Hearing Loss and Tinnitus Are Genetic?

[Blake]

I've been to many wedding parties wearing my earplugs. The music is pretty loud, probably anywhere from 90-100 DB.

I've noticed that I always see a lot of older people (50s/60s) dancing away without wearing any ear protection. I can't understand how people at that age don't feel pain inside of their ears from the loud music?

What I'm thinking is, is hearing damage genetic? I mean do some people not damage their hearing no matter how many concerts or parties they go to without protection? How do these old people not have tinnitus or hearing damage?

Samething with people i know who refuse to wear ear plugs at events because they have "strong" ears. These are people I know that go parties, concerts 2-3 times a month on a regular basis and have never heard of tinnitus?

So is hearing loss and tinnitus genetic? will some people never damage their hearing or get tinnitus no matter how many concerts they attend?

 

[Genevieve]

I've been to many wedding parties wearing my earplugs. The music is pretty loud, probably anywhere from 90-100 DB.

I've noticed that I always see a lot of older people (50s/60s) dancing away without wearing any ear protection. I can't understand how people at that age don't feel pain inside of their ears from the loud music?

What I'm thinking is, is hearing damage genetic? I mean do some people not damage their hearing no matter how many concerts or parties they go to without protection? How do these old people not have tinnitus or hearing damage?

Samething with people i know who refuse to wear ear plugs at events because they have "strong" ears. These are people I know that go parties, concerts 2-3 times a month on a regular basis and have never heard of tinnitus?

So is hearing loss and tinnitus genetic? will some people never damage their hearing or get tinnitus no matter how many concerts they attend?

@Blake it's a very good question! Maybe these old people you are referring to were perhaps birds in an anterior life!
I don't think that hearing loss is genetic, but I do think that there are more vulnerable ears than others, and I can refer to my own story, I have an accident 4 months ago with airbag deployment, since my accident I read a lot about the airbags, the statistics, some people have damaged their eardrums immediately after the explosion of the airbag, others not. In my case my eardrum was not damaged or burst, frankly I would have preferred to have vulnerable ears and immediate symptoms, in that case I would have had the emergency treatment within 24h! I read the case of a man who had a perforated eardrum right after his accident and who received big doses of cortisone infusions. He had T temporary for 10 weeks and then it stopped, lucky him!

 

[Tamika]

I've noticed that I always see a lot of older people (50s/60s) dancing away without wearing any ear protection.

That's probably because they don't know they should wear earplugs. Nobody has ever told them.

 

[william adams]

My father had tinnitus when he was in his late fifties or early 60s. I developed T in my 60s but my sister at 80 doesnt have it. Working in the printing industry for many years around noisey equipment probably was the reason I developed T. and have some hearing loss in the upper frequencies..

 

[Alue]

There probably is some genetic predisposition to hearing loss and tinnitus.

 

[Martinf]

I know this is an old thread but I wanted to reply to this.

I know somebody who has been working in extremely loud night clubs for decades. He never wears any hearing protection. His hearing is perfect at 60 years old and he doesn't have tinnitus. Some people are just more prone to ear damage than others. It is just genetics. I used to warn people but I stopped that after realizing that a lot of people who have been exposing their ears to harmful sound levels their entire life and yet their hearing is beyond perfect.

I have a friend who works with power tools everyday for 8 hours, when he is at work, and I am like 50 meters away from him with earplugs and still very annoyed by the loud sound, while he is exposed only 1 meter away. When I talked to him about how he is damaging his hearing (he is exposing himself to sounds above 115 dB for hours with no break everyday), he said he can hear a sine wave at 21 kHz (believe it or not, yes, I tested him many times) at 35 years old. Which is incredible hearing. Go figure. Don't tell me things will be bad for him when he gets older because his father is 70 and was doing the same job his whole life with perfect hearing. Yes hearing damage accelerate hearing loss and tinnitus. Some people have auditory systems that can resist a lot of exposure to loud noise. Maybe it takes more than 200 years for them to start to notice hearing loss, but they will die before that anyway. In the meanwhile, some people have sensitive ears and get damaged easily.

Some ears are more susceptible to damage than others due to undesirable genetics. Sucks to be us.