Lip-reading is an essential part of communication for the hard of hearing. But do people mind having their lips read and do you mind staring at someone’s mouth when they are talking?

I used to lip-read a lot and, according to a hearing specialist I saw many years ago, I’m very good at it. But I don’t look directly at people’s mouths any more, these days I tend to look people straight in the eye. Why? Because a few years ago I began to realise that many people get really uncomfortable with me watching their mouth when they are talking to me. Many times people have instinctively brought a hand up to their mouth or they start biting their lip or doing something else other than just talking.

It would be easier for me to read lips more often but I don’t want to make people unconformable when we are talking. I can certainly understand why they would feel uncomfortable and I don’t blame them for expecting me to be seeing them eye to eye. The easy answer is: “Just tell them you are hard of hearing” but it’s not always easy to just blurt that out.

There’s one guy I knew who completely covered his mouth when he’s talking and he made me realise that even though I may not look directly at people’s mouths much any more I still rely on the mouth movement in my peripheral vision. I could rarely understand a word that guy said!

Do you lip-read and are you happy to read everyone’s lips, even strangers? And have you ever noticed someone be unhappy with you doing it?

A great-grandmother who survived breast cancer died after suffering a rare allergic reaction after a hearing aid fitting.

Doctors at Bradford Royal Infirmary could not save Mary Elizabeth Hibbitt, 83, after she contracted an infection through cracks in her skin, an inquest in Bradford heard yesterday.

Mrs Hibbitt, of Tyersal Garth, Tyersal, Bradford, who had beaten breast cancer 14 years previously, died on March 1 from pneumonia caused by the initial skin complaint.

Coroner James Turnbull described as “amazing and extremely unlucky” the chances of her reacting so badly to the material.

Mrs Hibbitt’s ordeal started when she visited an audiologist at BRI in January. Less than two days after having the hearing aid fitting, Mrs Hibbitt was suffering irritation to her ear and a painful rash, which spread down her neck and back.

Her daughter Valerie Wilson, 52, of New Street, Oakenshaw, Bradford, said: “Her face was just totally red raw and it had spread all down her neck and back.

“She hadn’t been out of her house for three weeks. It must have been the reaction.”

The doctor gave her anti-histamine medication to stop the allergy, but her face continued to swell and her skin kept itching and peeling.

Read the full news item here.

Just a quick note to anyone who has sent me an email recently and hasn’t had a reply.

My PC took a turn for the worse the other week and I had to re-install the operating system. I wasn’t able to salvage my email and so everything sent before Monday 10th November has been lost.

If I haven’t replied to you then please, please email me again and I’ll try to keep my PC working from now on!

And I’d like to say a massive thanks to everyone who has emailed and/or left comments on the site – it’s been great hearing from and talking to other bloggers and hearing aid wearers. Keep ’em coming.

It may not seem the most obvious profession for someone who is profoundly deaf, but Spencer Collins, 34, deaf since birth, has made a name for himself as DJ Harcor. He tells MIKE PILE how he made it on the London club scene.

When  Ascot man Spencer Collins feels the beat, it’s more than just a desire to dance – it helps him ‘hear’ the music.

“I wanted to be a DJ because I love the feel of the music, the vibration, the buzz, the passion and being part of the crowd.

New technology has played a part in his success. “I DJ from my laptop,” he said. He  feels vibrations from the music through the floor.

“That’s what makes me feel so good while I’m playing. Some deaf people don’t have hearing aids and need to sense things through their eyes, or through vibration.”

Spencer, who learned a lot from the resident DJ at Stringfellows Paris, Chris Roberts, has performed to crowds all over the country.

He is DJ-ing at the British Luxury Club in Mayfair and has played for the world-renowned Ministry of Sound. He has ambitions to work in New York, Dubai and Miami.

A former pupil of Emmbrook School in Wokingham, Spencer doesn’t mind being recognised because of his disability.

He said: “I would be very proud to be branded as ‘Deaf DJ’ as it is something that people need to remember.

“There are so many people with disabilities who have dreams like me and deserve to be recognised by everyone.

“Look at Evelyn Glennie. She is a famous deaf percussionist in the orchestral world. Look at Beethoven. These two remarkable musicians, both deaf and feeling music through vibration.”

Spencer has helped set up Club Marmalade, a monthly event at a Wokingham nightclub for disabled people, and wants other deaf people to be able to follow in his footsteps.

Contact him for advice by looking up DJ Harcor on Facebook.

This news item comes from the GetBracknell website. This is an impressive achievement for a deaf man. To DJ to a hearing crowd using only vibrations must be hard but to do it at big-name clubs like the Ministry Of Sound is simply amazing.

In a recent address to a hearing advisory council, Brenda Battat, chief executive of the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) stated that the HLAA is not opposed to online hearing aid sales.

She specifically mentioned hi HealthInnovations, a subsidiary of United Healthcare that started an online HA service in October 2011. The hi HealthInnovations website includes an online hearing test, after taking the test your results are used to determine whether you can be sold an aid through the site or whether you need to visit a bricks and mortar audiologist/dispenser office for a more in-depth assessment.

She goes on to mention that the Hearing Industries Association (HIA) have sent a letter to the FDA claiming that hi HealthInnovations is illegally distributing hearing aids and they have requested that the FDA initiate some kind of action against them. Pretty strong stuff. The HIA is a trade association of hearing aid manufacturers that includes all of the big players.

I’ve never bought a hearing aid online so I can’t vouch for their quality but services like hi HealthInnovations feels like the future of hearing aid dispensing to me. Studies and reports are being released every month that show that only a fraction of the people who could benefit from a hearing aid are wearing one, so surely making it easier and cheaper for people to try an HA is a good thing?

Here’s a quote from Brenda’s address that sums up my feelings perfectly:

We support opening up more options for consumers, more doors to enter the channel, and lower hurdles to encourage the millions of people who do nothing about their hearing loss.

Here is the PDF version of Brenda’s address.

The European Commission wants to limit maximum volume on all portable MP3 players sold in the EU, including iPods, to protect users’ hearing.

This follows a report last year warning that as many as 10 million Europeans are putting their hearing at risk when they listen to loud music on their MP3 players. According to the EU experts, the default maximum should be set at 85 decibels. Users would be able to override this setting to reach a top limit of 100 decibels.

DigitalEurope, the Brussels-based body representing the industry, agrees safety must be improved, but according to their spokesman Tony Graziano, “85 decibels would not be appropriate because noise coming from traffic, engines and so on would obliterate the sound. (…) The solution must lie in a balance between safety and enjoyment of the product by the consumer”. In January 2010, a two-month consultation of all EU standardization bodies will begin on these proposals, with a final agreement expected in the Spring.

Whilst I applaud this and think it’s a good start, it’s missing the point a bit. 85 decibels is still very loud and long-term listening at this level is going to do some lasting damage. The DigitalEurope spokesman is right: background noise is going to overpower the music and people will want to turn them up to drown it out, even returning their player up to the full 100 db output.

I’d like to see the following being proposed as well as the volume reduction:

mp3 players should only be sold with noise reducing earphones

Yes, it’s probably going be a bit more expensive but it’s going to save a lot of people from damaging their hearing. With noise-reduction earphones people are not going to need to ramp the volume up to drown out the noise.

You can get good in-the-ear noise reducing earphones as well as headphones so people can still wear their white ear-buds. There would be no loss of style as well as no loss of hearing.

Some exciting news has been hitting the UK’s broadsheet newspapers today: Scientists have for the first time been able to successfully grow inner ear hair cells in mice. But don’t throw away those hearing aids just yet! This is just the first step and they now need to see if the regrown cells actually result in an improvement in hearing. After that, there will still be a long road through regulations before this treatments gets anywhere near me or you. Still, it’s very encouraging news.

This is the Independent’s report on it:

The delicate hair cells of the inner ear that are crucial to hearing have been grown successfully in mice for the first time by scientists who believe that the technique may one day be used to restore hearing in profoundly deaf people.

Many problems with hearing are due to defective auditory hair cells, which mammals cannot normally regenerate. In humans, hair cells are naturally lost during a lifetime, causing a corresponding loss of hearing with age. So being able to grow them by a form of gene therapy raises the prospect of being able to treat deafness in a radically different way.

The scientists stimulated the growth of new hair cells in the inner ear of the mice by transferring a key gene into the cochlea – the auditory part of the inner ear – triggering the development of the fine, sensory cells that respond to sound waves of different frequencies.

The study, printed in the journal Nature, was carried out on mice embryos in the womb. “This is just the first step,” said John Brigande of the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon. “We need to learn if we can restore hearing in deaf mice by gene transfer.”

A website has been launched exploring the journey of a profoundly deaf Scot who cycled to the Arctic Circle.

Edinburgh-based artist and filmmaker Matt Hulse has created the interactive website about James Duthie’s journey in advance of a feature film he is making.

Mr Duthie, also known as Dummy Jim because he was mute, covered 3000 miles on his bike back in 1951, travelling from Fraserburgh via France to the Arctic Circle. He rode alone for three months, spending just £12 en route. His own account of his travels was published in 1957 as I Cycled Into the Arctic Circle.

Deaf actor Samuel Dore, who appears in the film, also features on the website, which gives visitors a chance to explore some of the highlights of Mr Duthie’s journey.

It was launched at Glasgow’s CCA with a live performance from the film’s composer, Daniel Padden, and projections of Super 8mm film shot along the original route. Visit www.dummyjim.com to find out more.

Seen on Edinburgh Evening News.

Does anyone know if it is possible to get a soft-shelled ITE, ITC or CIC hearing aid? A shell made from silicone or something similar?

The question comes from Paul Murata, an athletic trainer and the University of Virginia. One of his basketball players wears in the canal hearing aids and occasionally gets hit on or around the ears during games, causing pain and sometimes even bleeding in the ear canal.

If a soft-shell in the ear aid is not possible, is there an open fit model that would stay behind the ear during a game of basketball and be strong enough to resist getting hit?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hearing loss can cause awkward situations, not just for the people with the hearing problem but for people communicating with them too.

For someone who has never had to talk to someone with a hearing loss before it can be difficult to know what to do. First of all they’ve got to realise that you have a hearing problem and then they’ve got to work out how to deal with that and they’re probably worried about making sure they don’t offend you by doing the wrong thing.

Over the years I’ve had people who have flat-out refused to repeat themselves, people who got angry when I repeatedly misheard, people who look away or cover their mouth when talking, people who shout something from distance and then walk off. But they’re pretty rare cases.

But what’s really refreshing is when someone just nails it and instinctively knows what to do. I was eating out at a busy restaurant a few weeks ago with a group of about 8 people. I could hear the people right next to me but not the others at the other end of the table. About half-way through the meal someone from the other end of the table asked me something, I had no idea they were even speaking to me but the guy next to me realised I hadn’t heard, leaned in and discreetly said, “Guy at the end is talking to you about football”. It’s usually only my close family who would step in like that, I was chuffed. Not only did he let me know I was being spoken to he also gave me a starter on the topic.

I realise though that a lot of the times when it doesn’t go so well as that and I don’t get help it’s mostly my fault as I don’t tell everyone about my hearing problem. If they don’t know then they probably think I’m just ignoring them or daydreaming or something. But I don’t want to introduce myself to everyone with, “Hi, I’m Steve, I don’t hear so well”. Where do you draw the line? I usually just let people know if it becomes a problem and I care enough about communicating with them to fix the problem.

How do you want people to react to your hearing loss? Do you want friends/family to nudge you and let you know you’ve missed something or do you keep it as hidden as possible? Do you tell everyone about your loss all the time? It’s a problem for all of us as hearing loss is invisible, the only immediate signal to someone is your hearing aids and they are getting smaller and smaller all the time – how, and when, do you let people know?