A woman in China went to bed one night and woke up the next morning unable to hear her boyfriend’s voice.
Before she went to bed, the woman says she heard ringing in her ears and vomited.
Upon further investigation, and ear, nose, and throat specialist at Qianpu Hospital told Ms. Chen (the patient has only been identified by her last name) she was suffering from reverse-slope hearing loss, a form of low-frequency hearing loss.
Chen could no longer hear low frequencies, including her boyfriend, and other males’, speaking voices.
Newsweek explains: “Genetic condition including Mondini dysplasia—where the cochlea is incomplete—can cause reverse-sloping hearing loss, as well as diseases which affect the hair cells in the inner ear, like Ménière’s. Less often, a shift in the pressure of ear fluid can trigger reverse-sloping hearing loss. This can be caused by general anesthetic, a perilymphatic fistula (an abnormal opening in the ear), and intracranial hypertension, caused by pressure in the central nervous system.”
In North America, only about 3,000 people are diagnosed with this super-rare condition.
The World Health Organization says that about 466 million people around the globe suffer from some form of hearing loss. That figure is expected to rise to over 900 million by 2050.
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