A young Chinese woman who went to sleep every night for two years by playing music in her headphones now has to wear a hearing aid to compensate for the hearing loss.

Ms. Wang, a young woman from Shandong, China who works as a secretary at a local firm, recently went to the hospital for an ear exam after noticing that she had hearing problems. Often, when her supervisor would whisper to her during meetings, she had trouble understanding his words and she was worried that this would end up causing problems at work. A thorough examination revealed that the woman had suffered permanent neurological hearing damage in her left ear, which accounted for her trouble hearing her boss. Asked if she had suffered any trauma or if her ears had been subjected to loud noises for long periods of time, Ms. Wang said that the only thing she could think of was listening to music through her headphones every night.

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A Chinese woman recently made the news after being diagnosed with a very rare form of hearing loss which leaves sufferers unable to hear low frequency sounds, like men’s voices.

The woman from Xiamen, on China’s east coast, knew something was wrong when she woke up one morning and realized that she couldn’t hear anything her boyfriend said. She had been suffering from nausea and ringing in her ears the night before, but figured that a good night sleep would make everything better, so she went to bed. But when she woke up the next morning, she was shocked by the realization that she couldn’t hear a word the man beside her was saying. The woman, known only as Ms. Chen, was rushed to a local hospital where an ear, nose and throat specialist diagnosed her with a rare condition known as reverse-slope hearing loss.

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