- 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. So if you're into that, make sure you hit that subscribe button. And don't forget to click the
bell to receive a notification every time I post a new video. 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)
