in the low frequencies
between 250 hertz and 1,000
hertz is completely normal.
However, the next two frequencies
are in the moderate to severe range
with a 65 decibel threshold at 1,500 hertz
and 60 decibel threshold at 2,000 hertz.
Then it recovers up to
a 40 decibel threshold
and back to normal for
4,000 and 8,000 hertz.
A common theme for some individuals
with a cookie bite hearing loss
is the inability to perceive
that there's actually
a hearing loss there.
While most individuals
with a high-frequency
sensorineural hearing loss
or a reverse-slope hearing loss
typically know that they're
not hearing their best,
individuals with cookie
bite hearing losses
tend to have a little bit more difficulty
perceiving the hearing loss,
which means it tends to go undetected
usually until you're in your 30s or 40s.
I for one was completely unaware
that I even had a hearing
loss in my right ear
until the military audiologist
told me that I had one
and that it was likely
the cause of the tinnitus
or that ringing sound that
I have in my right ear.
Just to let you know, if you
happen to have a hearing loss
in one ear and not the other,
there is a chance that you
actually have a medical condition
that needs to be identified
and you need to get in to
see your doctor right away.
As time went on, I started to notice
that I would never
actually take my cell phone
and hold it up to my right ear,
I would always use my left ear.
Also I would tend to
struggle a little bit more
in background noise situations
compared to other people that I was with.
And I always started asking
people to repeat what they say,
which is not surprising
considering the severity
of the cookie bite hearing
loss in my right ear.
When I was earning my doctorate
at the University of Illinois,
we attempted to treat my
hearing loss with a hearing aid.
The problem was is that we could never
actually amplify the
frequencies that I was missing
without having a negative impact
on the adjacent frequencies
that did not need any amplification.
However, this does not mean
that cookie bite hearing losses
cannot be treated with hearing aids.
Everybody has different perceptions
and severity of cookie
bite hearing losses.
So with hearing aid technology
continuing to improve,
there is a solid possibility
that you would experience
treatment success.
Ironically, despite my inability
to successfully treat my own
cookie bite hearing loss,
I have had success inside of my clinic
treating cookie bite hearing losses.
But it takes a lot of effort
both on the provider's
side and on your side
because a lot of the treatment decisions
are based on your perceptions.
On a side note, a lot of
the same treatment variables
that go into a cookie bite hearing loss
are similar to that of a
reverse-slope hearing loss.
So if you haven't checked out
my reverse-slope hearing loss video yet,
I highly recommend that you check it out
and I will put a link to that
video in the description.
Ideally, you would want a hearing aid
that can divide up the
range of amplification
into as many adjustment bands as possible
so you can make amplification adjustments
as precise as possible
for each frequency range.
Better hearing aid technology
will allow your hearing care provider
to better match the mid-frequency
prescriptive targets
using real ear measurement
without over-amplifying the
low and high frequency ranges
that don't need amplification.
Then based on your feedback
over the course of a 30 to
45 day fitting sequence,
your hearing care provider can
start to make customizations
to the frequency response
of the hearing aids
or make adjustments
to the digital features
of the hearing aids
to optimize your ability to hear.
The two key variables to treatment success
for a cookie bite hearing loss
is for you to have patience,
and for you to have a
hearing care professional
who's willing to take the time and energy
to adjust and optimize
your hearing treatment.
This could entail giving you access
to hearing aid technology that has an app
that you can customize your own audio
when you're out and
about in your real life
and then taking that back to
your hearing care professional
so they can use that information
to optimize your devices even further.
It could mean trying different
domes or earmold vent sizes
to see how much sound
needs to come into your
ear canal naturally
versus what has to be
amplified by the hearing aid.
It could even mean you
doing remote sessions
with your hearing care provider
so they can make adjustments
to your hearing devices
when you are in the difficult environments
that you wanna hear better in.
The point being with a complicated
atypical hearing loss like a cookie bite,
you need to have a hearing
care provider who is committed
to thinking outside of the box
and doing whatever is necessary
to optimize your treatment.
If you are looking
for an excellent hearing
care provider near you,
make sure you check out
my website drcliffaud.com
and click on the Find Local Provider tab.
This will take you to a map locator tool
of all the providers inside of my network
who are committed to
following best practices
and acting in your best interest.
Just remember, even though
I have not yet had success
at treating my own
cookie bite hearing loss
does not mean that you can't.
That's it for this video.
If you have any questions,
leave them in the comment section below.
If you liked the video, please share it,
and if you wanna see other
videos just like this one,
go ahead and hit that subscribe button.
Also feel free to check out
my website drcliffaud.com.
(bright music)
