Hearing Loss and Restoration

Reversing hearing loss and restoring hearing through the use of nutrition-based medicine, natural healthcare and innovative, assistive hearing devices.

1. Nutrition-based medicine and natural healthcare solutions for hearing loss and hearing restoration

1.1 Don't Go Deaf: Aldosterone and Hearing Loss

Jonathan Wright, MD, ND (Hon): copy nature to promote health (starts at 3:54); restoring hearing naturally (the hearing section starts at 8:32 and ends at 16:34); also: restoring vision (cataracts: 16:35, glaucoma: 20:00, macular degeneration: 26:58); brain health (preventing Alzheimer's: 32:27, reversing severe clinical depression: 43:06); info on vitamin C (esp. during stress) and vitamin D (heart health, back pain, other pain: 49:07); Cutting risk of heart disease by 80% without changing diet or taking pills.

About the presenter, Jonathan V. Wright, MD, ND (Hon): See bio on Top Health Books web page; bio on How to Locate and Implement the Top Research and Services from the Fields of Nutrition-based Medicine and Natural Healthcare; and bio on Orthomolecular Medicine Hall of Fame web page. Learn more about orthomolecular medicine.

Dr. Wright's websites: tahomaclinic.com, tahomadispensary.com, meridianvalleylab.com, greenmedicinenewsletter.com (additional info on this newsletter), tahomaclinicfoundation.org, Youtube channel, greenmedicineonline.com (radio show archive).

Don't Go Deaf - Aldosterone and Hearing Loss Video Transcription:

(8:30): Aldosterone and hearing loss. Now, for those of you who haven't heard about aldosterone, aldosterone is a hormone that's made in everyone's adrenal glands, and what it's accused of doing is, "oh, you're the hormone that regulates sodium potassium balance in the body." Well every single molecule in the body has always been accused of doing one thing and named that! And then, we figure out as time goes by that they do 50 things a piece, 60, 70, 80, but we only know them by the one name, and that's sad. I think the whole thing needs renaming. For example, you've heard of that stuff called growth hormone, yeah, makes you hit too many home runs and get elected governor of California and stuff like that. That's what growth hormone does, yeah. But also it's, what happens when we're not growing anymore. How come we have a normal level? Because it's a repair hormone, it helps cells to repair themselves. It's, one of the biggest repair systems in the body is stimulated by growth hormone. So anyway aldosterone is not just a sodium potassium balance thing.

(9:33): Now there, for the few scientists in the group, is one of the original references to Dr. Dennis Trune right here. He's the one who came up with this whole thing in animals but it works in people:

Trune DR, Kempton JB, Kessi M. Aldosterone (mineralocorticoid) equivalent to prednisolone (glucocorticoid) in reversing hearing loss in MRL/MpJ-Fas1pr autoimmune mice. Laryngoscope, 2000 Nov; 110(11):1902-6.

Aldosterone therapy may offer advantages over prednisone for long-term management of not only autoimmune hearing loss, but also other forms of non-immune-related deafness for which steroids are commonly prescribed.

And, what he said in his article is aldosterone therapy may offer advantages over prednisone for long-term management of autoimmune hearing loss. Okay, what's that got to do in anything? How many of us have got autoimmune hearing loss? Well, you know, some people are diagnosed that way, but do you know that there is never been found to be an antibody, never! And if you haven't got an antibody, how's it going to be autoimmune? Well they named it autoimmune because, in some cases of hearing loss that happen suddenly, if you give these people a very toxic molecule called prednisone, why they can hear again! Well yeah, but prednisone is rather toxic folks -- osteoporosis, high blood pressure -- it's one of those, it's a tweak of cortisone that tweaked it to be five times more powerful and about 20 times more toxic!

(10:28): All right, so here's another one of his references, I'm sorry, another reference, that says higher serum aldosterone, and yes, you can get it measured in the bloodstream, you can, correlates with lower hearing threshold. In other words, you can hear when you don't talk as loud, if you have higher serum aldosterone. How do you like that?

Tadros SF, Frisina ST, Mapes F, Frisina DR, Frisina RD. Higher serum aldosterone correlates with lower hearing thresholds: a possible protective hormone against presbycusis. Hear Res. 2005 Nov; 209(1-2):10-8.

It's a correlation study, possible protective hormone against hearing loss. Okay, they compared people who had normal hearing and those who had hearing loss, highly significant difference in serum aldosterone.

Serum aldosterone concentrations were compared between normal hearing and presbycusic groups.

A highly significant difference between groups in serum aldosterone concentrations was found (p = 0.0003, t = 3.95, df = 45).

"We conclude that aldosterone hormone may have a protective effect on hearing in old age."

Okay, okay, and now this is Dr Trune figuring out how it works through something called the mineralocorticoid receptor. That's the one that receives the steroid molecules that regulate minerals, that's all.

Trune DR, Kempton JB, Gross ND. Mineralocorticoid receptor mediates glucocorticoid treatment effects in the automimmune mouse ear. Hear Res. 2006, Feb;212(1-2:23-32.

"Pilot" Human Research at Tahoma Clinic 2008

(11:14): OK, so we did some pilot human research at Tahoma Clinic.

Not placebo-controlled or double-blind.
Volunteers between 41 and 79 years old.
Aldosterone 125 micrograms twice daily, orally, for 90 days.
Results judged objectively (audiogram), also "subjective" report.

Oh, I should say we got this from Dr Trune, no question, but I actually got the whole blinking idea from a Boeing engineer -- I love Boeing Engineers! Those guys scour the Internet for anything that might help them, and then some of them have the sense to bring it in to talk to a doctor about, and this man did, and he says I've got autoimmune hearing loss, and this here article says aldosterone might work for me, um, and I won't have to take that prednisone stuff. Can we try it? And I said, "Well thank you very much. Let me read the article." Uh, you know I'll take help help from anywhere I can get, particularly if it's natural molecules. And, very fortunately, I'd been working with aldosterone in the prior decade through a pharmacy in British Columbia, which is the only place we could get it, so we prescribed some for him and you know what? The guy's hearing normalized without having to take prednisone.

And, remember he's a Boeing engineer right? Right, so he had to prove it was working! So, he goes off the aldosterone, and his hearing goes away. OK, went back on the aldosterone and his hearing came back. He went off the aldosterone again, and his hearing went away. Same thing, it came back when he took it. He's an engineer he's trying to prove it to himself! Well he went to do it a third time, and you know who put a stop to it, not me. His wife she says, "Dear you're already deaf in the one ear, you've only got the one ear left that still works. I love you very much, but if you can keep your hearing, and yet risk losing your hearing, I'm not going to live with a guy without without any hearing if he could prevent it." So, he didn't go off his aldosterone, and he's been using it since 2004 [date of this presentation: 2014, 10 years of aldosterone use], he's still hearing, just as well.

(12:49): OK, but when we, after that, decided to do some research, it wasn't placebo controlled or double blind, we looked for volunteers between these ages 41 and 79. 125 micrograms, that's a tiny dose as you'd imagine, micrograms, twice a day for 90 days, and we did, uh, we didn't do -- we sent people to their ear doctors to do the audiogram, as well as to tell us subjective improvement.

Research Results

Of the 20 volunteers:

10 had both objective and subjective improvement.
3 had objective (audiogram) improvement, no subjective change.
7 had neither objective or subjective improvement.

Of those 20 volunteers, 10 had objective and subjective Improvement. In other words, their audiograms were better and they thought they could hear better. Three had objective improvement, but they didn't think they could hear better, and seven had no change. So, seven out of 20 versus vs., well, 50% improvement for sure. Three, probable [added text: 65% of participants received improved hearing with supplemental aldosterone], and seven had none. So, it does not work for everyone. But, 50/50 [added text: or, in close to 2/3 of cases, hearing was improved] is better than nothing, to keep your hearing!

(13:40):

Case Reports

Case 1, History

Here's the case report of this engineer fella.

56-year-old man with hearing loss, left ear.
Had already lost hearing on right several years ago.
Diagnosed as "auto-immune" inner ear disorder.
Hearing loss on the left "controlled" by prednisone.

He had lost his hearing on one side. He was diagnosed as autoimmune, even though nobody's ever found an antibody.

Case 1, 56 Year-old Man
24 Hour Urine, Pre-and Post-ACTH

Initial Test, April, 2002	mcg/24 hr	Post Adrenal, mcg/24 hr	Normal Male, Ref. Range
Aldosterone	4-7 Low	3.6 Low	Normal 6-25 Low Salt 14-44 High Salt 0-6

His initial test -- we kind of insist on people collecting all the urine for 24 hours, because hormones are secreted in bursts and bursts and bursts, and if you get a blood test, you might get a low part part or high part. If you do the urine test, you get the whole thing. And the normal over here, and you can see he's low. Both times he was tried. And he's the fellow who went on the stuff, he got up to this level which is normal.

Treatment:

Aldosterone

125 micrograms per capsule.
One capsule twice daily.

Aug. 2004 Results	mcg/24 hr	Normal Male Ref. Range
Aldosterone	15.8	Normal Diet 6-25 Low Salt Diet 17-44 High Salt Diet 0-6

Treatment Result, with Engineer's Challenge

Hearing returned in "good" ear.
Engineer, needed proof.
Went off aldosterone 3x, lost hearing each time.
Hearing returned 3x after aldosterone resumed.
Engineering trials ended by wife!

He needed proof. He went off it three times, returned three times, and his engineering trials were ended by his wife!

Okay, and this is when he, as an engineer, decided to take three times a day instead of twice a day. Oh yeah, his went too high. This is on a low salt diet, you can go that high, but he was not on low salt diet.

Case 1, with 125 mcg Thrice Daily Dec 2005, 24-Hr Urine Results

Dec. 2005 Results	mcg/24 hr	Normal Male Ref. Range
Aldosterone	35	Normal Diet 6-25 Low Salt Diet 17-44 High Salt Diet 0-6

Case 2

(14:36):

57 Year-old Man: Low, almost undetectable levels of aldosterone shown in 24-hr urine testing

09/06 Result	mcg/24 hr	Normal Male Ref. Range
Aldosterone	Below Detectable Limit	Normal Diet 6-25 Low Salt Diet 17-44 High Salt Diet 0-6

Repeat Test	mcg/24 hr	Normal Male Ref. Range
Aldosterone	.07	Normal Diet 6-25 Low Salt Diet 17-44 High Salt Diet 0-6

Treatment

Aldosterone 125 micrograms daily, increasing to 125 micrograms twice daily.

Treatment Result

Hearing improved. Before treatment could not hear his wife talking, while driving together in their diesel truck. After treatment, can hear her despite diesel noise.

So, anyway another individual 57. Ah, his aldosterone was so low, they couldn't find it. Um that's in the blood. And then, over here it was repeated and sure enough they found a tiny bit. There's a normal range and he'd lost hearing.

He got the aldosterone, increased it twice a day. And he could tell because, while he was driving together with his wife in their diesel truck, he could now hear his wife. And prior to that, he couldn't hear her over the diesel engine. Now I know some guys would prefer that, so don't tell your wives. Okay, but he could, he restored his hearing.

Case 3

(15:15):

And here's a 62 year old guy with symptoms of tinnitis...

Using 125 mcgs aldosterone daily.
When stopped supplementation for 3 days, tinnitis worsened.
When re-started supplementation, hearing returned to more normal level.
Feels aldosterone has positively impacted his night vision.

... but you know what, I'm going to skip through the case four, just simply because we got a lot of stuff to go over here.

Case 4

(15:24):

87-year-old man with symptoms since 1994. Diagnosed in 1994 as "chronic Meniere's" or "autoimmune inner ear disease (AIED)."

This gentleman that was 87, he'd been diagnosed with so-called chronic Meniere's disease, or autoimmune inner disease, in 1994. He saw us in 2007, 13 years later. Ah, and he came out, low sure enough.

24-hr Urine Results, 5/14/07
May 2007 Results	mcg/24 hr	Normal Male Ref. Range
Aldosterone	4.0	Normal Diet 6-25 Low Salt Diet 17-44 High Salt Diet 0-6

Treatment Recommendation

Aldosterone

125 microgram capsules
Taken twice daily

Case 4 Follow-up, 9/7/2007 [added text: Hearing improvement results after 4 months of aldosterone use]

Reports via e-mail about repeat Otogram:

Right ear ("sorta good one")

35 decibel improvement (at 250 hertz)

235 decibel improvement in his auditory discrimination

Left ear ("near useless")

20 decibel improvement

auditory discrimination came up from 3% to 82%

"Am re-tuning hearing aids"

Here we go, aldosterone's a treatment again. In his followup, his right ear which is his "sort of good one," he got a 35 decibel improvement, at the measurement point that the audiologist wanted, 250 hertz. And, 235 decibel improvement and his auditory discrimination. You know, that's hearing in a noisy room. Auditory discrimination, this kind of discrimination is allowed. I'm from Seattle, we're not allowed to discriminate on anything at all. No, we're not. We have only persons, we have no men and women in Seattle. One wonders how the Seahawks won doesn't one? Yeah, okay, so his left ear which was near useless he improved there 20 decibels, and his auditory discrimination came up from 3% to 82% yeah with some aldosterone. Okay, now that we know one of the ways not to go deaf, um, and it's only a 50% chance [added text: or 65% chance, as documented above] folks, what we found, but better than nothing.

1.4 Drugs Which Lower Aldosterone (and may, therefore, adversely affect hearing), and the Health Conditions for Which They Are Commonly Prescribed

List of drugs which lower aldosterone, and the health conditions for which they are commonly prescribed.

Additional info: Clevelandclinic.org, Singlecare.com.

1.3 Inexpensively Testing and Optimizing Aldosterone Levels (24 hr. Urine Test)

One lab example, the lab of the above presenter, Jonathan Wright, MD, ND (Hon): Meridianvalleylab.com's Urine Hormone Profiles. Price (as of Oct. 2024): $154.00

2. Innovative Assistive Hearing Devices (Asius Technologies)

Video: New, innovative assistive hearing devices developed by Stephen Ambrose and his coworkers at Asius Technologies -- the company that enabled the lead singer of AC/DC, Brian Johnson, to return to his music career.

2.1 Helping the Lead Singer of AC/DC, Brain Johnson, Return to Singing

Video: Open letter (video format) to Brain Johnson of AC/DC, explaining the technology.

2.2 User Feedback and Results

Example 1 of 8

Video: AC/DC's lead singer Brian Johnson describes his experience of being able to return to music with the innovative assistive hearing devices produced by Asius Technologies.

Example 2 of 8

Word Recognition Results

From 0% word recognition to 100% word recognition: Unaided, at 50 decibels, average conversational level, he had 0% word recognition. With the ear molds in, he had, at the average conversational level, 67%, and then with the (Asius Technologies') ADEL's in, he at 100% word recognition (on the NU-6 list - 1A, 2A, and 3A list).

Example 3 of 8

Video: Hearing through a deaf ear again, three years after going deaf in one ear. KT Tunstall, Scottish singer-songwriter and musician.

Transcription:

KT: So, here's something I wanna try. I would really like to take my hearing out completely. Because the one thing I am noticing is that even though my balance is 98% to the left ear on my deaf side, I do still feel like I'm hearing you on the right side.

Stephen: OK.

KT: Which makes sense, because that's the situation I'm in, and I have not been training my ears. So, what I want to do, is take this one out, and turn up a little bit (the hearing device on the other ear) and see what that feels like. So, I'm literally only going to be hearing you through my deaf ear. I mean, I was anyway, but just psychologically, not having this in my ear at all. So, let me deflate this one. There we go. So cool!

Stephen: Laughs.

KT: OK, so right hand side is out. We are all the way left, and then let's try that.

Stephen: So, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, can you hear me?

KT: I can hear you.

Stephen: Ah, amazing!

KT: Just, keep speaking.

Stephen: OK, so I'm really excited that you're so thorough with your testing. This helps our research. Your the perfect person to do research!

KT: Thank you, I heard you tell me I'm the perfect person! (both laugh). So, what's interesting is, and I suppose it makes sense. I'm turning up the volume now. I'm sort of 3/4 of the way up on the mike now. So, if you could just count numbers or something.

Stephen: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.

KT: I am definitely getting ... because what I thought was happening, was, I was hearing, I didn't think the volume was changing, but it is, when I change the volume. I am hearing volume difference, between 1/2 way and 3/4 way. So, if you could talk at the moment, if you could just talk, say numbers again.

Stephen: OK, 37, 38, 39.

KT: 37, 38, 39 (laughs). So, I'm about 3/4 up. So, I'm going to cover your mouth, and just say a number.

Stephen: 57, 58.

KT: 57. Did you say 57?

Stephen: I did.

KT: Say another number.

Stephen: I said 57, and then I said 58, 59.

KT: You said 57, and then you said 58.

Stephen: There you go!

KT: So this me, I cannot lip read you, and I am listening to you through my deaf ear.

Stephen: (laughs)

KT: Can we just try that, say the name of an animal, I'm going to cover your mouth.

Stephen: Leopard, leopard.

KT: Say that again.

Stephen: Leopard!

KT: Leopard! (Shouts and claps!) Yeah! Was that right?

Stephen: (laughing) That's right.

(3:00) KT: Wow. OK. I'm just the headphones out and taking to the computer. So when I did my hearing test, when I'd lost my hearing, at the time, I went to see a specialist, and this is exactly what they do. They put an isolated headphone in the deaf ear, and they say words, and it was just, it was like sound of metal. He was saying brush, and I was going diamond. You know, I had no idea what he was saying. So, that was 2018 (video date: 10/2/21), oh, I can't hear you.

Stephen: I just muted the mike.

KT: There you are.

Stephen: I just muted my mike, and I told Garnet to close the door to the bedroom. Hold on just one second. OK, I'm back.

KT: So, this is huge! Because I was in an audiologist's clinic, in Nashville, with an isolated headphone on this side. He was saying words. I couldn't lip read him, and I had no idea what he was saying, I couldn't even, I could hear vibration, but I couldn't really hear a sound, and I couldn't, certainly, there was no way, I could hear words he was saying. So, that's 75% of mike volume, I could not lip read you, and I could hear what word you were saying (both clap). That's pretty amazing!

Stephen: Take a bow.

KT: You take a bow! (both laugh)

Stephen: We'll take a bow together.

KT: That is huge! I can hear numbers, words, I can hear clarity. It is quiet, but that is just my deaf ear, and I can hear what you are saying, without looking at your lips.

Stephen: Wow. This is so revealing for us.

KT: And that, for me, gives me belief.

Stephen: (laughs)

KT: Because when you're sitting in the audiologist's office, and you're getting the same test, and you can't hear anything, you can't hear. And that [the new hearing device] has made me really believe that I can hear. Not conventionally, but I can hear from that side. I got the information purely into that ear, and I could hear the number and the word.

Stephen: (claps)

KT: Isn't that awesome?!

Stephen: Absolutely!

KT: So cool!

Stephen: Let me ask you a question. So, when is the last time you were aware of hearing anything through that ear?

KT: Before I went deaf.

Stephen: And that was?

KT: 2018 (date of video: 10/2/21).

Stephen: OK, so...

KT: I've not heard anything, other than tinitus, and weird clicking noises, which are not happening.

Stephen: (laughs) Alright, now. This ...

KT: I can't believe it! I heard you say 57 and leopard!

Example 4 of 8

Video: From the need to lip read, due to moderate to severe nerve damage in each ear, to being able to hear everything clearly again.

"It's nerve damage in both ears. It's moderately severe... You don't know what music really sounds like with all the tones and levels. It's just sort of a monotone sound that you can hear, where I could hear everything! It's amazing! I didn't know how severe my hearing loss was, because I've been able to read lips for so long."

Example 5 of 8

Video: From being completely nerve deaf in one ear for 17 years, to being able to hear again.

"It's very comfortable (listening to music, starts to cry). I haven't heard anything (hugs Stephen). I haven't heard anything in... I'm trying to explain what it's like. I don't know what, I don't I don't know what to say. Oh man, I had no idea I'd react like that. Oh wow, I haven't heard anything in that ear for seven it's been 17 years."

Example 6 of 8

Video: From going to concerts a lot, standing near the speakers, losing hearing, and the resulting need to read lips, and the frustration of not being able to hear others, to being able to hear very well again.

"When I was in my teenager years, I'd usually go to concerts a lot, and I usually always stand beside the speakers with a whole bunch of my friends. After that, ever since that, I've been losing my hearing. I can't hear when people talk to me, I got to read their lips all time, and it's frustrating. It is really frustrating. And then, I always ask my friends, 'What was that? Again, what was that again?' I have to take a guess what they're saying."

"Wow, holy smokes, holy I can see this (crying). It's unbelievable something that I didn't hear for a long time since, I was in teens. And I could hear like every single instrument, you know, instead of turning up loud and hurting my ears. It's very comfortable. Oh, wow. What a, what a difference. Bless you."

Example 7 of 8

Video: Canceling out the occlusion effect, where your voice booms in your head, enabling hearing aids to be used at much lower volumes.

"Oh my gosh! Hold on, I gotta turn this lower! I love you guys so much! I don't feel like I'm deaf anymore! You guys are amazing!

"Before, when I had my other hearing aid in, my left one, I'd have to rip this one out. I'd be like, Steve, OK, I have to get going, this one is starting to hurt. Or, when you raised your voice, it would hurt. But, you raised your voice, and it didn't hurt. I mean I could hear it get louder, but it didn't hurt."

Stephen: "Yeah, that's because, these cancel out what is called the occlusion effect, where your voice booms in your head. The hearing aid and in-ear monitors have to be turned up above that. So, they start loud, because they have to be louder than the booming of the voice in your head, which makes everything sound too basey and muffled. So, what you are wearing got rid of all that. So now, you can start at nothing, and turn it up, and all of the sudden, you can hear. And so, you're down here, instead of up here, and you've got this room for things to get louder without killing you... The first good news is that you, like everyone else, turned your hearing aids way down."

Devise user: "Yes, I couldn't believe how loud your voice was, when I first put them in. I was like, oh my God! It was a BIG difference! Huge! And all I did was swap out this for the bubble (Asius Technologies' assistive hearing device), and it was a miracle. Thank you so much! I laughed, I cried! It was great!"

Example 8 of 8

Video: Paul Stanley of KISS describes his experience using innovative assistive hearing devices produced by Asius Technologies.

2.3 How The Innovative Assistive Hearing Devices Work, by Stephen Ambrose, Founder of Asius Technologies

Video: Stephen Ambrose, founder of Asius Technologies, describing his inventions in the field of assistive hearing devices.

Transcription:

(1:57): Thank you so much. Good morning. So, how many of you have ever used these? Just a few of us. Have you seen Mayor Bloomberg's campaign in New York billboards, a few years back, I think it was: use an earbud, go to prison? No, no, it was, "Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow?" It had a picture of an earbud and a picture of a hearing aid. This is a kind of a quandary, right? So you all know just exactly what volume to listen at, to ensure that you go deaf before your time, right? You just turn it up enough to enjoy it, is that it? How loud is too loud? And how soft is soft enough? And whose fault is this, that we should have to go deaf listening to music or talking on the phone? Let's find this guy.

Where did these come from? Do you know? Well, when I was 13 years old - now this is not Johnny Cash's fault. My dad taught at Peabody and Vanderbilt and I was a university brat and he taught church music and classical music. And that was the only kind of music that he allowed in our home. And I had a guitar and I hid it under the bed for the first two years, and I would sing in the closet very, very softly. Because I was singing Dylan. Well, I played at coffee shops and a producer from Music Row heard me and invited me to the studio when I was 13 to do my first professional recording. So, I'm blown out. I'm rockin' and rollin', my dad doesn't know this. Next door Johnny Cash is recording and I sneaked into the studio to hear him, and they welcomed me in, and they put the headphones on me, and they let me hear it.

(4:06): I didn't like country music until I heard him through the headphones, and then I was blown out. Because this studio sound that you hear is amazing. It just lifts you up and you think you can just sing the world into a new age. Well, I wanted to hear this way, especially in the closet, because I couldn't sing without alerting my dad, unless I put my ear and my hand like that and sang very low. And I couldn't play my guitar when I was doing this. So I took the swim ear molds that my mom bought to keep the YMCA pool water from infecting me, and I drilled holes in them, and I got these little transistor earbuds. You know, they just sounded horrible, but if you put them in an ear mold, you could really hear with them. I used silly putty bubblegum to put them together. Okay, so I’m 13 years old, I invented the first in ear monitors.

(5:06): Okay, well I get a record deal. Andy Williams signs to me, the same year that he signed Jimmy Buffett and Ray Stevens. And I go to Hollywood and I get to sing with all my heroes. I got to sing with Roger McGuinn from the Byrds, I got to sing with Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys, Melissa Manchester, Jeffery Osmond. This was a lot of fun.

Stevie Wonder used to get up from the piano and dance around on stage playing harmonic. And fall off the edge of the stage. And on stage the monitor engineer, the guy that mixes those speakers at your feet, would be screaming "Back up! Back up!" into the microphone. And the only people who could hear him was of course the whole audience. And they're just having a heart attack. Stevie couldn't hear him.

Well, I'm using this in ear monitor that I made because I want to hear on stage. And Stevie's engineer says, "Wait, wait, this is cool. We could tell him to back up and he could hear us. We could direct him around stage." So they call me down to the studio. He's doing A Secret Life of Plants, and I fill both of his ears with impression material. And he grabs my arm and screams, "Oh my God, I'm blind!" Well, he was only half-kidding because he sees with his ears. He's been deaf - no blind - since birth, okay? Helen Keller said that blindness separates you from things; deafness sets you apart from people.

(6:50): Okay, well I drilled out these impressions and I put speakers on them, and I plugged him into the studio feed, and the drummer kicked the kick drum, pum, pum, and some of the dust that was left from hollowing them out shot out of the sound tube. Oh, this is great, I'm gonna turn Stevie into Helen Keller overnight.

So I, he grabs these, and he won't give them back because he can now see wherever there's a microphone. This is fun for Stevie. Well, I'm turning the bass down trying to protect his ears, and he comes over and he fights me for it. He keeps cranking it back up. So we go on tour together and fight over this for years. Okay, I'm going, "You're gonna go deaf." "No, I'm not. I don't care, give them to me."

All right, so these became the in-ear monitors, and these are the things that you see in people's ears when they're performing on stage, that look like they've got gum in their ears. That's my fault, and these became your Sony Walkman, and your Apple iPod, because Stevie and I toured all over the world, and other musicians started using this, okay, and it proved the concept for personal audio. And the guys that built the Sony Walkman, some of them were musicians that I built in ear monitors and microphones for, and they said, "This is our application." I said, "You gonna sell millions of these. But you have to watch out for the hearing loss." Hearing loss, what hearing loss? Well, now there's a documented 77% increase in hearing loss because of my invention. Oh, well that's not fun. I made these to hear on stage and protect people from going deaf from stage volumes, and now you guys are losing your hearing without knowing it, and you don't know what's too loud and what isn't, Why is this? Any ideas? You know, you hear this all the time, you're going to go deaf if you use these things, how? Does it just kind of come over you in the middle of the night? What, what is too loud, what's too soft, how does this work?

(9:00): Okay, what we did was filmed it. Now, this is an Apple iPod in a camera in my ear, and it's sealed with an ear tip. Can you see my eardrum? You see it beating like a heart? That's moving thousands of times too far. You would never see the eardrum move like that unless a bomb went off. So sealing a speaker in the ear is doing something similar to a piston. The action of a speaker and the action of a piston is reciprocal. And until you seal it, there's no problem. But once you seal it, now we got a problem.

This is like a syringe, this is a bicycle pump. You're not just sealing sound in the ear, you're sealing the sound source. What an oversight. What does this mean? Here on the top, we have acoustic pressures, and this is like a wave coming through the air or across the top of your swimming pool. On the bottom, we have pneumatic pressures. This is like raising and lowering the bottom of your swimming pool. It's orders of magnitude, millions of times greater in force. Of course, we're only going deaf because of it.

So, how many people got to see AC/DC tour recently? Okay, well I gave, I introduced Axl Rose and Guns N' Roses to in-ear monitors in the 1990s. I love Axl Rose's voice. But NOT singing Back in Black. I want Brian singing AC/DC, okay? I don't want to go to an AC/DC concert and hear Guns N' Roses, I want Brian.

(10:55) Well, he had to stop touring. I did a video on YouTube, and I just made a personal message to him saying, "Look, don't stop performing, we have a solution to your hearing woes." And they called me up, and I went down to Sarasota, Florida. He drove me around in his Project Seven Jaguar, I loved it, and he was able to hear. What did we do? We built a second eardrum. Right here you can see it. That's my finger over the camera. When I take my finger away, this stops moving even though the sound is still playing. We haven't turned off the sound. But when we seal it in my ear, now it's beating up this more compliant second eardrum, instead of mine. When it beats up my eardrum, it prematurely triggers your body's protection and my body's protection, it's called the acoustic reflex. Just like when the doctor hits your knee with a hammer and it jumps.

When things get about 88 or 90 dB loud, your muscles in your ear hold your eardrum still, and pull the middle ear bones away from your cochlea. Okay? It's called the "acoustic reflex." It's a wonderful thing. Except that when you seal sound in the ear, and you have that pneumatic pressure, instead of triggering at 88 decibels, it triggers at about 60 decibels.

Well that's counter-intuitive. You want to listen to rock and roll. You're deaf and you want to hear better, and the first thing the devices do is turn your volume down without telling you. Your body does this. That's interesting, you see. And you turn it back up and burn your ears out. Okay.

(12:45) Pneumatic pressures are what you fill your tires with. Acoustic pressures, even if you turn them up loud enough for everybody's ears to bleed for miles around, they still wouldn't lift your car off the ground. Sealing a speaker in the ear beats up the eardrum, overwhelms it with the motions of the speaker. That would be harmless if it were in free air.

We have a second eardrum. It's a smart eardrum. It doesn't get between the speaker and your eardrum. It's off to the side. But it knows the difference between what you want to listen to, and the harmful pressures that cause hearing loss. All right. So let's look at this solution. Instead of beating up this eardrum here, we beat up that little blue eardrum. Now, it's still sealed. Have you noticed that when you don't stick these things deep in your ear you don't get the bass? You leave it loose, and you you're not hearing enough bass. And then people are constantly cramming them in.

Well, we studied this at Vanderbilt. We had got grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and we modified this $800 professional Sennheiser in-ear monitor, or this $40.00 Skullcandy Titan, and we tested it on people. And they could turn the devices this far down, and it didn't sound like they had turned it down, and it sounded better. It was louder at lower volumes, and it sounded better, because you're no longer holding the speaker still with your eardrum. Which is kind of like trying to put a flashlight out with your retina.

Okay. Now we we learned to harvest those pneumatic pressures. So, this is a single hearing aid speaker, and the sound is being used - there's a speaker behind the forceps there - to inflate this second eardrum now into an air bag. Well, that's kind of neat.

(15:00): So we take the harmful pressure, instead of beating up your ear with it, we replace these horrible ear tips and ear molds with an air bag, that fits any ear, at low pressure. You can see the speaker is raising and lowering a quarter. Nobody realized that there was that kind of pressure and sound. THAT's what's causing the hearing loss.

So we made a commercial version of this, and just the music that you're listening to, can inflate this bubble and make it retract, so it's not getting dirty when you're not using it. And it inserts itself in your ear canal by unfurling; instead of sliding in, it unfurls. It everts into the ear canal. And it holds on like a cloud. How many people would like one of these? Oh good, good. I was worried there for a second.

(15:56): Hi, my name is David Mullins. I've been deaf in my left ea, completely nerve deaf in my left ear for 17 years now. I'm extremely skeptical, but let's give it a shot. (Man’s eyes widen and he is overcome with unbelief, and he cries.)

We're restoring hearing function. We've done dozens of these tests, with people with surgically cut auditory nerves. We've studied this at Vanderbilt, at the Bill Wilkerson Hearing Center. And this second eardrum is now absorbing those pressures, as a airbag, that turns into a pulsating sphere. And it's lining your ear canal and vibrating, in addition to the acoustic information. It's conducted information.

You see, you go to a movie, you don't want to see what happens next, you just shut your eyes. You don’t shut your eyes at home. But if you don’t want to hear, what happens next? You don't just seal your ears. ("Hmm-hmm I can't hear you, I can’t hear you!") Why do they hum? Because you can still hear when the ears are blocked, because of conducted sound - it's a very major portion of our hearing experiences. It’s conducted sound, it's coming through your skin, your eyes, your nose, your whole head, okay? We conduct sound from a totally deaf ear, through the middle ear cavity, through the nasal cavity, over to the good ear. And the brain differentiates between the acoustic sound and the conducted sound, and gives the guy stereo.

We got lucky here, didn't we? We have people who have had cochlear implants scheduled - $150,000.00 operations - that cancel them because they don't need invasive surgery. They can hear with this bubble. So, this is kind of fun, because really, personal listening devices, I fashioned the in-ear monitors based on the hearing aid industry. I figured they had this taped. Well, they amplify a certain section of sound, not the whole spectrum, okay? And when you start to do the whole spectrum, these base frequencies really act as pneumatic battering rams, and that's what's causing the hearing loss. Hearing aids cause hearing loss, for the same reasons. Prematurely trigger the acoustic reflex.

(18:46): So this is what we've done with Fusion (an engineering design software). If you see - how many people saw the Super Bowl, or the Grammys? Did you see Beyonce? She's wearing the second ear drum in in-ear monitors, that we designed, with Fusion. Autodesk (Fusion softward) has changed my life. I began touring with Stevie in the 70s. And I would carve each of these parts out of wax. I'd send them to a jeweler to do investment casting. And then have to have Dremel them out and clean them up, and it took weeks. Now, I think of something, I got a nice Formlabs printer that just gives me beautiful things every time I dream of it. You know, there's people that are constantly disrupting industry. That's fun. I like doing it. We can change things. We can improve conditions. This is some of the early ways of making in-ear monitors. Now, it's all done with 3d printing. Here are some of the designs that we've done with Fusion. Now, how many people use Fusion, or Inventor? Okay? I really want to see what you guys are doing, okay? I'm lucky to be here because you are changing the world. I'm doing it one way. You're doing it in millions of others. And I'd really like to know what they are.

(20:36): This Formlabs is the best desktop printer I've used. It just spits them out. So we have in Fusion Lifecycle some wonderful things. I'm used to being on stage and I'm used to jamming. I'm used to not caring about anything but creating, and enjoying the creation, and sharing it. That's fun. Okay? So, with Lifecycle, you've got revisions for design iterations and Fusion 360. You’ve got multiple formats - Inventor, Fusion 360, Solid Works. You've got markup capability and the ability to measure. And you've got these out-of-the-box processes that I really need. Which is bill of materials, quality, change management. What does this mean?

This means that if you're playing jazz, and you're writing jazz, you don't have to stop, and start writing the sheet music out. You see? And, we, you know doing all of the things that keep music going, you can continue to create. That means a lot to me. Because the ideas just draw each other out, one after the other. And that's jamming. That's fun. So for me to have Autodesk look at all of our creations, and notice the importance, the priorities of importance, to get the data management in such a way that the things that we're doing that need to be automated, so we can continue to create, happen well, that makes a big difference for me.

So I'm going to talk to you about Rock giving back hearing. So, I lost some of my hearing to Pete Townsend in the 70s. Have you been to concerts, and you walk away, and you can't hear for the rest of the evening, or the next few days? It's interesting. That acoustic reflex is a governor. It's like if you have a diesel engine, it's not supposed to rev over, what, three, four thousand RPMs? And you nail it, really hard. It doesn't matter how hard you push down the gas, or the diesel, or the fuel. It's going to stop there, isn't it? Well, you have that happening with your hearing. Only, if you keep hitting it, it won't go to 3,000 rpm. It'll go to 2,500. And you hit it again and only go to 1,500. You keep hitting it, you see.So, that's kind of counter-intuitive. You show up to the concert, the first thing you do, is turn your volume down. So you have to keep cranking it. That's not really the best way to hear. Okay?

(23:30): There's another change, which is called "temporary threshold shift." And that's when you shoot a gun off and you can't hear for days afterwards? A cochlear change has occurred, a chemical change in your middle ear, to make your hearing less sensitive. And if you do that enough, temporary threshold shift leads to permanent hearing loss. Okay?

So, we have this counter-intuitive situation, where we really want to enjoy something, and it's - if you look at it visually - it's like, "Oh, I'd like to see that, I'd like to see it better, this is wonderful art, turn the lights up." And your iris shuts down. And you need more light. And your iris shuts down. You see? This is kind of silly. Why not find the level, before your body turns your volume down, and enjoy it at that level? You'll have better dynamic range. You'll have better sound. You see? When your body starts turning your volume down, it's interrupting the way that you hear. It's holding your eardrum still. It's not as sensitive. So even when you turn the music up, it's not going to be as bright and dynamic and full, as it was before you triggered your acoustic reflex. Makes sense?

(24:50): Paul Stanley from KISS was born with microtia. He had one ear that wasn't formed properly. He's done his whole music career with listening with one ear. Most people don't know that. Can you imagine? You're an artist and you go in the recording studio and you record songs and you perform for millions of people, and you're just hearing with one ear?

I went to see him and I gave him this technology, because he's not able to sing very well anymore, because he hears the harmonics instead of the fundamental. He's had the fundamental tone (whistling sound effect) so loud, that that's very low. And if you've heard Christmas carols played by bells, okay, their overtones clash, it's hard to tell what the song is. He's hearing the harmonics, the overtones, and not the fundamental. Okay? And we use this technology with him, the second ear drum, and all of a sudden he's able to hear the fundamental again. So he is backing this new foundation, this new effort that we have, to have Rock give back hearing. What does this mean?

(26:04): This means earbuds that you can use, where lower volume sound louder, that are very affordable. And it also means, something Autodesk is helping us with, a new hearing aid, which is high enough quality to use on stage, or in the studio. No one uses hearing aids on stage or in the studio, regardless if they cost three thousand, fifteen hundred, or ten thousand dollars. They're not good enough to use in a studio or on stage. But the very same speakers are used in my in-ear monitors, and are used on stage in the studio, and people who aren't even performers buy them by the millions.

This is kind of a travesty. The same speakers don't sound good enough to use in hearing aids on stage, but they're good enough to use in ear monitors. Let's have a hearing aid that sounds good enough to be used as an in-ear monitor. Sound like a good idea? And let's make it affordable for everyone.

So we've gotten together with Autodesk and Conexant and we have a chip now. And I took that to Brian Johnson. And it allows you to do your own tone control, your own equalization, it's called. Where you can turn up the different frequencies that you need, and you can do it separately on one ear or on the other, with your PC or your smartphone.

(27:38): When you get a hearing aid, it's kind of like going to the car dealer and buying a car, and every time you want to change the station or the volume, you have to go back to the dealer.

I have a lot of respect for audiologists. When I did the in-ear monitors, I got to mix every song in real-time. I didn't just set it and forget it. You see? I got to change and mix for people, all right. You go to an audiologist for a hearing aid, and they get one shot to set it for you. If it's not right, then you've got to come back for another visit. Okay?

Now they will tell you, when it doesn't sound right, that it will take them three months for them to train your brain. I can see me right now on stage with Reba McEntire. "Reba, I know this doesn't sound good. It'll take me three months to train you. I'm fired? Oh."

(28:35): So there's a bit of a disconnect. Hearing aids do a wonderful job of being portable and cosmetic. And yet we walk around flaunting and dancing with white cords (for earbuds), and we power it with smart phones with beautiful amplifiers. And yet we must have hearing aids that are cosmetic and small, and they have microphones on them. But you would never record a concert with those microphones and play it back for anybody because it doesn't sound good. Yet you can buy binaural microphones to wear on your ears that are very high quality, and they're not very expensive, and you can record a concert and play it back for someone else later on headphones, and they feel like they were at the concert.

Why don't we marry these two technologies? Make sense? So we have a Rock Gives Back hearing campaign, and Brian, and Paul Stanley, and the Grateful Dead, and Kiss have pledged their social media to (1), selling this new earbud, that we have called the Adele drum, and you'll get to see it,and hear it if you like. And we sell enough of those that we can fund this new hearing aid, and we can bring the cost down so that you don't have to be deaf to own one. And as you start to, and your hearing changes, you know your cilia in your ear, the hair cells change just like your hair, okay? You get a little gray hair, you know you may have some gray hair, it's not a handicap, right? Well, your hearing changes, and this is not something that needs to be such a horrible thing that you resist, it's something that you can actually know about yourself. And you can change the way your music sounds to you, and bring it out so that sounds better. And if you use this new technology, you don't have to go deaf while you're doing it.

So that's our Rock Gives Back Hearing campaign. So, I'm so delighted to be here, I'd like to know what each of you are doing, I'd like to sit there and have each one of you come up, and I'll sit, I'll listen to you. I don't get a chance to do that. So afterwards we have a chance to mingle in a breakout event. It's important to me to know. I'll be glad to answer any questions that you'd have. Thank you so much.