
“My hearing is shot. And I’m hoping that chickens will help me” - interkats
https://medium.com/backchannel/we-need-an-uber-for-hearing-aids-99fdde1df17a
======
sdrothrock
I've always kept an eye on cochlea-related biomedical advances.

About 13 years ago, I opted to get a cochlear implant in my left ear and my
left ear only because, on the recommendation of my hearing specialist at
Hopkins, I wanted to save my right ear for future advances like this (thinking
that a surgery-scarred cochlea might not be usable).

Since it's been 13 years and nothing has come, I've started regretting that
decision a lot. Since I live in a city and work with a lot of people around
me, I could really use implants on both sides to hear from all directions.

On the other hand, these things are EXPENSIVE to keep/maintain. So I suppose
it's just as well that I only have one.

~~~
troels
Regretting getting insurance just because nothing happened is pointless.
Sounds like a sane choice to me.

~~~
sdrothrock
The difference between this choice and insurance is that insurance would not
have improved or affected my quality of life in that period, whereas the
ability to hear on two sides most definitely would have (and would have
probably prevented at least three accidents I was involved in).

~~~
troels
Well, taking out insurance usually comes with a cost. All I'm saying is that I
think I would do the same.

------
Mz
The article is light on medical details of a sort that would be meaningful to
me and hearing has not been a real high priority of mine. I do know that
magnesium supplements help some people with things like that issue where you
hear buzzing all the time. (Edit: Tinnitus.) If the author of the piece reads
this, I will suggest he look up a) which antibiotics are known to cause
hearing loss b) if there is a commonality among them. I know, for example,
that Zithromax promotes magnesium deficiency by competing with the same
receptors.

So, this has not been a focus of mine but I make sure to eat magnesium rich
foods when my medical condition does certain things to my hearing and I know
my son suffers less from buzzing in his ears and that type thing and it was
magnesium rich foods that helped.

Unfortunately, I don't have the background I need to know if that would be
directly related to this man's issue. My focus has mostly been on other
things.

~~~
dazc
I suffer from tinnitus. Changing my diet to include magnesium rich foods has
been, without a doubt, beneficial.

~~~
Mz
Thanks.

------
beloch
Several different technologies that are crucial for repairing hearing loss
have become feasible only recently. For example, the small scale and fragility
of the ear-drum makes conventional surgery practically impossible without
obliterating what's there. Robot assisted microsurgery, which is now becoming
more widely used, offers a way to open the door to the ear without knocking it
in. This is likely a necessary first step in many possible treatments.

------
cfitz
Totally irrelevant to the point of the article, but I don't understand why the
separator images (in baby blue) are click-able and zoom-able/lightbox-able.
The fact that they are makes me want to click on them. Is this an author-
controlled option when writing with Medium, like with images embedded in
WordPress posts?

~~~
72deluxe
I didn't notice that but thanks, it made me chuckle. Perhaps the author really
wanted you to take note of the beautiful blue 8bit style graphics they had
drawn?

------
andrewtbham
Reminds me of recent post on HN about amp. it's like a hearing aid for your
phone.

[https://medium.com/@Amp/cant-you-just-turn-up-the-
volume-4ec...](https://medium.com/@Amp/cant-you-just-turn-up-the-
volume-4ecb7fc422a)

------
politician
Can they inject healthy cochlear cells into unhealthy ears? What about stem
cells? Would it be possible to use chicken cells in human ears or would our
immune response prevent that?

~~~
sdrothrock
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1810231/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1810231/)

It's been tried (appropriately enough, with guinea pigs) and there was no
inflammatory response, even from xenotransplantation... however, it was also
not very effective.

------
exabrial
"especially when the Republicans who control Congress seem to think that
science is irrelevant"

I mean, way to look past differences, disband stereotypes, etc and unite
people for your cause.

~~~
markdown
The Republican Chairman of the Senate _Environment_ Committee has said that
only god, not humans can change the climate. This flies in the face of
_scientific_ consensus.

To the Republican chairman of the Senate _Environment_ Committee, science is
irrelevant.

~~~
wyager
Just because some Republicans are stupid doesn't mean they all are. I'm sure
there have been some Democrat senators that were dumb as rocks as well.

Do Republican senators as a whole actually support scientific funding
substantially less than Democrat senators?

~~~
guelo
Since all they talk about is cutting taxes and reducing the size of government
I'm going to guess yes.

~~~
hga
_Since all they talk about is cutting taxes and reducing the size of
government...._

You can only believe that if you don't actually listen to them or pay
attention to what they _do_. There's a reason Bob Dole acquired the reputation
of "Tax Collector for the Welfare State", and for current events, look no
further than the Republican Senators like John Thune who are salivating for an
increase in the Federal gasoline tax, more tolerable now that prices have
dropped. And why the Republican establishment's loathing of the "Tea Party"
vastly exceeds that of the Democrats (.e.g ask the primaried Republicans who
are now spending more time with their families, especially once powerful ones
like Senator Lugar or #2 in the House Cantor).

You're confusing general propaganda against Republicans vs. what they,
_professional politicians_ , say, _vs. what they actually DO_. Believing
either of the first two is unwise.

To end with some inconvenient facts, it wasn't Republicans who killed the
Superconducting Supercollider, it was Republicans who funded the James Webb
Space Telescope (started in a Republican Congress), and Reagan (and I think
both Bushes) signed off on increases in the non-defense science budget. NIH
funding is a good proxy for that, e.g. look here:
[http://officeofbudget.od.nih.gov/approp_hist.html](http://officeofbudget.od.nih.gov/approp_hist.html)

