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Welcome back to the All About Audiology podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Lilach Saperstein. And this is Episode 36, the All About YOU! episode.

The last episode, Episode 35 was all about tinnitus with Dr. Kelly Dyson sharing so many great tips and a lot of information about how we diagnose tinnitus, ringing in the ears, and how we can treat it and help people cope and manage when they have tinnitus. And as you guys know, the All About YOU episode is where I come in and see how did the previous episode land with you guys? What were some of your takeaways things that you learned? And some follow up questions that you had.

I received one comment from a longtime listener, a big fan of the show, and she was so excited about this episode. She said,

“Now I get it. We’ve just come back from a long visit with my mother in law who has tinnitus and is struggling so much. She was so irritable and annoyed with the tinnitus. It was hard for her to focus, play with the kids and she would get tired very easily. Listening to your podcast gave me explanations, and I was able to understand a little bit of what she’s going through. I also like that you mentioned about the supplements, because she had recently purchased one of these kinds of supplements that said on the bottle, ‘You will only see results after three months.’ But there was only one month’s worth in the bottle. It seemed like a scam to me. I also loved the idea of doing yoga with the yoga video that Dr. Kelly mentioned. And I sent my mother in law the link. Thank you so much, Dr. Saperstein, for your podcast and all that you do.”

And thank you for sending in such a nice comment!!! And I’m so glad that we’re able to spread the message of the podcast, the experts that we’re bringing on the show, and the topics that we cover here can apply to lots of people that you know. And I’d like to ask you a big favor, which is the next time you’re talking to someone and they tell you their child is getting tube surgery, how about sending them a link to Episode 13, all about tube surgery? Or if someone asks a question about tinnitus, you can absolutely tag me but if you send a link to this episode, they’ll have all the information and tips that we’ve talked about. And that way you can help your friends and family out. Whenever there’s a question or something that comes up, you’ll be the one to point them in the right direction, to the heart centered information that you can find on this podcast.

One of the things Dr. Dyson @thetinnitusdoctor mentioned in the episode was that she had had tinnitus as a child and didn’t really realize that it was tinnitus because she just thought it was normal. And we had another listener write in on Instagram, she sent me a DM on Instagram @allaboutaudiology podcasts. You can always DM me there. I check all my DMs. She wrote,

“The tinnitus episode was so interesting. I’ve had it probably my whole life but didn’t know it isn’t something everyone experiences until I was an adult. I remember asking my mom as a young child, what was making that sound in a silent room, and she kept saying there was no sound. So, I figured that’s just what silence sounded like.” And then she added a question, which I forwarded to Dr. Dyson to get an answer. She asked, “Does the frequency of someone’s tinnitus correspond to the frequency of their hearing loss? Or is it just how the brain happens to process it?”

So, I sent it to Dr. Kelly, who responded with an answer. She said, “Not necessarily. We know that people can have tinnitus without measurable hearing loss. I’ve tested several people with tinnitus at frequencies where they have good hearing and no tinnitus in the range where they have the worst hearing. So, it doesn’t have to correspond.” It’s a very interesting question and thank you for sending that in.

Now, we’re in the middle of April at the time of this recording, and all of the changes that we’re all facing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are obviously still going on. And one of the big questions that I’ve been getting is about newborn hearing screening. What happens if a child isn’t able to get the screening because the hospital doesn’t necessarily have the staffing or babies being born out of hospital?

I was actually invited to do a Facebook Live event with my friend and doula and birth educator, Ayelet Schwell, and we spoke about this issue and other issues related to audiology. I’m going to link the video in the show notes, so you can definitely go there and check it out. And one of the things I explained was that there is obviously a sense of urgency that we have for getting the newborn hearing screening completed, for getting every single baby to have a screening, to know if they pass or if they need further testing. And that’s something that’s very important and a great value of mine and something that audiology has had a big success with over the last couple of decades with, implementing universal newborn hearing screening.

However, my opinion is that if there’s going to be a delay of two or three or four months or even six months, in certain care and certain interventions, yes, it will be impactful, but it really needs to be weighed against all the other factors that are going on. Taking into account the situation of everyone’s specific location, in the specific hospital where this is going on, the state or country, and weighing the risks of contracting COVID versus waiting to have the testing done. This continues to be a debate and something that’s controversial. Whether or not audiologists are considered essential or not in a healthcare setting when we’re considering life threatening conditions compared to communication which is really crucial for for life.

So, I’d love to hear your thoughts on that. And that’s a conversation that’s been happening a lot among my colleagues and other professionals. Audiology is kind of difficult to go telehealth with, in terms if you need a booth for testing and you need to program the equipment with all sorts of equipment and computer programs and software’s and interfaces and things that you need to have on hand. But there’s also a lot of innovation going on and a lot of changes for how we can deliver healthcare.

One of the interesting phenomena that’s coming out of the idea of telehealth is realizing how much of the counseling experience can happen over the phone, or zoom or Skype or FaceTime. Understanding the diagnosis, understanding and having time to process what the diagnosis really means for your child and how parenting a child with a hearing loss presents its’ unique differences in the journey of parenthood. This is the area that I focus on with the clients that I work with. If you’re new around here or you haven’t gotten around to downloading the free guide, it is the five step guide to navigating your child’s hearing loss. It’s available at the website for free download and the fill-able PDF file gets sent straight to you. Just go to allaboutaudiology.com/guide. And that’s where you can download the five step guide to navigating your child’s hearing loss.

This is a resource that can help you at a time when everything is going a little bit slower and there’s kind of a standstill in the processing. You know, if you had to have a newborn hearing screening, but it’s been delayed or if you had a newborn hearing screening and are waiting for a diagnosis, but that’s been delayed. Or if you have a diagnosis, but you’re waiting now to get hearing aids or to get a cochlear implant evaluation or you have those but now your mappings are delayed or your programming is delayed…Wherever you are along that journey, there’s also this whole other side of it, that sometimes life goes too fast for us to have time to sit with and look at and journal around and understand our own emotional processing and wellness around the diagnosis and our role.

If you’re an SLP (Speech Language Pathologist) or a teacher of the deaf or an audiologist, share this with your clients, with your students, with your patients. It’s a totally free download. And it can really help people to come and organize where they are along the journey. That’s the guide, free of charge, just download it at allaboutaudiology.com/guide. And now I’ve taken that guide and I’ve actually created the expanded journal edition, where I’ve put in even more attention to that personal journey that each person, each family is going through, and there are dozens of journal prompts. It also comes with access to a meditation library and a walk through video that is very comprehensive, with a lot of tips and strategies for this kind of work.

The expanded journal addition and the additional resources there can be purchased in the bundle for $69.97. And there are resources that I really, really believe will help people be able to process when they’re not able to get the support of their audiologist right now. The expanded journal edition is also something you might consider gifting to a friend or a family member who you know could appreciate some additional resources for what they’re going through. Thank you to my wonderful listeners. I hope that you are doing well. You are healthy and staying safe and staying connected to yourself, to your family, with whatever means necessary.

The next episode will be released in just a couple of days. Episode 37 is about trauma informed practice, trauma informed parenting, and trauma informed education. And what it means to be a parent or a teacher or work with children, when we’re looking at their experiences, through the lens of trauma and through the lens of resilience. And I have a special guest interview with Colleen Wilkinson, who has a lot of experience implementing trauma informed education.

And she does consulting for schools and for other institutions, all about taking care of the environment, institutional policy takes into account the heart of children, and keeping safety and keeping the child’s feeling of groundedness and safety at the core of their experience at home, at school, and in any healthcare interaction. I think you’re going to enjoy that episode. It does get quite personal, both from my end and from Colleen’s end.

I look forward to you guys hearing that interview and letting me know how it sits with you. Thank you for being a listener. I’m so grateful to have such wonderful and passionate listeners who truly care about this topic. Thank you for sharing the show and dropping the links when it comes up on Facebook conversations or, you know, with your support group or anything like that so that more people can join the all about audiology community and we can all grow and learn from one another.

I’m Dr. Lilach Saperstein and this is the All About Audiology podcast.