Selective hearing? Woman is deaf, but only when it comes to men’s voices

In what almost sounds like an excuse not to listen to her boyfriend, a woman in China has been diagnosed with a rare condition that makes her unable to hear the sound of men’s voices, but can hear women just fine.

The woman, who has only been identified by her surname, Chen, woke to find she was unable to hear her boyfriend. She had gone to bed with nausea and ringing in her ears the night before.

Doctors have confirmed that she is able to hear women’s voices, but when it comes to men, zilch.  

She rushed to the Qianpu Hospital in Xiamen where doctors were baffled as to her condition.

“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,” Dr. Lin Xiaoqing said.

Xiaoqing eventually diagnosed Chen with reverse-slope hearing loss, meaning she can only hear high frequencies. Doctors think it may have been brought on by stress.

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The rare condition only affects about 1 in 13,000 hearing loss sufferers. It is difficult to detect, as both patients and medical professionals are often unaware of the condition. Sufferers may have symptoms like finding it hard to understand people on the phone, due to the lower frequency, and being unable to hear things like the hum of a refrigerator.

Luckily, Chen could make a full recovery, and should be able to hear her boyfriend’s voice once again.

As news of the unusual case circulated, many social media users cracked jokes, with one person claiming it wasn’t a condition, but simply evolution, while another enquired as to how they could contract it.

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