Can iPods Cause Tinnitus?

[Travie808]

Question:

Can you develop permanent tinnitus from listening to music through your iPod? For the past 6 months I've had tinnitus and ear fullness in both ears. It's a very very high pitch like greater than 14 kHz maybe and it's annoying me to the point that I have gotten no sleep at all.

I have been to the ENT and they said my hearing is normal and nothing indicates NIHL.

Originally they thought it could be my Eustachian tube but it's been way too long and nothing helped.

The only other thing I could think of is listening to my music at work for the past 4 years. Not the full 8 hours, maybe 4 hours.

I've taken three hearing test, one before all this BS, and two after the T started. Indicating normal hearing.

At this point I don't know what to do or why I have this.

So can listening to your music cause permanent tinnitus? I pray to god this will go away!

 

[ryan1234]

@Travie808

It is possible to develop tinnitus from listening to music through headphones or earphones. But it is definitely a positive sign that your hearing tests show no hearing loss. If I were you I would try melatonin as a sleep aid which could be helpful. Tinnitus is unpredictable and it is very possible yours may go away or significantly decrease over time.

 

[Michael Leigh]

Can you develop permanent tinnitus from listening to music through your iPod?

I have been to the ENT and they said my hearing is normal and nothing indicates NIHL.

The only other thing I could think of is listening to my music at work for the past 4 years. Not the full 8 hours, maybe 4 hours.

You need to be more careful when listening to music through your headphones, as you risk making your tinnitus worse and it could become permanent. Even though you don't have any hearing loss that doesn't mean anything I assure you. I don't have any hearing loss and got tinnitus through listening to music through headphones at too high a volume just as you are doing. I've had tinnitus for 2o years.

My advice to you is to stop listening to music through headphones now and never return to using them even at low volume. However, it is your choice. Whether you listen to music through: ipod, cellphone, portable stereo, they will all cause tinnitus if the volume is too loud when listening through headphones. Listening to music through headphones for 4hrs is far too long in my opinion..

Click on the link below and read my article: Tinnitus, A Personal View, which you might find helpful. Try to read it in full and not skim through it.

I wish you well
Michael

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/tinnitus-a-personal-view.18668/

 

[PaulBe]

Can you develop permanent tinnitus from listening to music through your iPod?

Can you get concussion from falling anvils?

 

[GregCA]

Can you develop permanent tinnitus from listening to music through your iPod?

The answer is yes.

 

[Travie808]

Thanks for the replies guys. Its hard for me right now. I just dont understand how I got T without having any hearing loss and with my doctor not knowing what causes it. I was just thinking it could be my ipod. It's the only conclusion I can come up with. Doesn't help that im a mechanic and loud noise is every where! @Michael Leigh I read your article and it was very informing. thank you.

 

[maltese]

Thanks for the replies guys. Its hard for me right now. I just dont understand how I got T without having any hearing loss and with my doctor not knowing what causes it. I was just thinking it could be my ipod. It's the only conclusion I can come up with. Doesn't help that im a mechanic and loud noise is every where! @Michael Leigh I read your article and it was very informing. thank you.

Wear hearing protection when you're working with power tools, or when someone nearby is working with power tools.

 

[GregCA]

I was just thinking it could be my ipod. It's the only conclusion I can come up with. Doesn't help that im a mechanic and loud noise is every where

Well, it could also be that other loud noise that you are exposed to as part of your mechanic job. Noise damage is additive, so it could simply be the combination of all stressors to your auditory system.
It could also be something else, so a root cause effort may not be in vain.

 

[CarloZ]

That's how I got it.
Listened to my IPod in middle school and high school at high volumes everyday. Don't do what I did.

 

[Samir]

The simple answer is yes, they can.

Listening to music for 4 hours straight without any or very few and short breaks is too wasteful. What makes it worse is the use of "in-ear" earpods/headphones, earphones a.k.a. "apple airpods" and the like, regular headphones with headband. In that order. Speakers are best to use on medium volume setting.

But even then, even with the use of speakers, it's best to limit the amount of time spent listening to music, radio, TV, etc. Take at least 10 minute breaks on regular basis. Every half an hour, take a 10 minute break. When you take a break, don't just unplug the earphones and walk into a room full of noise with people talking loudly, radio on high volume, machines working, etc. Find some nice quite space where you and your coworkers can sit down and relax, get away from the noise to properly give your ears some time to rest.

I don't want to discourage you from listening to music. But you have now all the more reason to take better care of your ears. Don't take them for granted. You only get one pair. If you are working in a loud environment, take care of your ears. Use ear protection. Use muffs or plugs.

I used to listen to music a lot. I made music, and I played music. Music was a big part of my life. I didn't exactly use an iPod because they were not invented at the time. I used Sony Walkman, cassette tapes and then CD and MD discs. I always used Sony! No Apple, never had had one of those. Then I started using a Samsung Galaxy smartphone to listen to music on the go. You know how it is... music is all over the place now... you got iTunes, Spotify, Deezer, etc. That's all nice but it's making people go deaf! And! They get tinnitus.

I have pretty much normal hearing if you look at my audiogram. All up to 20 dB, which is normal. But I did have a 30 dB dip at 6000 Hz on my first audiogram. This was the first audiogram I ever did, I had never had problems with my ears or hearing, ever. Perfectly nice working set of ears, but I damaged them through noise. Mostly by listening to music. I would probably have not done any hearing test at all if I didn't start having problems with the left ear. This is my more damaged ear.

The 30 dB dip was most certainly caused by a technical problem I had with one of my computers where it would sometimes emit a high pitched, intense squeal sound following a software update. I was exposed to that a couple of times, and one of the times, I had my headphones on. That messed me up badly! That was the last straw so to speak. I started having muscle spasms in the left ear after that. That sound was at about 6000 Hz. I know because I have a recording of it. This matches my tinnitus frequency, almost exactly. The tinnitus noise is at about 5900 Hz.

I did a second audiogram 2 months later, and it showed 15 dB at 6000 Hz. It was around that time I started to experience a more intrusive tonal tinnitus. My tinnitus is still mild, but whatever I had lost, my brain has compensated for it by setting me up for this agonizing condition.

Don't trust audiograms much, latest research shows that they can't detect all forms of hearing loss or inner ear damage. So called hidden hearing loss. The brain is capable to compensate for the sensory loss, and that is most likely what gives us tinnitus.

So take care of your ears, avoid loud noises, listen to music on low to medium volume, prefer speakers over headphones. Now that you have tinnitus, I advise you to ditch the headphones. Limit the time you spend listening to music, take regular breaks. Use ear protection when using power tools, or when others are using them in your surrounding.

 

[VRZ78]

The simple answer is yes, they can.

Listening to music for 4 hours straight without any or very few and short breaks is too wasteful. What makes it worse is the use of "in-ear" earpods/headphones, earphones a.k.a. "apple airpods" and the like, regular headphones with headband. In that order. Speakers are best to use on medium volume setting.

But even then, even with the use of speakers, it's best to limit the amount of time spent listening to music, radio, TV, etc. Take at least 10 minute breaks on regular basis. Every half an hour, take a 10 minute break. When you take a break, don't just unplug the earphones and walk into a room full of noise with people talking loudly, radio on high volume, machines working, etc. Find some nice quite space where you and your coworkers can sit down and relax, get away from the noise to properly give your ears some time to rest.

I don't want to discourage you from listening to music. But you have now all the more reason to take better care of your ears. Don't take them for granted. You only get one pair. If you are working in a loud environment, take care of your ears. Use ear protection. Use muffs or plugs.

I used to listen to music a lot. I made music, and I played music. Music was a big part of my life. I didn't exactly use an iPod because they were not invented at the time. I used Sony Walkman, cassette tapes and then CD and MD discs. I always used Sony! No Apple, never had had one of those. Then I started using a Samsung Galaxy smartphone to listen to music on the go. You know how it is... music is all over the place now... you got iTunes, Spotify, Deezer, etc. That's all nice but it's making people go deaf! And! They get tinnitus.

With healthy ears listening to music for 4 hours straight is not dangerous at all, and no need to take breaks.... It just depend on the volume, if you're blasting it at maximum volume yes it's dangerous but if you listen at normal volume like 50-60 dB you can listen all day long...

For headphones though if you want to listen all day long you better keep the volume under 1/4. For me the problem is not headphones, it's people listening at max volume with them. But it's getting better as on some phone you now get a warning when you go above half volume.

 

[Samir]

With healthy ears listening to music for 4 hours straight is not dangerous at all, and no need to take breaks.... It just depend on the volume

I was thinking maybe 70 dB. I found a formula once that helps you calculate the safe exposure time depending on decibel level. I think that around 70 dB is unsafe for 4 hours. The higher the volume, the shorter the listening time should be.

For headphones though if you want to listen all day long you better keep the volume under 1/4.

Relative to what? With all these portable music devices, it's not clear how loud the music is. Sometimes you have just a volume knob, sometimes you have a small display with small dots that light up to indicate volume setting. Sometimes there is a percent reading. It would be nice if they displayed the actual decibel level, but I know that it's hard to represent the actual loudness in your ear. Of course if you do have some kind of indicator on your device, you should probably not go above the mid point mark.

But it's getting better as on some phone you now get a warning when you go above half volume.

I don't know... people don't like that when they have healthy ears, and they actively look for ways to disable that annoyance.

When listening to music using the default Music Player app on the Samsung Galaxy S5, you may get an annoying music volume warning when attempting to turn the volume up while earphones are plugged into the device. The warning says "Raise volume above safe level? Listening at high volume for long periods may damage your hearing."

This is especially annoying when you are listening to music and have the phone in your pocket. Fortunately, you can disable the music volume warning on the Galaxy S5 by following these steps.

https://www.technipages.com/how-to-disable-music-volume-warning-on-samsung-galaxy-s5

This is just one of many such guides on how to disable this annoying feature that is trying to save you from yourself. There is just no end to human stupidity.

So I don't know... this guide was written for Galaxy S5 phone. I have the older S4 version, and I have no way of disabling this feature. So my guess is that Samsung has fallen under the pressure from its many customers to at least offer them an option to disable this feature. It has to be enforced in order to be safe.

 

[Jim51042]

It would be nice if they displayed the actual decibel level, but I know that it's hard to represent the actual loudness in your ear

In addition it would be nice if they could accurately prevent the phone from play higher than 85 dBa from its headphone jack. Its kinda crazy that in 2017 the big phone manufactures don't have this feature. This would not require crazy innovation just a interest by them or better govt regulation.

 

[Samir]

In addition it would be nice if they could accurately prevent the phone from play higher than 85 dBa from its headphone jack. Its kinda crazy that in 2017 the big phone manufactures don't have this feature. This would not require crazy innovation just a interest by them or better govt regulation.

How loud the sound actually is depends on a lot of different factors. But since a software update released in 2006, you can set a maximum volume on the iPod. You just need the determination to be conservative with maximum setting.

This guy gets it:

Hello people. I just finished reading an article from the EFE. It stated that the iPod can reach volumes as loud as an aircraft. That is super loud! I believe that the appropriate volume setting is 60 percent. Think about your ears people. The damages of hearing above 85 dB's can cause trauma and even life long lesions in the ear.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1070573

@Travie808

 

[Karl28]

I did

 

[GregCA]

It would be nice if they displayed the actual decibel level, but I know that it's hard to represent the actual loudness in your ear.

It's more than that, because the software doesn't know what type of hardware (i.e. headphones) are going to be hooked up to the device. They don't all share the same properties, so the same volume from the phone's perspective could yield very different results if applied to different headphones.

 

[Samir]

Yeah, it gets complicated very quickly. Just wishful thinking! What you would need is some kind of microphone in your ear canal. There are those tinnitus detection headphones from Plextek. It's an interesting idea, but not exactly what you need to get a decibel reading. Besides, I think those headphones are a bit too late if they help you only after you start having signs of tinnitus.

What about earphones with a microphone that measures the output and feeds it back to the phone/device wirelessly? That might work. It would have to be very tiny. ACS makes in-ear monitors with mics for ambient noise and it relays this to a handheld device. We could do something like that.

Just throwing out some ideas. It may be complicated, but it is not impossible. Make it a requirement that all headphones have monitoring mics, and require all audio device makers to force a hardwired 85 dB output limit for all compatible devices. This includes virtually all mobile phones which are at the main stage these days when portable music is concerned. So called smart phones deserve to be smart. They are not smart when output volume is concerned.

@GregCA

 

[EddieMar]

I know a guy, he fell asleep with his headphones on. He woke up with T.

 

[dpdx]

I got T from listening to the ipod and from sitting next to a speaker at a festival. Now i have this unbearable disease which tore me to shreds. God, I wish i knew back then what i know now i would have protected my ears religiously. It sucks though that my life wont be ever good as it once was.