Quote EMeist:

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Quote Tim Rainey:

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EDIT: Oh, forgot, I carry earplug with me at all times and use defenders when using power tools or doing anything noisy

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That really bothered me, never wore ear protection when using drills or anything, but once I got the proper moulded ear plugs, man was I surprised how loud a drill can be, so now I pop my ear plugs in before any DIY!

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I use earplugs even when hoovering! Dysons are loud.

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http://Infekted.org ~ Access Virus news & community

This is a very interesting thread.....

Just my input.... I have had tinnitus for 6-7 yrs now, and I went from a period of feeling it was a total disaster (after it first happened) to now, when the level of the tinnitus is the same, but it really doesnt bother me. I had (I think) lots a bad advice from various people about what it is and how to deal with it, but finally came across www.tinnitus.org and found the reading there extemely instructive and helpful. It does indeed seem to be the case that you can train your brain to filter it out, and that in many cases the tinnitus noise has always been there, and some event triggers your brain to latch onto it and then you actually notice it as a seperate noise. That's a very simplistic description, but about the jist of it in my case. There are however, other events or conditions that may cause the noise to appear, and so its worth getting yourself checked out anyway I think.

The main point is though..... it has (in my cases) been a problem that whilst not curable in the normal sense, is certainly livable with and does not effect my work in the music industry.

As for it being a lonely condition, I certainly thought that a few years ago, but there seem to be many people in the audio industry with hearing issues of one sort or another!

Regarding the posh moulded ear plugs, I have a pair and would highly recommend them. I play in a few bands, and the live experiacne with the earplugs in takes a little getting used to, but then you realise that you can hear what you and others are doing much better than without them. I also use them in session sometimes if an engineer is blasting foldback into a pair of DT100s. I do have a feeling that loud headphone mixes are 'vibier' (for want of a better word) when playing in a studio, and having the earplugs in still lets me hear everything and get the loud vibe, without frying my ears!

Matt

Quote DavidW:

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Quote ow:

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You dont have to stump up a fortune. Just use the squashy foam type earplugs...

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Sorry, this is wrong. Foam earplugs (as available from boots etc) only filter out certain frequencies. It is advisable as said earlier to invest in a pair of good quality moulded earplugs. There are some ear plugs which give a -15dB reduction across all frequencies.

There are several organisations that you can check out. The most helpful is British Tinnitus Association which contains a lot of literature on the issues and side effects, and also a link to local registered audiologists. Hearing protection make the moulded earplugs. As a sufferer of tinnitus, I would URGE everyone to buy a pair. £150 or permanent hearing damage? Your call.

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Some great info here... i always thought those little plugs did the trick. Learn something every day!

Quote Matt Robertson:

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...As for it being a lonely condition, I certainly thought that a few years ago, but there seem to be many people in the audio industry with hearing issues of one sort or another!

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Yes, im amazed but not surprised somehow, by the poll so far.

My tinnitus started after some piss poor recording studio engineer didn't get the foldback monitoring right in my headphones and subjected them to too much spl while I was doing guitar overdubs at a particular studio. Maybe I should have known it was too loud, but your ear's natural compression kicks in to protect them so it's not always obvious + you're trying to concentrate on the performance, i did 5 dubs back to back and it wasn't until I took them of that I knew I was in trouble.

A couple of years on its died down quite a bit, only one ear is affected, the other cleared up, so I think I got off lightly. Apart from the screech it tends to feel like it wobbles (or resonates) a bit when I hear a certain frequency, particularly with female vocals. I've learnt to live with it, after all there's nothing you can do to stop it, it either gets better on its own or doesn't...it's just something that becomes a part of you. Accepting it and moving on is the only thing you can do, in my case I've been able to learn to ignore it, although I can imagine that can be difficult if you've got it really bad.

Some Useful things

A volume control to plug between headphones and the control room. I made my own after the incident, didn't trust anyone else to get the level right again,

I now use earplugs at rehearsals, gigs and noisy nightclubs, Proplugs (£11.99) are quite good, come in different sizes, are clear and conspicious (there's nothing worse than random pissed asking why you wear earplugs so anything that doesn't look like two massive fluorescent traffic cones coming out your ears is welcomed). These block out the high end though.

Elacin ER-20 are my plugs of choice, about £14.99, they stick out a bit because of a special port that doesn't kill all the high end, good for watching bands, gigs and rehearsals, but not nightclubs for the reason mentioned above. Obviously you can get custom pairs, fitted to your ear that cost a lot more, I personally see no need for the expense.

Saw a laser device called the tinnitool (http://www.audiorelief.co.uk/) apparently it may be able to help some people, but I have my doubts, it also costs £200

You might be able to adapt, just get to know which frequencies your tinnutus affects. I'm still able to mix songs, but i know there are some frequencies that I won't be able to perceive right, I know where they are so make allowances when mixing + always get colleagues and friends to have a listen and give me some feedback.

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+ always get colleagues and friends to have a listen and give me some feedback.

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But not too loud eh mr luva

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Studio: www.kymatasound.com

Interesting thread,

On an ear related subject a family friend has recently been diagnosed with an 'acoustic neuroma' A growth on the nerve in you ear I believe.
This condition can be fatal if the growth push onto the brain, though in this case it thankfully appears not to be.
However she has lost most of the hearing in that ear.
I know little about hearing aids and indeed the condition itself but does anyone know of any kind of hearing aid that could help in this situation?

Scary coondition this one she just started feeling something was wrong but couldn't pinpoint it and eventually went to the doctors.

Thanks
Dale

With an acoustic neuroma I’m afraid there is not a lot that can be done, there should be regular scans to keep an eye on the size of the growth and surgery will only be considered if the growth increases in size. Any surgery will completely destroy the auditory nerve on that side.

Hearing aids work best with a conductive loss, i.e. the cochlear and auditory nerve are in good working order but there is a problem with sound reaching the cochlear.

There have been cases of auditory brainstem implants, I don’t know a lot about this or how often it has been carried out. I guess that for a candidate to be considered for this they would have two non-functioning cochlears.

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my music

Quote Paulbav:

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Has anyone tried the simple test mentioned by the Bryer in the recent 'hearing tests' thread?

'Can you hear your forefinger and thumb rubbing against each other at a full arms length.'

I'm putting poor results down to sweaty fingers.

PB

Ps. I am finding the recent talk of this rather comforting, good work Ow!

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Scary...nope, can't hear that.

r.

Quote AlistairM:

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(I bet you're wondering how I know it's 15kHz? I got the tinnitus tone to 'beat' with a sine-wave tone of the same frequency)

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Ummm, no you didn't. The 'beating' (like when you tune a guitar using harmonics) is caused by the phase relationship between 2 waves, the tinnitus isn't a sound-wave, so getting it to beat with a sound-wave is not possible.

In answer to the question (I voted as well) ... I'm under 35, have permanent, low-level tinnitus (a high-pitched whistle) that is exacerbated hugely by alcohol. Mainly not a problem, but irritating nevertheless.

Edit: should have mentioned, I have a pair of the Elacin £150 moulded plugs to try and avoid this getting any worse.

FMH

Edited by xFasterMikeyH (21/02/06 11:28 PM)

Quote xFasterMikeyH:

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Quote AlistairM:

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(I bet you're wondering how I know it's 15kHz? I got the tinnitus tone to 'beat' with a sine-wave tone of the same frequency)

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Ummm, no you didn't. The 'beating' (like when you tune a guitar using harmonics) is caused by the phase relationship between 2 waves, the tinnitus isn't a sound-wave, so getting it to beat with a sound-wave is not possible.

FMH

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You're correct that the tinnitus isn't a sound-wave. But when approaching its frequency using an external tone the audible tinnitus tone is peturbed very notiably. Perhaps 'beating' isn't the right term - for the beat frequency was quite random. Given that the tinnitus tone is caused by the 'mis-firing' of a hair in the cochlea, I am unsurprised that exciting the remains of the hair with a external tone caused its output to 'beat'.

I suppose if the hair was so damaged that it was no longer present, and the tone was generated purely by nervous activity, my test wouldn't work.

A.

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Interests: Microphone techniques, precision audio, location recording, composition.

Quote Dale Campbell:

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Interesting thread,

On an ear related subject a family friend has recently been diagnosed with an 'acoustic neuroma' A growth on the nerve in you ear I believe.
This condition can be fatal if the growth push onto the brain, though in this case it thankfully appears not to be.
However she has lost most of the hearing in that ear.
I know little about hearing aids and indeed the condition itself but does anyone know of any kind of hearing aid that could help in this situation?

Scary coondition this one she just started feeling something was wrong but couldn't pinpoint it and eventually went to the doctors.

Thanks
Dale

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Interesting, my girlfriend lost her hearing in one of her ears, doctors can't find a single thing wrong with it, might mention the nerve growth though as that's just the type of thing the NHS would forget to look for!

After a year and a bit (and several snotty letters to the audiology department) she was given a cross hearing aid. This works by having two ear pieces and a wire connecting them, one is a microphone and is inserted into the damaged ear, the wire then transfers the mic signal to the good ear.
Supposedly after a while your brain gets used to the mic signal and translates it into directional information. My girlfriend hasn't had much luck with it though, as she finds it cumbersome, embarrassing, and its quite difficult to get it working correctly. I've tried setting up some spatial and directional test to help her, but they didn't really help....

Quote Tímo:

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Quote EMeist:

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Quote Tim Rainey:

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EDIT: Oh, forgot, I carry earplug with me at all times and use defenders when using power tools or doing anything noisy

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That really bothered me, never wore ear protection when using drills or anything, but once I got the proper moulded ear plugs, man was I surprised how loud a drill can be, so now I pop my ear plugs in before any DIY!

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I use earplugs even when hoovering! Dysons are loud.

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A "hoover"? Nope never heard of them....

Finally omeone corrctd my spelling

I am amazed that i got away with this for so long!

Could have been worse though, could have been Tinytits! Which btw i am rather partial to as part of an adult female physiology. Particularly when coupled with a tall, slim build and elfin appearance Mila Jovovich for instance... Im finished with Evangelista its Milla for me now!

[does anyone need to take a P? I might be in the bathroom for a while!!!]

Quote AlistairM:

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I wonder anyone has tried this: Clench your jaw tightly. Does the tinnitus increase? I have a low-level but audible 15kHz tinnitus tone that is made much louder my clenching my jaw.

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If I clench my neck muscles, pulling the corners of my mouth down ('I dunno!' type expression..) my tinnitus almost doubles in volume.

I can't hear above about 6khz thanks to loud music and a bout of meningitis 25 years ago. Reading this thread I'm now wondering whether I would benefit from a hearing aid - would that give me the high frequencies back?

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When I'm sad I sing, and then the whole world is sad with me.
Band / Songs

The old hearing aids of yore used to boost the whole range of freq's equally, but I understand the modern digital hearing aids work by boosting/attenuating different frequencies to match the frequency notches of your own hearing loss. Effectively to try and give you a balanced, flat-response hearing ability across the frequency spectrum.

I'd get a hearing aid for myself but my hearing is hypersensitive to certain frequencies which send me through the roof. Hyperacusis I think it's called.

If you have a hearing loss and it's caused by the inner ear (nerve transduction), this is called sensorineural hearing loss. If your inner ear is fine but you have problems with the middle ear (glue ear, etc.) this is called conductive hearing loss.
Sensorineural hearing loss (one example being high SPL damage) is pretty much irreversible. Conductive hearing loss is easier to treat in many cases.

If you have permanent conductive hearing loss there is also a hearing aid which amplifies the sound and transfers it to the bottom of the skull behind the defective ear. Sound conducts well through solids, so the sounds resonating on the skull actually transfer the vibrations into your inner ear, effectively bypassing the middle ear. This only works if the inner ear is functioning normally.

Not just sound causes Tinnitus, though. Stress, blood flow probs, high blood pressure, baro-trauma (damage from fluctuations in air pressure, like when diving), physical trauma (concussion, whiplash, etc.), neck probs, muscle tension, certain drugs....
Some of which are treatable.

Think I'm going to give the Gingko Biloba supplements another try. Gingko supposedly increases the blood flow to the head which can help certain aspects of tinnitus, and it's harmless so worth a go.

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http://Infekted.org ~ Access Virus news & community

Hearing aids don’t amplify much above 5 or 6Khz

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my music

Pardon?

Quote ow:

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Pardon?

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my music

Its good that you are contributing to this thread. Also very handy to have you on the forum! Particularly with the numbers in the poll. There seems to be a lot of people with problems. Im sure many people with 'no problems' didnt vote. But even so... theres a significant percentage of sufferers.

Do you mind if I come back in a couple of weeks? What I really need right now is an option which says "Aged 35 and am currently suffering with Tinitus but am told there is a slight infection in one ear and that hopefully it will go away soon".

Fingers crossed anyway! It's certainly a nasty, wideband ring, I wouldn't want this all the time.

Hope some drops fix your prolem there... let us know.

I had SHL and Tinnitus a year ago, I refused hospital and megamix pill coctail treatments, treated myself with Yoga and healthier live style, food, exercise and in few weeks I heard the doc saying "you see how it all worked" didnt spoil his joy and didnt say I didnt even collect the pills from the pharmacy.
I am rather competent in the matters of Yoga and wouldnt recommend it to anyone - most of Yoga teachers, specially in the West are arrogant imbecils or frauds, chances to find a good one are low, but there must be some good alternatives to Western medicine- chinese, Tibetan that can be helpfull. My point is, it is not so hopless as it may see, I am living example that it can be cured.
The only thing that remains, hypersensitivity. Dropping a spoon , glass, a pot sounds sometimes like explosion, painfull
I avoid closed headphones, Sennhs 650/600 are the most gentle on the ears ( the in ear headphones should be made illegal,I am sorry for those who use them) didnt get the custom made plugs since those regular, made for musicians work good enough. Take a break immediately when I feel any pressure in the ears or anything unusual, since I know exactly that the SHL happened due to my insane way of working "till it is done". Now I just go get some cafe macchiato, 10 minutes is usually enough to safely get back to work.

P.S. Regarding the freudian kind of spelling errors, tinytits might be a good treatment to tinnitus, at least less harmfull then the steroids coctails and infusions Western medicine offers. Mila herself better then any Yoga Guru.

Most of us have had ringing ears after a gig or going to a club.

I remember a gig I went to a couple of years ago where I sat with my right ear directly facing one of the PA speakers (about 10 feet away).

For about three or four days afterwards I had the dreaded sine wave syndrome in the same ear, and I was seriously worried... luckily it went away. Definitely not much fun if you have to tolerate that permanently.

I had a mental idea after all this though: what if I could have say four or six such sine waves? Maybe this could lead to a zero latency , 'in-ear' additive or FM synth.

Not funny I know.

Theres not much point bumping a pole thread i suppose. People only vote once. But I am amazed at the numbers. The only explaination is that either a good half of the people on this forum have some kind of hearing problems. Or that many people who are fine just didnt bother to vote.

Theres been 111 posts to the poll. Theres been around a 1000 hits on the thread. There must have been a few hundred unique hits i reckon.

As i said i think a lot of peeps with no problem just havnt been in and clicked the clicker. Well i hope thats the case anyway!

I wear a pair of clay-pigeon shooting headphones for rehearsals, the sort with a built in mic. They look like regular headphones except they are welly-boot green. It means that you can hear everyone talking in between but the compressor kicks in when the music starts. Sound isn't up to much but it's certainly workable.

And yes, I wear them shooting as well.

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Stand by for action - we are about to launch Stingray!
Cue irritating bongo music ...

Where do you get these Commander - do you have a model i can google?

Guys...I am not being arrogant I want you all to listen to this please........read it carefully...

A proportion of tinitus sufferers are not suffereing it because of damage to their hearing!!! Just because you listen to loud music or even make loud music, it doesnt mean your tinitus is causes by it at all. DONT LISTEN to your GP or your ENT when he tells you that its definately hearing damage. DONT. In other areas and some US ENT's etc, it is widely excepted that tinitus can be caused by other factors.

I suffer from mild tinitus, that comes and goes in its severity, yes my ears react to noise if I crank it, but everybodies do. I do also however have TMJ enflamed jaw joints AND compressed eustacian tubes that click loudly when I swallow. This causes a mild form of glue ear.

Either TMJ or Glue ear can cause tinitus. BUT have your ears pressure checked in this country and even though your ears are noticeably different in their pressure response your ENT or doctor may offer no further treatment. My ears are different my left (the one with the tinitus) reacts less well to pressure change because my eustacian tubes are constantly blocked. This has caused a mild form of glue ear that "is not bad enough" to treat. When my career is on the wain I shall have it sorted in Holland or France. Not even private medicine has been able to help me in the UK as they have no documentation to support Glue ear that they cant physically see when they look at the ear drum. Never the less...It exists. I feel it, I hear it, and I have it.

If you have painful joints and or noisey eustacian tubes dont give up.

Ear wax can also cause it, and in the UK doctors now refuse syringing!!!! Syringing is the ONLY think that can be guarrenteed to clear it.

I should also ad that I have NO noticeable loss of hearing. My hearing is BETTER than average. It is my opinion that unless you have noticeable hearing loss that you do not have hearing damage and that something else may be causing your tinitus!

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Musician / Writer / Programmer / Producer

Hi Jake, that's very interesting. Where did you go to get diagnosed for TMJ? Did you get it treated?

The main man in the USA regards TMJ dysfunction is Dr. Brendan Stack http://www.tmjstack.com , and the main UK group (a host of individuals) is http://www.jawache.com/

I have the compressed eustachian tube thing too, my middle ear pops every time I swallow and has done ever since I can remember. It's disconcerting as that's the only ear I can hear out of. - I'm not sure if that is the reason my hearing is down -60dBs from 8KHz onwards, after possible damage to the middle ear. I don't have glue ear, but I did as a child and had grommets etc..
Been right the way through the ENT route, including pressure testing and stuff, that's when they also found I didn't have a stapedial reflex function in the middle ear (the stapedial reflex function is a mechanism in your middle ear that protects the inner ear moreso during long bouts of high sound levels, a bit like a compressor action). But every consultant I've seen couldn't expand on the eustachian tube dysfunction. Literally "err, um, we haven't a clue what that could mean".

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http://Infekted.org ~ Access Virus news & community

About six months ago i had a 'Tympanoplasty' op. ie: the surgeon cut off some of the back of my ear, sampled some cartilage lining, entered by an incision in front of my ear and patched the hole in my eardrum. It sucked!

Since this operation i have had mild tinitis (i manage to forget about it most of the time). Though for the first week or so it was SO bad, it sounded like a hairdryer inside my ear. it was really depressing and i thought it was going to drive me insane, partly because i thought it may never go away. I think somewhere up the thread someone mentioned that people have committed suicide because of tinitis. Well i didn't quite feel that way, but i can relate 'cause it was SCARY!

BTW, i ticked 'probs but okay now' on the poll. maybe i should have ticked 'big problems' as i'm not out of the woods yet.

Mark.

Quote Jake68:

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...I am not being arrogant...

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Far from it... i find what you say quite comforting. Im not sure that i can accept that after years of loud music, headphones and so on. That these little whistling shoulder fairies arent a result of some hearing damage in my own case. But maybe i would have it still if id lived fourty odd years in the rain forest! Who knows?

Interesting things you say there. Particularly when playing weighty instruments, holding our limbs and hands in odd positions. Sitting for long hours at desks and perhaps with imbalances on our heads and necks caused by added weight from headphones. Could mean that many musos have posture issues. As well as being exposed to high spl's. Suppose these are common factors in musos.

Excellent thread does make me want to take a hearing test right now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4535660.stm

This may be of interest to some of you. An over the phone hearing test. Its not a proper test but it can identify potential problems. I’ve not done it but apparently it’s a word list and you use the key pad on your phone. If you score bad it advises you to visit the GP.

0845 600 5555

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my music

Basically, if you have clicking ears when you swallow, then you are most likely to have a pressure imbalance between the outside world and your middle ear.

That imbalance causes a state of vacuum in the middle ear. In children with this complaint the tubes are block and the middle ear fills with crud. This is called glue ear. It is my opinion and I hasten to add, my opinion that this can happen in varying degree's and when an ENT or GP looks at the ear drum and doesnt see a wall of crud behind it, he presumes that that you have no problems. If you have noisy eustacian tubes then you couldnt possibly have satisfactory pressure response in the middle ear. Because the clicks are bubbles being forced through a partially closed tube. It effects balance also, the GP and ENT may deny this too!..."balance is looked after by the inner ear" blah blah blah...what sits between the inner ear and the outside world you text book dummy!

Seriously if you have had an operation for glue ear as a kid, and you had grommets, then surely its possible there is a large amount of crud in there, and perhaps you need grommets again?

Look, I aint a doctor, and I am not an ENT specialist by any means. All I am saying is that the NHS in this country is screwed, in fact the entire medical prefession is being trained like NHS direct. If this is that then this must be that so turn to page 125 school of medicine. The system is literally being trained to stop people with problem needing to go an expensive route. Often with complex problems the expensive route is the only route and many people never get to go down it because of GP's and doctors trying to save money. And that works in Private Medicine as well!...

If I had any substantial problems or hearing loss I would DEMAND a scan of the area, and have multiple opinions!

Oh and GOOD LUCK!

Jake

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Musician / Writer / Programmer / Producer

Edited by Jake68 (05/03/06 10:49 PM)