After 36 years in private dental practice, Fred Kreutzer, D.M.D., began struggling to hear. It’s been five years since he retired from his practice and Kreutzer now wears hearing aids in both ears. Although he has a family history of hearing loss, he believes the high-speed tools he worked with eight hours a day for so many years may have played a role in his hearing troubles. “I think if you listen to any high-pitched noise for any length of time, it will get to you eventually,” said Kreutzer, an assistant professor in operative dentistry at the OHSU School of Dentistry (www.ohsu.edu/sod). “But in my case, with a family history of hearing loss, it may be hereditary, as well.”
