{"id":6201,"date":"2019-01-24T19:42:23","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T19:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arizonahearing.com\/?p=6201"},"modified":"2022-06-07T12:40:26","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T19:40:26","slug":"reverse-slope-hearing-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arizonahearing.com\/reverse-slope-hearing-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"Reverse-Slope Hearing Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most people with hearing loss in Tucson<\/strong> have trouble understanding higher frequencies. They have special difficulty with women\u2019s and children\u2019s voices. An unusual condition called reverse-slope hearing loss made headlines<\/a> last week when a woman from China woke up unable to hear her boyfriend\u2019s voice. The condition is so rare, only about 3,000 people on the North American continent combined are diagnosed with reverse-slope hearing loss.<\/p>\n

What is Reverse-Slope Hearing Loss?<\/h2>\n

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The woman, identified by her surname only \u2013 Chen \u2013 went to bed feeling nauseous and experiencing a ringing in her ears<\/a>. When she awoke, she found she could not understand her boyfriend, or the voice of any other man, for that matter. She was subsequently diagnosed with reverse-slope hearing loss, and news outlets worldwide picked up the story due to the very rare nature of the diagnosis.<\/p>\n

Few people have ever heard of reverse-slope hearing loss<\/a>. The condition is characterized by an inability to hear low-pitched sounds. This is why Chen was unable to hear her boyfriend, as men tend to have deeper voices in the lower pitches than women. A person with reverse-slope hearing loss will also have difficulty understanding vowels, which tend to have more low-pitch energy and contribute more to our sense of volume than consonants, which are higher-pitched and contribute more to speech clarity.<\/p>\n

Causes and Treatment of Reverse-Slope Hearing Loss<\/h2>\n

There are three main causes of reverse-slope hearing loss:<\/p>\n