Meet a woman who can hear the movement of her own eyeballs

Imagine being able to hear everything that’s going on in your body, your blood flowing through your veins, your heartbeat etc, and not being able to control it.

Well that was the daily torture for Julie Redfern whose hearing became so acute it amplified sounds that are normally never heard.

She has a theory that the condition developed as a result of a bike crash she had when she was 24 but as she ages, she started to notice them shortly after her 40th birthday as she sat playing the computer game Tetris and heard a strange squeaking noise as she followed the bricks from side to side, before realizing it was her eyes. 

She said “It was a horrible sensation, I could literally hear them moving, scratching, it was very weird.” 

She had to give up dining in restaurants with friends because she couldn’t hear a word they said over the sound of her own chewing.

Mrs Redfern, 47, also had to cut out crunchy foods like apples and crisps because of the deafening noise in her head as she ate.

Her job as a receptionist became an ordeal because when the phone rang on her desk the vibrations would make her eyeballs audibly shake. 

But after seven years of suffering she may finally be able to cut out the sounds thanks to pioneering surgery to plug up her acute hearing.

It was a horrible sensation, I could literally hear them moving, scratching, it was very weird.’ 

She was referred to Manchester Royal Infirmary where she had a scan and was told she was suffering from superior canal dehiscence syndrome (SCDS). SCDS is a rare medical condition of the inner ear caused by a thinning or honeycombing of a bone in the ear, which causes over-sensitivity to sound. Some people may be born with missing bone, or very thin bone, which “dissolves” with increasing age or may be damaged by a blow to the head.

After the operation which carried the risks of deafness, the surgeon had to fill in the holes on the bones to stop the sound travelling through them.

Mrs Redfern said: ‘Even though there were risks I had to have it done, I couldn’t have coped with it for another 40 years, seven was enough.’

After having one ear done she is now aiming to have her second ear operated on which will hopefully lead to a complete cure.