Woman Unable To Hear Male Voices, Rare Condition Called Reverse-Slope Hearing Loss

A Chinese woman was diagnosed with a rare condition which enables her to hear just voices of women and not men.

The woman, identified by her surname Chen, rushed to a nearby hospital after she woke up to find out that she was unable to hear the voice of her boyfriend. Doctors examined the symptoms, including nausea and ringing in her ears the night before the unpleasant experience, which, according to them, were different from more common forms of hearing loss.

She was then diagnosed with reverse-slope hearing loss, a condition which enabled her to hear only high frequency sound and doctors felt stress may have resulted in her getting the disorder.

Describing her ordeal, the woman told the doctors that she thought a good sleep would make her feel better. However, when she got up, she was taken aback to find she was unable to hear her boyfriend talking.

Dr. Lin Xiaoqing, who treated Chen, said the woman could hear everything that she was saying.

“She was able to hear me when I spoke to her, but when a young male patient walked in, she couldn't hear him at all,” she said, Daily Mail reported.

Reverse-slope hearing loss, also called “low-frequency hearing loss,” is usually very difficult to diagnose as not many people including doctors are aware of it.

Xiaoqing said Chan was working until very late recently which resulted in her not getting enough sleep. This also put a lot of stress on her body. The doctor said added stress and fatigue contributed to the condition. Chan is expected make a full recovery as the doctors are looking at treating the symptoms at the earliest.

According to the Thigpen Hearing Center, Tennessee, reverse-slope hearing loss affects low frequencies and can be caused by genetics, because of which most people with the condition are born with it. It can also be caused by change in the pressure of the endolymph, a fluid in the inner ear or disturbance in the hair cells that send sound information from the inner ear to the brain.

Basic symptoms include difficulty to hear the other person over the phone, comfortable in hearing and understanding children and women but not men and also inability to hear low-frequency natural sounds including refrigerator humming and thunder.

Using hearing aid is one of the solutions to the problem, however, it can cause frustration. The condition is rare and has affected just 3,000 people in the United States and Canada.