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Letters to the Editor
@ editor
dear editor: I really enjoyed your Spring 2021 issue on tinnitus and hyperacusis. I have both and it’s a very difficult combination. What bothers me most is that often I need to wear earplugs to muffle noises but then the tinnitus is much more pronounced. It’s also difficult for other people to understand that when they make loud noises like slamming cupboards or banging dishes it can actually be very painful. I appreciate the work you and the people who wrote articles are doing to educate society about these conditions. I will be investigating habituation. Thank you.
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Joe D. Faithfull
California
dear editor: Thank you for all the informative articles. Mostly I love the knowledge gain and feeling united with others out there with whatever form of hearing struggle they face.
The poem by Sylvia Byrne Pollack in the Spring 2021 issue touched my heart. Every time I read it I cry, because I understand her struggle through these beautiful words, because they are my struggle too.
Angela Schutte
New Zealand
dear editor: As a longtime reader and former feature writer for Hearing Health magazine, I have three reasons why I enjoy reading the Spring 2021 issue. The different articles about tinnitus by Steve DiCesare, John Dillard, Jemma-Tiffany Rosewater, and Hazel Goedhart, and also Ankitha Lavi’s ASL lessons provided a nice practical balance of their perspectives. Of course the illustrations by Ian Miller enhanced the view of DiCesare with humor, hope, and reality.
As a postlingually deaf person who has lived with tinnitus since 1989, I’m glad that HHF accepted their stories at face value without challenging, correcting, or rejecting their subjective narratives. Thirty years ago, a tinnitus organization turned down my story that touched on the very same issues brought up by the five writers. My point? Never doubt the sincere subjectivity and suggestions of a genuine tinnitus-enduring person. Lastly, if I may suggest another angle, history is full of creative tinnitus people, such as van Gogh, Beethoven, and Edison, no different from the five writers who shared their empirical insights.
Steve C. Baldwin, Ph.D.
Austin, Texas
dear editor: I appreciate your articles about noisy healthcare settings (in the Fall 2020 and Fall 2019 magazines). The worst issue is the heart monitor beeps that go off next to the patient’s head. I asked several nurses and doctors as well as management why they couldn’t have the alarm go off at the nurses’ station instead of next to the patient—which doesn’t do so much good anyway because no one heard it except me in the room. Sometimes it would go off every few minutes for hours at a time, at all hours of the day and night, when oxygen levels got below a certain number, or when a tube got blocked. Usually nothing really serious, but it prevented any type of sleep or tranquility. The answer I got was that’s the way the machine is made. It is impossible to change it. There has got to be a better way.
Debora Masterson
Los Angeles
dear editor: Over the years I have never read any article in this magazine about my problem, which seems to be the opposite of the magazine’s focus. My problem is I’m hearing too much. I live in a rural neighborhood which is also next to a major highway. The constant noise from the traffic, some with extremely loud exhaust pipes, motorcycles, emergency vehicle sirens, farm equipment, plus the constant noise of nearby neighbors mowing their yards every other day with lawn mowers, lawn tractors, leaf blowers, grass trimmers, etc. Earplugs are not a good solution in my situation. I can’t believe I’m the only one who has this problem.
Anonymous
Cleveland
from the editor: The issue of noisy environments is definitely on our radar, so we’ve publicized the efforts of Quiet Communities Inc. to advocate and legislate for quieter spaces, including one’s neighborhood and hospital room. We also hope our new prevention campaign (see page 18) will bring more awareness and help quiet down our noisy world.
dear editor: Thank you for Hearing Health magazine; it is interesting and informative. I lost most of my hearing ability 10 years ago, prompting me to wear hearing aids.
Medicare does not include hearing aids in its coverage. I’ve written to my Congressional representatives, contacted AARP, and researched various Medicare supplement and advantage plans, none of which are satisfactory or effective.
The current administration has opened the spending floodgates to just about everything one can imagine. Can hearing aids be considered “infrastructure,” I wonder? Why are hearing aids not on anyone’s agenda, and what is HHF doing to influence this administration to include Medicare coverage of hearing aids?
Harvey Krauthamer
South Carolina
from the editor: The Medicare Hearing Aid Act was proposed in the last Congress but stalled in the Senate. It was reintroduced in February 2021. The federal guidelines that were to come from the 2018 Warren-Grassley Overthe-Counter Hearing Aids Act were delayed by COVID-19 but now look to be issued in 2022. They will help make sure that OTC hearing aids, also called personal sound amplification products or hearables, are regulated and improve overall access to hearing devices.
HHF is a founding and active member of the Friends of the Congressional Hearing Health Caucus, a coalition of industry, nonprofit, and professional groups that support the bipartisan Congressional Hearing Health Caucus, which encourages expanding hearing healthcare coverage and other issues. Given that untreated hearing loss is linked to dementia, the lack of Medicare for hearing aids—when an expensive Alzheimer’s drug with unclear efficacy seems like it will be covered—is something that Hearing Health contributor Katherine Bouton examines on her blog, katherinebouton.com.
We always appreciate hearing from our community. Letters are edited for length and clarity. Please email us at editor@hhf.org
