A woman has been diagnosed with a type of hearing loss which means she can’t hear the voices of men – only women. The patient, who has only been identified by her surname, Chen, woke up to find she was unable to hear her boyfriend. Chen, from the city Xiamen, on the east coast of China – 716 kilometres away from Hong Kong, went straight to hospital. Doctors tried to figure out her bizarre symptoms, which were the opposite to more common forms of hearing loss, according to local reports. A specialist diagnosed her with reverse-slope hearing loss, in which she could only hear high frequencies. The condition is believed to affect only one in nearly 13,000 patients with hearing problems, according to figures. It was possible that stress may have contributed to the condition, the doctors said. Chen reportedly had been suffering from nausea and ringing in her ears the night before her ordeal. She believed a good night sleep would solve the problem, and went to bed with her boyfriend. But the next morning, she was shocked to find she was unable to hear her partner talk. She rushed to the city’s Qianpu Hospital where she was seen by an ear, nose and throat specialist (ENT). Reports state she was able to hear every word the female ENT, according to Dr Lin Xiaoqing, who treated Chen. Dr Xiaoqing said, “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 diagnosed her with ‘low-frequency hearing loss’, or reverse-slope hearing loss, explaining why she was unable to hear deeper sounds. This condition is normally difficult to diagnose because both medics and patients may be unaware it exists. Published in Daily Times, January 11th 2019.