Can You Hear Me Now? CF & Hearing Loss

With Angie Garinis, PhD, CCC-A

This month, we discuss something often overlooked in cystic fibrosis (CF) care: hearing loss.

If you catch a faint, high-pitched beeping during the episode, don’t adjust our headphones—it’s Andrea’s diabetes pump. Ironically, she couldn’t hear it, because of her high-frequency hearing loss. Consider it a real-world remix of chronic illness, notification fatigue, and assistive tech that sometimes...isn’t.

Andrea, Ahmet, and Lauren are joined by Dr. Angie Garinis: an audiologist, researcher, and expert in hearing and balance disorders—especially when caused by medications like aminoglycoside antibiotics (specifically tobramycin) commonly used to treat lung infections in CF. She breaks down the science of ototoxicity and shares what people with CF need to know about protecting their hearing and vestibular health. Annual hearing checks, she argues, should be as routine as eye exams—and yes, there are apps for that.

We talk tech advances like over-the-counter hearing aids, app-based screenings, and why not all devices are created equal. Andrea also shares her post-transplant experience with sound sensitivity, balance challenges, and advocating to avoid receiving aminoglycoside antibiotics.

From partner dynamics to portable audiograms, this episode blends humor, insight, and lived experience. Ghost stories, snack confessions, and singing audiologists are, of course, included. It’s the episode you didn’t know you needed to hear.

Dr. Angela Garinis is an Associate Professor in the Oregon Hearing Research Center at Oregon Health & Science University and a licensed clinical audiologist. Her expertise centers on drug-induced hearing and balance disorders (ototoxicity), with a particular focus on aminoglycoside therapies. She contributed to the development of the 2022 Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) multidisciplinary consensus recommendations for otolaryngologic care which included recommendations on ototoxicity management .

Additionally, Dr. Garinis serves as co-chair of the International Ototoxicity Management Working Group’s aminoglycoside focus group, where she led the creation and publication of an expert consensus statement titled Clinical Considerations for Routine Auditory and Vestibular Monitoring in Patients With Cystic Fibrosis, published in the American Journal of Audiology.