Horrid Loud Ping Noise When Taking Earplugs Out — Created a Vacuum in Ear Canal?

[Hariz Nonis]

My bigger concern would not be with ear bones but eardrum getting slowly damaged over time if you are constantly creating suction on it. And presumably that could affect your hearing sensitivity.

What would your reasons for this be?

my guess is that damage would be more likely to be sudden, i.e., you would know it immediately, rather than delayed.

Actually, my MEM started randomly as well. I was using earphones when it happened. But if I recall correctly, it wasn't right after I took out my earphones or anything like that. The earphones were already worn for quite a while.

 

[SergioN]

One time I pulled out a foam earplug too fast, and it was loud and resulted in a bad three-day spike. These days I take 5 seconds to slowly pull out my plugs...

AND WHAT about touching the earplug during those 5 seconds? These days I try to remove earplugs slowly... and today maybe I was more nervous or my hand vibrated but during those seconds that I grabbed the earplug, I felt a very amplified bass noise... like "buuuuuuu", probably due to the vibrations of my hand into earplug being transmitted to the ear canal and amplified due to occlusion effect.

After two seconds of hearing that loud "buuuuu" I decided to remove it a little quicker... Because if I stopped and reset, it would again create more noise.

¿What do you think about these loud bass noises from the hand vibrations?

 

[Digital Doc]

AND WHAT about touching the earplug during those 5 seconds? These days I try to remove earplugs slowly... and today maybe I was more nervous or my hand vibrated but during those seconds that I grabbed the earplug, I felt a very amplified bass noise... like "buuuuuuu", probably due to the vibrations of my hand into earplug being transmitted to the ear canal and amplified due to occlusion effect.

After two seconds of hearing that loud "buuuuu" I decided to remove it a little quicker... Because if I stopped and reset, it would again create more noise.

¿What do you think about these loud bass noises from the hand vibrations?

Perhaps you need to try a different earplug. You may be getting this suction effect as it is too tight for you. See if you can try a smaller one and if it makes any difference. They also make custom plugs to avoid this issue.

 

[SergioN]

That loud bass 'buuuuuuu' only happens sometimes... especially if you touch them slowly and nervously. There must be like a resonant point where the bass sound is created and amplified due to the occlusion effect. If you move it quicker, it stops. I have used foam earplugs for years and I was never so slow to remove them. I started doing so when I read here about pressure issues. But maybe if you avoid the pressure issue you generate loud bass noise issues. I'm screwed whatever I do.

 

[Bill Bauer]

What do you think about these loud bass noises from the hand vibrations

I can't imagine this being the result of your hand vibrating. This probably has something to do with your earplug design.

 

[GoingGrayy]

I'm just back home from an event where there was a lot of children. I carry musicians earplugs (the plastic ones with two cups and a stem through them).

As I was going out of one room and into another I knew all theses kids were present and it was loud because of their chatting so I popped these in. Once I was away from the danger zone I went to take one of them out and it must have created a vacuum in my ear canal as I felt it pop and then my ear made a horrid loud ping noise, almost like the eardrum had been rattled. The bottom smallest cup was inverted, like a umbrella that's been sucked in.

The noise itself went away quickly and at this stage I can't tell if my tinnitus has spiked or there's any new noises as I hear a small variety throughout the day/night that come and go?

The warning is if you use these kind of plugs to make sure you get some air in first and could I have caused any damage? If it spikes when's the latest I'll know by?

I've taken a dose of magnesium citrate and B12, is there anything else I should do?

When you push in or take out earplugs that create a seal, you cause an increase in pressure (or suction/decrease in pressure, respectively) on the eardrum/ossicles attached to the eardrum (which make up your "middle ear"). Basically this action causes very mild barotrauma. For most people this doesn't matter, they can insert/remove sealing earplugs or headphones hundreds or thousands of times and never notice anything. But for some people, like me, and maybe you, this creates a tinnitus which doesn't resolve until the underlying mechanical (of the eardrum or ossicles, or maybe even something of the inner ear, who knows!!) change heals. The tone (for me, 1220hz/1275hz/1340hz/1420hz, that sometimes alternate in a morse-code like fashion) used to last a few minutes for me, but with every subsequent pressure/suction (especially if it occurred before the previous one had fully healed), the duration increases. Currently I'm at about a month for a full heal!

If you have any questions, let me know. If you are experiencing fundamentally the same thing as I am, I'd love to help in any way I can, and I'd love to have any more information of your situation you can provide. I'm continuously trying to build my understanding of this thing/come up with testable theories of how it works/what worsens it/what improves it, so I can live with it better.

The one thing I am quite sure about is it's an objective and/or somatic tinnitus produced by the mechanic damage to... whichever. My tinnitus tones for this particular issue, unlike some other tinnitus I have, interact harmonically (not sure thats the right word) with closely matched tones — I can make it wobble or sometimes negate it entirely if I get the frequency/phase just right.