Dr. Wendy Shiau: Sound Advice for Everyone

By Jennie L. Ilustre
If you’re an avid iPod or iPhone user, a mom, in your 50s or older, or have a habit of cleaning your ears with Q-tips, Wendy Shiau has some sound advice for you.
If you heed her advice–and it is expert advice based on years of formal learning and experience–you could avoid permanent hearing loss, ear infection for your baby, falling and breaking your hips, depression and social isolation, or loss of balance and a surgery for punctured eardrum.
Sounds scary? Dr. Shiau, who studied to be a nurse but chose to focus on audiology, said people take their ear health for granted.
“Most people are unaware of the essential connection between their physical, social, and emotional health and their ability to hear. Hearing health is connected to our overall well-being,” she stressed.
She said she enjoys her work because it helps “improve the quality of life” of the hearing impaired. “It also lets me help countless people to diagnose and treat ear-related disease,” she added.
Dr. Shiau is an expert in a field that has been consistently ranked by U.S. News and World Report as among the best careers. Audiologists evaluate, diagnose, treat, and manage hearing loss and balance disorders at all ages.
The main purpose of an audiological evaluation is to diagnose diseases and disorders, the most common symptoms of which are hearing loss, tinnitus, and dizziness/vertigo.
Audiologists prescribe and fit hearing aids, assist in cochlear implant programs and perform ear-or hearing-related surgical monitoring.
They design and implement hearing conservation programs and newborn hearing screening programs. They also provide hearing rehabilitation training, such as auditory training, speech reading, and listening skill improvement.

Hearing Aids
A 2010 National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) showed that among respondents 50 and older claiming hearing health was important, about half had untreated hearing loss.

Dr. Shiau said, “Hearing aids have been shown to help increase attention and brain functions. Today’s hearing aids also incorporate spatial and locational technologies to give wearers the same organic awareness of environment as natural hearing, and also have the ability to eliminate background noise.”
Sensory input from the ears helps to keep the brain younger and functioning better, she said. Recent research suggests “hearing aids can help to improve memory and even help prevent brain atrophy and dementia.”
A recent study conducted by Johns Hopkins, and funded by the National Institute on Health, found that untreated hearing loss led to three times greater likelihood of falls, and that this likelihood continues to increase with every 10 decibel rise in hearing loss.
The study confirmed that even people with mild hearing loss were three times more likely to report a history of falling down.
Global initiative reports also showed that people who did not use hearing aids felt more depressed, insecure, and anxious. In contrast, eight in ten people who wear hearing aids said they were happier and their quality of life improved after using them.
Private Practice
Currently, Dr. Shiau has a full-time private practice. She is licensed as Audiologist and Hearing Aid Specialist in Maryland, Virginia and D.C. She sometimes delivers lectures or speeches on occasions. Her office, WS Audiology Services, Inc., is located in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Her email is wshiau2001@yahoo.com.
Wendy earned a degree in nursing over 30 years ago, but did not practice in it. She said a nursing background helps in her current profession. She spent six and a half years to earn a Master’s degree and Ph.D. in audiology and hearing science at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio.
From 1994 till 2001, she worked at a university setting, teaching and doing research. After 2001, she devoted her time to audiology. She worked at Kaiser Permanente in Maryland, Costco Wholesale, Inc., and the    National Institutes of Health.
Wendy, the eldest of five siblings, was born in Taiwan. In 1987, she came to the U.S. to study audiology and hearing science.

She is married to George Change, a veterinarian with a background in pharmacology, toxicology, and physiology. Only son Kelvin is a sophomore with electrical engineering as his major.
Wendy shared the advice her parents gave her that has helped her in life and career. She said, “One is ‘Take the good with the bad.’ The other is ‘work-life balance.’” She gives back to the community, including serving as Liaison to Healthy Montgomery and as member of the Steering Committee of Asian American Health Initiative.
She also graciously gave her expert advice, taking the time to reply despite her busy schedule, when asked to provide healthy tips on specific topics, and to correct other public misconceptions on ear health.

Why You Should Not Use Q-tips in Your Ears
First of all, you would like to have some wax in your ears. The ear canal makes wax for a purpose. The wax in your ear waterproofs the ear canal and keeps water from going in and getting stuck, sort of like wax on your car.
Second, wax is also a natural antibiotic. It’s naturally acidic and it prevents infection in your ear. So if you take away the wax, you’re more likely to get a swimmer’s ear infection.
Third, at the end of the ear canal is the eardrum, and the eardrum is much closer to the outside than you might think. If you put a Q-tip in your ear so the entire cotton has gone in, you’re probably touching your ear drum. People always say they don’t go in that far, but they always do. The eardrum is very delicate, so you can puncture it with a Q-tip, and I’ve seen that happen many times.
The other reason is that if you touch the eardrum you press on the little bones of hearing underneath. They’re the tiniest bones in the body and they’re right under the eardrum, attached to it. And if you press on those, it sends shock waves into the inner ear, and the inner ear is responsible for hearing and balance.
If you put a Q-tip into your ear you could puncture your eardrum and that may require surgery to fix it. It can even make you lose your hearing in your ear forever.
If you get water in your ear, use a hair dryer and blow it on a cool setting into your ear until the water evaporates. Or put a couple of drops of rubbing alcohol in your ear. The alcohol will displace the water and then evaporate.
The secret to clean ears is to use a wash cloth only on the outer, visible part of the ear to clean the wax as it naturally comes out.

Health Tips for Babies, Children
Most children will experience at least one incidence of ear infection. There are some things parents can do to reduce the likelihood that their child will get or continue to get ear infections.
1. Start by breastfeeding your baby. Breastfeeding can play a role in preventing ear infections by passing along immunities and helping the ear function better.
2. Don’t smoke. Living with secondhand tobacco smoke can increase your child’s risk for ear infection by up to 50%. Studies show that the particles in tobacco can congest the Eustachian tube in child’s middle ear and can cause an ear infection.
3. Feed the baby in a sitting position. When a baby is sucking and swallowing while in a horizontal position, the Eustachian tube of the baby’s middle ear begins to open, allowing fluids and germs from the throat to get into the middle ear. These fluids and germs can infect the ear. If you’re bottle-feeding your baby, don’t let your baby take a bottle to bed.
4. Don’t hesitate to call a pediatrician. If your child suffers from recurrent ear infections, the pediatrician might want to put him or her on antibiotics for an extended period of time to prevent future infections.
Another treatment option for children with chronic ear infections is the insertion of tympanostomy tube into the ear, which allows fluid to drain from and air to return to the middle ear.
If ear infections seem to be hindering your child’s hearing or learning, an audiological evaluation is necessary.
5. Avoid baby’s exposure to common cold. Just as tobacco particles can cause congestion that leads to ear infections, so can the common cold. Limit your baby’s exposure to large crowds and avoid having him or her to be held by people who are sick.
6. Do not use Q-tips to clean your child’s ears. Internal cleaning is not necessary, and may be harmful. If you are concerned about your child’s hearing, visit your doctor to see if they have ears clogged with wax.
7. Never allow your children to play with cotton swabs or place anything else in their ears. Itchy ears are often caused by over-zealous cleaning habits. A few drops of mineral oil can help soothe them while you wait for the ear’s natural lubricant to return.
8. Once your child gets older, encourage him or her to wash hands often, especially before touching eyes, nose, or mouth.

Health Tips for iPod Users
1. Don’t use earbuds. Despite them being included with every iPod and iPhone, researchers caution against using earbuds.
Earbuds are more likely to cause hearing damage than headphones that sit over the ear. They can also be up to 9 decibels (dB) louder than over-the-ear headphones. It’s not such a big deal when you’re going from 50 to 60 dB, but it’s much more serious going from 75 to 85 dB.
2. Avoid maximum volume. Most researchers agree that it is safe to regularly listen to your iPod at about 70% of its maximum volume. Anything louder than that over an extended period is risky.
Never ever max it out (use maximum volume). Researchers say listening to your iPod at maximum volume is only safe for up to 5 minutes.
3.  Use volume control.  In response to consumer concerns, Apple offers a volume limit setting for some iPods. You will generally find it on the main iPod management screen that comes up when you sync.  Otherwise, you can also restrict     the maximum volume of a song in “Options” tab of any song in iTunes.
4.  Limit your listening. The length of time you listen, not just the volume, can contribute to hearing loss.
Use the 60/60 rule. Since the combination of volume and length of exposure can cause hearing loss, researchers recommend applying the 60/60 rule. Listen to an iPod for 60 minutes at 60% maximum volume, and then take a break. Ears that get a rest have time to recover and are less likely to be damaged.
5.  Use noise dampening of canceling headphones.  If there’s a lot of noise nearby, we’re likely to turn up the iPod’s volume, increasing the chances of hearing loss.
To reduce ambient noise or to eliminate ambient noise, use noise-deadening or canceling headphones.  They are more expensive, but your ears are much more valuable than money.

Other Misconceptions on Hearing
1. Loud sound is not dangerous, as long as you do not feel any pain in your ears.
Fact: Our threshold for pain is at about 120-140 dBSPL but sound begins to damage our hearing when it is above 85 dBSPL (for an 8-hour period).
2. Hearing loss after exposure to loud sound is temporary.
Fact: Some of the hearing loss will be permanent. Indication of damage is ringing and noise in the ears (tinnitus).
3. If you already have a hearing problem, you don’t have to protect your hearing any more.
Fact: More exposure to loud sounds leads to more hearing loss.
4. Hearing loss is mostly caused by aging.
Fact: Research shows that accumulative exposure to loud sounds, not age, is the major cause of hearing loss.
5. Hearing loss can be repaired by medicine, surgery or hearing aids.
Fact: Although certain improvements can be obtained by the use of hearing aids, in the case of hearing losses due to loud noise exposure, the resulting quality of hearing will be far from normal.
So far, no drugs or therapy can correct noise induced hearing loss.  This could affect your professional performance as a musician, sound engineer, medical doctor, air traffic controller, telephone operator, pilot and driver or any other profession where performance depends on good hearing. Also, your enjoyment of music would suffer.
6. Loud sound only damages your hearing.
Fact:  Loud sound can affect your heart rate, vision and reaction time.