Radio’s Rush Limbaugh Suffers Rapid Hearing Loss
Rush Limbaugh has gone deaf.
The nation’s most popular radio talk-show host told listeners yesterday that a rapidly accelerating hearing loss has cost him almost all his hearing. He cannot hear in his left ear, and tests show he has lost 80 percent hearing in his right ear, he said. All this has happened since May 29, when Limbaugh — perhaps the media’s preeminent conservative standard-bearer — first noticed a hearing loss.
“If the pattern keeps up, I’ll be totally deaf,” he told his audience, which numbers as high as 20 million listeners each week. “Hearing aids, the most powerful made, mean nothing. If I take the hearing aid out of my right ear, I cannot hear a thing.
“I cannot communicate with people,” he said.
Limbaugh, 50, said his show will continue as it has — with the aid of various technologies that compensate for his hearing loss.
“I mean, I’m doing this program today, ladies and gentlemen, in effect, in total deafness,” he said. “I have taken two phone calls today and have not heard a word any of the callers said to me.”
The condition is not genetic, he said. Doctors have a “theory” as to what’s causing the hearing loss, but Limbaugh declined to elaborate. Other than the hearing loss, he said, he feels healthy.
“Premiere Radio Networks is committed to airing the Rush Limbaugh broadcast through 2009,” Premiere president Kraig Kitchin said in a statement. Kitchin was traveling and could not be reached for further comment.
Aied Cochlear Implants And Hearing Loss
Rush Limbaugh needed cochlear implants due to a condition known as Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease that reduced his ability to hear and caused him to go deaf in 2001. Following the implant procedure, Limbaugh continued his talk show and continued to have a successful career in talk radio up until his death in 2021.
With a cochlear implant for over 20 years, Limbaugh is a prime example of how hearing assistive devices like cochlear implants and hearing aids can help to provide an individual with a better quality of life and to keep doing what you love.
Mediabefore Fox News And President Trump There Was Rush Limbaugh
All this was hardly by chance. Limbaugh seemed to take special pleasure in denigrating Black modes of speech, often with racist impressions of celebrities like the Rev. Al Sharpton and Magic Johnson. He even commissioned a parody song about former President Barack Obama called “Barack the Magic Negro,” which he played regularly on his program.
He also told his overwhelmingly male audience that when it came to rape, “no means yes if you know how to spot it,” and he spent days in the late aughts calling women’s rights activist Sandra Fluke a “slut” for advocating for access to contraception.
Limbaugh had a kind of genius for the unforgivable.
A few of his slights cost him dearly. In March 1990, while he was guest-hosting “The Pat Sajak Show” on CBS one way the network auditioned talent he discovered that the audience wasn’t on his side. Several activists in attendance shouted him down until security cleared the studio. “We are going to be wherever you are, and we are going to denounce and expose you!” a man in an ACT UP shirt shouted at him from the audience. “If CBS wants to make money off of you, we’ll boycott them, as well!” Limbaugh ended up apologizing and donating $10,000 to pediatric AIDS research a fitting penance for Limbaugh, who loved to repeat the lie that AIDS affected only gay people.
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Painkillers And Hearing Loss
Mr. Limbaughs air war, with his own rules of engagement, began with a talk show in Sacramento in 1984 and became nationally syndicated in 1988. For more than 20 years it was the most popular show of its kind on radio, helping to revive an anemic national AM band and becoming the centerpiece of an enterprise that branched into television, best-selling books, lucrative speaking tours and voluminous internet traffic.
But as the millennium turned, Mr. Limbaugh faced problems that threatened his empire. In 2001 he acknowledged that he had become almost deaf resulting, he said, from an autoimmune disease. He continued his show, using powerful hearing aids, but they were not enough. He eventually resolved his problem with cochlear implants, which provided an electronic sense of sound. And he learned to read lips.
After years of addiction to painkillers, he was charged in Florida in 2006 with doctor shopping for prescriptions. He pleaded not guilty but paid the costs of a state investigation and entered rehabilitative therapy. He checked into an Arizona rehab center catering to celebrities and returned to the air after six weeks, telling listeners candidly of his addiction, treatment and legal status.
After graduating from Cape Central High School in 1969, he enrolled at his parents insistence at Southeast Missouri State University but flunked most of his courses, including speech and dance, and dropped out after two semesters.
Rush Limbaugh Undergoes Surgery For Hearing Loss
Rush Limbaugh told listeners Thursday that he recently underwent surgery for a cochlear implant.
Limbaugh, who has been away from his show for several days, explained that he needed the implant for hearing loss in his right ear. He already had one in his left ear, which he got 13 years ago and was advised to leave his right ear alone at the time.
“I’m not able to identify where a sound is coming from,” the radio host said Thursday, according to a transcript of the show. “If I’m in the studio alone and an alarm goes off, I have no idea what it is… Maybe that’ll be helped by this.”
The surgery, Limbaugh said, entailed the doctor using a “high speed drill” to sculpt “a place in the skull for the implant to go.” He said he is currently wearing bandages on his head, which will come off Thursday, and he will return to the doctor to get the implant turned on.
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Did Drugs Cause Limbaugh’s Hearing Loss
N E W Y O R K, Oct. 13, 2003 — While radio giant Rush Limbaugh tries to beat his pain killer addiction in a rehab clinic, questions about what really caused his hearing loss in recent years persist.
Questions have risen about the autoimmune inner ear disease that caused Limbaugh profound deafness between October of 2001 and January of 2002. The radio host subsequently regained hearing through the use of cochlear implants.
Research has shown that the drugs seem to sabotage the workings of the inner ear, causing permanent damage. But the drugs do not appear to affect the cochlear nerve, which brings sound into the brain.
Limbaugh’s cochlear implant doctor, Dr. Jennifer Derebery, an otolaryngologist at the House Ear Clinic in Los Angeles, says it is possible that there is a connection between Limbaugh’s sudden hearing loss and pill abuse, but she said there is no way to know for sure.
“We don’t know why some people, but apparently not most, who take large doses may lose their hearing,” Derebery said on ABCNEWS’ Good Morning America. “The reason we don’t know is that because we ultimately have to have biopsy specimens of the inner ear to tell that. but you can’t biopsy the inner ear of a person who is alive because we are going to destroy the hearing,” she said.
If the cause of the deafness were painkiller abuse, his treatment still would have been the same, said Derebery said. The only way he would be able to hear again is through the use of a cochlear implant, she said.
Opinionrush Limbaugh Donald Trump And The Alluring Hypocrisy Of Fake Gop Populists
My grandfather used to say of an especially cheap gun that the only safe place to stand was behind it that was how Rush attracted people to stand with him, because it meant they were out of the line of fire. His college dropout street cred and constant declarations of his audience’s tremendous intelligence were the bait his elitist hatreds, which he skillfully imbued with the gloss of working-class Christian common sense, were the threat.
Cloaked in traditionalism, he trafficked in the furthest reaches of rumor and conspiracy, often attracting major media companies with his broadcasting acumen his career was spent perfecting his radio broadcasts, which he could maintain for hours without Howard Stern-style sidekicks or musical guests and then quickly repelling them by loudly degrading women, minorities and people dying of AIDS, always supposedly only in the name of getting a rise out of humorless scolds. That women who needed reproductive health care and gay people who needed AZT might prefer not to expend their energy on getting angry at Limbaugh’s abuses never seemed to occur to him.
Limbaugh’s brand of bullying has permeated our culture.
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How Soon Can You Hear After A Cochlear Implant
Most individuals note a significant growth in their awareness of sounds within days after their cochlear implant is turned on, which is about four to six weeks after surgery. Speech understanding improves more gradually, with most individuals experiencing the largest improvement within the first six months.
Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease
AIED is an autoimmune condition where the immune system starts to target the tissues of the inner ear. Once the body misidentifies this tissue, there is not much that can be done in terms of stopping the body from attacking itself. One method that may be effective in reducing the amount of damage the immune system can inflict is utilizing steroids to suppress the immune response.
In terms of long-term outlook, the use of steroids may be effective. Yet, despite advances in medicine, the autoimmune response may still prevail despite treatment with steroids. In this case, the immune system will continue to target and slowly degrade the structures of the inner ear.
As a consequence of this tissue being eliminated, hearing tends to slowly decline until the individual is no longer able to hear. After AIED, an individual can be left with profound or complete hearing loss.
In addition to losing the sense of hearing, having one autoimmune disease increases the likelihood of getting another. Many people with AIED or other forms of autoimmune disorders need to stay diligent and go in for blood work on a routine basis. Ensuring the body isnt inflicting further damage to itself is vital.
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What Is A Cochlear Implant
A cochlear implant is an assistive hearing device that helps individuals with severe forms of hearing loss to regain the ability to perceive sound again. A cochlear implant consists of two main parts: the internally implanted unit and the external unit.
Take a closer look at these components and how exactly they work together to help individuals with severe hearing loss.
Are Cochlear Implants Waterproof
How can a cochlear implant recipient hear around under water? It’s with a water-resistant or waterproof cochlear implant system or accessory, like the new SONNET Audio Processor or WaterWear for RONDO. The SONNET is officially rated as âwater-resistantâ and the WaterWear is âwaterproofâ.
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Rush Limbaugh’s First Divorce Was Extremely Amicable
wed for the very first time on Sept. 24, 1977 to a secretary at a radio station by the name of Roxy Maxine McNeely.
As reported by The Seattle Times, the pair first met on a blind date and immediately hit it off. “He was lot of fun,” Roxy recalls of their first get-together. “He could talk the entire evening away. He would draw you out, find out what your interests were and then start arguing with you,” she remembered fondly about their early days together. Unfortunately, the marriage would not last. The couple called it quits in 1980. “We just sat down one day and decided our marriage was over. It was mutual, nothing ugly,” she explained.
According to McNeely, she filed for divorce and the couple made a clean break from one another. “Rush and I just took each thing that we owned in the house and whoever had it originally took it. I think we left as friends,” she recounted. All’s well that ends well, we suppose?
Can You Hear Normally With A Cochlear Implant
The implant doesn’t make you hear normally again, but it can help you with sounds. Most people with severe to profound hearing loss can understand speech in person or over the phone better than they did with a hearing aid. It can usually help you know sounds around you, including telephones, doorbells, and alarms.
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Rush Limbaugh And His Hearing Loss
Rush Limbaugh started his radio show at the age of 37. In the decades to follow, he significantly increased his fan base. While his fan base grew, in the early 2000s, Limbaugh was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune condition called Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease . By 2001, Limbaugh was essentially deaf despite the best efforts of medication therapy and other treatments.
Limbaughs ear condition is one that is quite rare and one that many people know very little about.
Below is a closer look at what an autoimmune disorder is, how AIED affects the ears, as well as why cochlear implants were the next best step for Limbaugh.
How Much Is A Cochlear Implant Surgery
How much does a cochlear implant cost? Without insurance, a cochlear implant can cost between $30,000 and $50,000 on average, according to Boys Town National Research Hospital. Most insurance providers cover cochlear implants or a portion of them. The device is also covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans Affairs.
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Rush Deafness Hillbilly Heroin And Opioids
A number of posters responded to my post suggesting that Rush Limbaugh should make amends by attacking the war on pain doctors with claims that opioid drugs like Oxycontin were responsible for Limbaugh’s hearing problem.
But that connection is far from proven–and if some pain medications do cause hearing loss, it’s far from clear whether the opioids in them are responsible for that problem.
The suggestion of a link between progressive hearing loss and opioids comes from case reports on two types of opioid medications: propoxyphene and hydrocodone/acetaminophen compounds like Vicodin. Oxycontin AKA “hillbilly heroin” itself has not been associated with deafness.
Although there is one case report of reversible hearing loss associated with heroin intoxication, this is in a literature spanning dozens of years and thousands of opioid addicts. Methadone, which is an opioid used in the treatment of heroin addiction, has not been associated with hearing loss.
Acetaminophen itself is linked with serious liver toxicity–at doses not far higher than the effective painkilling dose. In fact, because tolerance develops to the opioid effect and opioids themselves are not damaging to the liver, Vicodin abusers who persist in taking high doses are at greater risk from the Tylenol in the product than they are from the opioid in terms of lasting physical damage. Tylenol and similar generics are the leading cause of acute liver failure in the U.S., in fact.
Rush Limbaugh Awarded Presidential Medal Of Freedom During State Of The Union Address
Conservative radio host announced advanced lung cancer diagnosis Monday
Rush Limbaugh appeared as a special guest during President Trumps State of the Union address, one day after announcing he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. During his speech, President Trump announced Limbaugh would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the highest civilian honors.
He is the greatest fighter and winner you will ever meet, Trump said. Rush Limbaugh, thank you for your decades of tireless devotion to our country in recognition of all you have done for our nation, I am proud to announce tonight that you will be receiving our countrys highest civilian honor: the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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Limbaugh fought back tears as the first lady presented him with the medal.
Limbaugh entered the U.S. Capitol Building in a wheelchair, telling reporters, I feel good. I feel great. He added he was still in awe to receive the honor Tuesday night.
Limbaugh chatted with Trumps daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, before taking his seat.
Rush Limbaughs cochlear implant is seen on his right side.
Viewers may have spotted cochlear implants Limbaugh had in both ears he had the devices put in in 2002 after losing much of his hearing.
On Monday, Limbaugh revealed he had advanced lung cancer.
Rush Limbaugh arrives at the Capitol for State of the Union
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The Third Time Was Not The Charm For Rush Limbaugh
Third time’s the charm, right?! Wrong.
As reported by The Sun, Rush Limbaugh opted to marry a third time this time to a fitness instructor by the name of Marta Fitzgerald in 1994. But how did they meet? According to the Palm Beach Daily News, it was Marta who reached out to Limbaugh first, sending him an email. Reportedly, she was still married at the time to a man by the name of Tom Fitzgerald, but she would later go on to divorce Tom in 1992. In 1994, she remarried to Limbaugh.
During their marriage, the aerobics instructor would go on to publish her very own magazine, Vent, in 1997. Unfortunately, Fitzgerald only produced three issues before the publication flopped, per the DailyNews. As luck would have it, her marriage to Limbaugh also flopped. The couple divorced in 2004. In true Limbaugh fashion, the radio host took to his show to announce the news of the couple’s split. The divorce announcement also came off the heels of Limbaugh revealing a prescription drug addiction. One month after his confession, he entered and completed a drug rehabilitation program.