Advice Wanted — Attending a Press Conference — Speaker and Shutter Noises, Inescapable Press Room

[Elfin]

Hello!

I have recently got a new job and was looking for some advice.

I am working as a part-time journalist and videographer and have been requested, for work, to attend a boxing press conference tomorrow.

Thing is, I am concerned over possible noises. These being:
1. A busy inescapable press room, hustle and bustle and clamour
2. Speaker noise that fighters may be speaking out of
3. Shutter noise of cameras

I plan to wear earplugs, but I wear them pretty much all the time anyway that I wonder whether my ears have become very sensitive and these noises will be too much.

Anyone been in environments like this? Any advice or recommendations certainly welcome!

Thanks community!

 

[JohnAdams]

Ear Plugs

Best you can get.

Pinch them and stick them deep in.

 

[Elfin]

Ear Plugs

Best you can get.

Pinch them and stick them deep in.

Thanks @JohnAdams - I have some ER-25s. Reckon these will cut it?

I'm tempted to double protect but it's gonna be quite odd...

 

[Luman]

Sensitized ears aren't necessarily more prone to damage, I would guess but I'm not an expert. I think that most any quality earplug should suffice in this situation, as long as you don't stand next to a very loud, blaring loudspeaker or other source of closeup. extreme noise.

 

[Digital Doc]

Doubt you need double protection, but foam earplugs with NRR 32-33 would be an excellent choice.

 

[Elfin]

Update: wore my peltor muffs and plugs during the amplified talking. Took the muffs off for a photo op when there were just groups of people talking (no amps). This must have been for 5-10 mins (still had plugs in) and when outside.

So had fun of talking, cars passing on gravel and planes overhead (when outside).

Ears now roaring and I can't asleep. Scared to death I've made it permanently worse. Hate this. Can hear new louder tones.

This was for work. Maybe a new job is required.

 

[Digital Doc]

Sounds like you do need a new job.

I would estimate that your protection was more than adequate for the sound exposure you describe, but yet you spiked. Some folks are extremely sensitive, and it sounds like you unfortunately are in that category.

There is still a good chance that this spike will improve if further noise exposure is avoided, but it could definitely take a long while.

 

[Elfin]

Thanks @Digital Doc - the sounds didn't seem too bad at the time (plane was a little noisy overhead). Worried plugs aren't working etc.

Do you think this will settle? Just wish I could sleep!

 

[Contrast]

Sensitized ears aren't necessarily more prone to damage, I would guess but I'm not an expert. I think that most any quality earplug should suffice in this situation, as long as you don't stand next to a very loud, blaring loudspeaker or other source of closeup. extreme noise.

yes they are if caused by loud noise.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/joycecohen/noise-kills-when-everyday-sound-becomes-torture

The ability to recover from acoustic injury drops with increased exposure. "We don't know why, but that fact is incontrovertible," Liberman says. In other words, after the first concert, the muffling and ringing go away, and you're fine. And the same after the second. But maybe the 20th concert is the one that breaks the camel's back. "Noise risk is an incredibly complex equation."


I personally believe lower LDL's (loudness discomfort levels) and pain from sound caused by noise trauma do mean the ear is more fragile.

 

[Elfin]

@Contrast given my experience here, do you think it's a permanently worsened baseline?

 

[Laurie1961]

i live in a very quiet area and am mostly home and rarely exposed to noise, but my tinnitus still spikes - and when it does, I get insomnia and sometimes anxiety too. No noise involved. After drying my hair or vacuuming, the tinnitus suddenly stops for a few minutes, so I'd have to ponder how noise at close range makes the tinnitus get worse... everyone is different. There's ads on the radio for a class action lawsuit concerning a certain kind of earplug worn in the military if you have tinnitus...so I'd be careful about which earplug I used.

Maybe a sound protection ear muffs would be safer?

 

[Jack Straw]

yes they are if caused by loud noise.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/joycecohen/noise-kills-when-everyday-sound-becomes-torture

The ability to recover from acoustic injury drops with increased exposure. "We don't know why, but that fact is incontrovertible," Liberman says. In other words, after the first concert, the muffling and ringing go away, and you're fine. And the same after the second. But maybe the 20th concert is the one that breaks the camel's back. "Noise risk is an incredibly complex equation."


I personally believe lower LDL's (loudness discomfort levels) and pain from sound caused by noise trauma do mean the ear is more fragile.

Please remember the person in the article said "Acoustic Trauma" and then goes on to describe a situation, concert, where sound levels are unsafe (even to the average person) and damage hearing.

This quote does not point to safe levels of sound causing damage. If Elfin protects with ears buds and the sound level in the room isn't loud enough to cause damage, then there is nothing to be worried about.

 

[Jack Straw]

@Contrast given my experience here, do you think it's a permanently worsened baseline?

No.

Over protection leads to sound threshold shifts, which can affect your tinnitus and hyperacusis.

 

[kmohoruk]

No.

Over protection leads to sound threshold shifts, which can affect your tinnitus and hyperacusis.

Agreed. This is how my ears used to be when I was over protecting. Once I stopped doing it, things got better.

 

[Digital Doc]

Thanks @Digital Doc - the sounds didn't seem too bad at the time (plane was a little noisy overhead). Worried plugs aren't working etc.

Do you think this will settle? Just wish I could sleep!

Hard to know, need to give it some time. I had the intrusive T at one point, and was waking me up every 5 mins. That was when I tried sleeping with the earplugs, and it helped as otherwise every passing car was waking me up.

 

[Ken219]

There's ads on the radio for a class action lawsuit concerning a certain kind of earplug worn in the military if you have tinnitus...so I'd be careful about which earplug I used.

The company is 3M and they knew the ear plugs are defective.

 

[Contrast]

The company is 3M and they knew the ear plugs are defective.

I wonder if some of the lawsuit money will go to bio-medical research. Probably not.

 

[Elfin]

Agreed. This is how my ears used to be when I was over protecting. Once I stopped doing it, things got better.

This is a problem I suffer from. How did you wean yourself off? Cold turkey?

 

[Elfin]

Over protection leads to sound threshold shifts, which can affect your tinnitus and hyperacusis.

Hi Jack, do you mean shift the sound threshold lower, thus making ears easier to damage, or just more uncomfortable in noisy, but not dangerously loud environments?

 

[Elfin]

This quote does not point to safe levels of sound causing damage. If Elfin protects with ears buds and the sound level in the room isn't loud enough to cause damage, then there is nothing to be worried about.

From what you've read, would this be a psychosomatic/anxiety driven spike? Definitely louder and got new tones, still.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Ears now roaring and I can't asleep. Scared to death I've made it permanently worse. Hate this.

I am sorry to hear that you took a risk and it hasn't worked out.

The good news is that there is still a good chance that it will go away - most spikes are temporary spikes. Right now, it is too early to be worried about a permanent spike - you can worry about it if there is no improvement for over a month.

If it does go away, I hope you will learn from your mistake. We are given only a limited number of second chances.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Over protection leads to sound threshold shifts, which can affect your tinnitus and hyperacusis.

You have got to be kidding me. His problem is a result of Underprotection (i.e., not avoiding that exposure to noise)(he's got New Tones), I can't believe someone would twist it to imply that the problem is "overprotection" (whatever that even means).

 

[Jack Straw]

From what you've read, would this be a psychosomatic/anxiety driven spike? Definitely louder and got new tones, still.

Anxiety driven spike. When I am stressed and anxious I get new tones and louder tinnitus.

 

[Jack Straw]

Hi Jack, do you mean shift the sound threshold lower, thus making ears easier to damage, or just more uncomfortable in noisy, but not dangerously loud environments?

It will make you have sound sensitivity because you auditory system isnt used to normal levels of sound. Richard Tyler has confirmed this in my interview with him that will be coming out. Over protection is not good for people with hyperacusis or tinnitus because it shifts you auditory thresholds.

 

[erik]

You have got to be kidding me. His problem is a result of Underprotection (i.e., not avoiding that exposure to noise)(he's got New Tones), I can't believe someone would twist it to imply that the problem is "overprotection" (whatever that even means).

The origin of his tinnitus may have been caused by under protection but let's not overlook the seriousness of overprotection. Hearing damage from a press conference is highly unlikely unless you have your ears to the speakers. I have done dozens of pressers over the years and it has never affected my tinnitus baseline other than the occasional spike.

Overprotection is a very real problem which can lead to phonophobia coupled with hyperacusis. Furthermore, this can ultimately result in auditory hyper-sensitization which is a serious psychological condition. Having suffered from both hyperacusis and tinnitus, I will tell you hyperacusis is worse and both together at the same time is devastatingly life changing.

There is a line between necessary hearing protection and over protection but it exists nonetheless. Because we with tinnitus are always fearful of it getting worse, we are only reacting naturally. However, going to the extreme one way or another can both be mentally and physically harmful.

 

[kmohoruk]

This is a problem I suffer from. How did you wean yourself off? Cold turkey?

It's not easy, but overtime I was slowly able to ween myself off of ear protection. I only used it in situations where it was needed or I started to feel uncomfortable (i.e. above 80 dB). After a period of time my ears slowly became less reactive and I able to return to school and have now started a new career.

Take it one step at a time, but in my case - which sounds like a lot like yours, overprotection has made your ears really reactive. I'm not saying to go out and go attend a rock concert, but focus on filling your house with steady sound to help your ears desensitize a bit (podcasts on my iPad really helped!), and only protect when you either the situation warrants it or you start to feel uncomfortable.

Also, as @Ed209 has said many times, your emotional reaction to your tinnitus can further inflame your tinnitus and hyperacusis and create a negative feedback loop where your fear in turn makes it worse and then that stress makes your tinnitus and hyperacusis worse.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Hearing damage from a press conference is highly unlikely unless you have your ears to the speakers.

Hearing damage is unlikely, but a permanent spike is certainly a possibility, as evidenced by:

Oh go you'll be fine they said. Wear earplugs they said.

So I went to the event with ear plugs. Was there for only a few minutes. Big mistake. Gave me low drone/hum that's worst than the high pitch hiss/eeeee, tea kettle sounds. Never went away. sigh
3 1/2 years ago.

Everyone is different. Every situation is different.
You have to make a decision and live with it.

@another sean is right. Played an acoustic piano for about an hour, like an amateur, went to bed a couple of hours later - tinnitus felt quite intense that night, woke up and all hell broke loose. High pitched tinnitus higher and my left war making more weird noises. It's been pandemonium since.

Relatively safe Bill. I was wearing a musicians earplug in my right ear, but not my left as I had an issue with dry skin in my ear lobe at the time, but regardless, there was no discomfort, no fullness, no pain, nothing. On reflection I think my tinnitus felt more intense later in the night, but I wasn't perturbed by that as it's not uncommon for tinnitus to feel more intense at certain points of the day, especially night.

...
With regards to noise exposure that isn't dangerous to most people, I developed a new tone in my right ear after a noise exposure at work back in October. I spent about half an hour in an area that I would estimate was at most 90db, but it was probably less than that. I had deeply inserted large foam earplugs at the time, but apparently that was not enough protection. That tone has not gone away, and it's not some psychosomatic spike. Spikes in volume are somewhat relative in my opinion, they can be attributed to stress, lack of sleep, noise exposure, diet, etc., but completely new tones that do not go away are something different.

What is safe for you may not be safe for me. And the fact is there has been no good study done assessing the vulnerability of already damaged auditory systems. The gold standard for dangerous noise levels is based on old data from OSHA where they looked for permanent threshold shifts of 10db or more at 2000, 3000, or 4000 Hz. As we know now, you can have fairly significant auditory damage without having a permanent threshold shift in those three ranges. There is also a lot of industry push-back when OSHA tries to make safety guidelines more strict (I haven't seen this with noise levels, but I have seen it with chemical safety guidelines). Moreover, it's very likely that some people are more genetically predisposed to hearing damage than others.

What I'm getting at here is I agree with you that some people really do go overboard with hearing protection, and obsessing about noise is not healthy, but it irritates me when people adopt this attitude of "well it works for me therefore it must work for you" or "it's safe for me therefore it's safe for you". No one can say that.

I was told not to wear hearing protection for normal everyday situations but look where it's got me. I had my plugs in my pocket too. Getting on with a normal life hasn't helped for me.

" iwholovemusic " had a spike for about 2 years after loud event . I remember he had posted this about 2-3 years ago .
He was also wearing ear plugs and ear muffs !

It's been passed 3 month mark and I still have this annoying spike, the ear pain is gone but the spike remained.

Yes. I have Noise induced T. My spike was due to going out to a bar/day drinking/brewery/lots of alcohol. Since that day my T has been screaming.

No live loud music, just a restaurant and a lot of people in it.

My T faded a lot suddenly almost 3 years ago. I had total remission of some trebly sounds in my head. It became only audible in quiet rooms.

Now its back in full force cause Im stupid. Some ENT told me ear plugs are safe. Wrong! T is with me again.

I was in a car accident with air bag deployment, about 4 years ago. Some time after went to a loud movie without earplugs. Then I attended some small orchestras, also without protection. I believe these were all precursors. Like your wall analogy.

The final insult was two years ago, when I took this old truck out for the day. It had a loud engine and very poor air sealing. Alot of noise, and major stress when I got lost. Right after that was when everything changed.

All of the cases above have one thing in common - none of the sounds involved could have caused hearing loss - but those sounds had surely caused a T spike (that ended up being permanent in many of the cases).

However, going to the extreme one way or another can both be mentally and physically harmful.

I agree that one should find out how sensitive one is to noise. The original poster had just proved that the noise at press conferences is too loud for him. Hopefully this will change in a year or two, but for now it would seem that he should learn from this experience and try to avoid press conferences and similar (and louder) events.

 

[Bill Bauer]

as @Ed209 has said many times, your emotional reaction to your tinnitus can further inflame your tinnitus and hyperacusis and create a negative feedback loop

The above might certainly happen. However, Ed had often ignored that for many people he addressed the above advice to. First they got a tinnitus spike and THEN they began to worry. In other words, they exposed themselves to some moderate noise, and were NOT worried - that noise was not Too loud. After that they got a spike and that's when they began to panic. This proves that stress was not the reason for their spike, and that Ed was either wrong because he didn't take the time to look into their cases, or that he ignored their stories because he chose to ignore all of the evidence that contradicts his almost religious beliefs about "overprotection".

 

[kmohoruk]

The above might certainly happen. However, Ed had often ignored that for many people he addressed the above advice to. First they got a tinnitus spike and THEN they began to worry. In other words, they exposed themselves to some moderate noise, and were NOT worried - that noise was not Too loud. After that they got a spike and that's when they began to panic. This proves that stress was not the reason for their spike, and that Ed was either wrong because he didn't take the time to look into their cases, or that he ignored their stories because he chose to ignore all of the evidence that contradicts his almost religious beliefs about "overprotection".

Maybe. But I stand by what I said.

 

[Bill Bauer]

It's not easy, but overtime I was slowly able to ween myself off of ear protection. I only used it in situations where it was needed or I started to feel uncomfortable (i.e. above 80 db). After a period of time my ears slowly became less reactive and I able to return to school and have now started a new career.

I was protecting my ears religiously, and over time my ears became less reactive.

I only used it in situations where it was needed or I started to feel uncomfortable (i.e. above 80 db).

I had followed the same strategy - I used hearing protection only when the noise made my ears uncomfortable. In my case, it didn't matter for me how loud the noise actually was - if it caused any discomfort, I made sure to avoid it.