Doctors in China say a woman is expected to make a full recovery from an extremely rare condition that left her unable to hear the voices of men.

The woman said that she was feeling nauseous and heard a ringing sound before she went to bed.  She woke up the next day and could not hear her boyfriend when he spoke.

The couple went to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed her with the rare condition called reverse-slope hearing loss, or RSHL.  One one out of every 12,000 cases of hearing loss has this specific condition.  People who are diagnosed with RSHL have trouble hearing low frequency sounds, like men's voices.

"She was able to hear me when I spoke to her," said Dr. Lin Xiaoqing, "But when a young male patient walked in, she couldn't hear him at all." 

The doctors are looking at whether stress and a lack of sleep contributed to her condition.