How Careful Should I Be Around Noise?

[MikeO123]

Hey everyone,

I'v had tinnitus for about a year and due to recent acoustic trauma I've been dealing with a spike. Today and yesterday has been a little better, I think it's either fading or I'm not focusing on it as much.

My question is how careful should I be around sound? I may have mild hyperacusis since moderately loud sounds are annoying me more than they used to. I'm constantly worried about getting a worse spike.

Should I go out without earplugs if I'm going to a place that's not too loud? For example a park, restaurant, store etc. Or should I wear earplugs whenever I'm out?

Is going to the movies with earplugs safe? A family party with earplugs? Obviously super loud events are definitely out.

I want to do whatever I need to not make my tinnitus worse and also not make the hyperacusis worse (if that's what I have).

Thanks for your help!

 

[Michael B]

My guess is that you will receive a variety of responses to the question but my suggestion is to carry earplugs with you and wear as you feel you need them. The louder the environment, the more likely you will be to wear them. You be the judge of that.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Should I go out without earplugs if I'm going to a place that's not too loud? For example a park, restaurant, store etc. Or should I wear earplugs whenever I'm out?

You should "play it by ear." If you get a spike or a full ear sensation after spending time at a restaurant, you will want to wear protection, or, better yet, avoid going there for the next year or two. If you have always been ok after spending time at a store, then you will likely continue to be ok. Listen to the signals given to you by your own body. If you are at a restaurant and it feels too loud/irritating - leave. Also, check out the posts I quoted in the first post of
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/learn-from-others-mistakes.29437/

Ear plugs can provide a false sense of security:

It can get extremely bad. I went to clubs and concerts for four years after inital onset of mild T and H, and I was fine. I got some increased T before going to bed, but that was all.

Until one day, it wasn't.

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.

Check out

I didn't read all the above comments, but did peruse a fair amount of it, and ran across many good points on both sides of the argument. What strikes me is there seems to be an underlying assumption (of course I may be wrong on this) that all brains and neurological systems are created equal. The way I see it, that's simply not the case, so everybody's way of dealing with tinnitus and/or hyperacusis is going to have to be highly individualized.

I read a book many years ago called "Adrenal Syndrome". A lot of the book touched on the residual resiliency of people's adrenal glands as they respond to life's stresses. Very low resiliency often resulted in months/years of chronic debilitating exhaustion following a stressful event(s) in their lives. Very high resiliency indicated essentially the opposite. The author broke this down into some rough numbers:

25% of people have low resiliency, meaning normal life stressors will often send them into some degree of a tailspin.
25% of people have high resiliency, meaning that no matter how severe a stressor comes into their lives, they will be able to cope without becoming debilitated to any degree.
50% of people fall somewhere inbetween.

I believe there are some kind of corresponding numbers for a person's brain and neurological resiliency as well, which can greatly affect the ability to cope with tinnitus. (I believe adrenal resiliency also plays a major role in our ability to cope). -- Based on these assumptions, it's pretty easy for me to conclude that what may be overprotection for one person will be underprotection for another, and vice versa.

I think the main point to understand for someone new to tinnitus is that their path forward is going to be a lot of "testing the waters". Generally, IMHO, it's going to take a few weeks or months to get important insights that will help us achieve a healthy balance. In all likelihood, most people are going to learn from experience when their over-protecting or under-protecting.

I've come to believe however, that in those early months, if one is going to err in either direction, it should be toward overprotection. It just seems to me the consequences of underprotection (which could result in permanent injury) in those early times are much more dire than the consequences of overprotection--which as I understand, generally results in temporary setbacks.

Doing a number of things to better support the brain and neurological system and the body's stress response (adrenal glands) is quite high on my list of recommendations I would make to anybody with tinnitus. Doing so might even prevent phonophobia or OCD, etc., as we go through our learning curves -- Just my 2 cents worth.

Relative newbies to tinnitus are likely to find all the information/opinions above quite confusing. So here are a few common-sense rules to follow:

1. The best protection of all is avoidance. Even the best earplugs can't guarantee complete hearing protection so those relatively new to tinnitus are best advised to avoid prolonged loud noise exposure - especially amplified sound at for example live concerts and sports events. This may involve lifestyle changes.

2. When in doubt, use hearing protection. In the many tasks we all do through the week, some will inevitably involve exposure to noise - which may be at higher levels than we at first realise - so using hearing protection for many of these is only sensible.

3. Build quiet into your day. It's not a good idea to be wearing hearing protection all the time - so you need to give your ears a break by ensuring that there will be quieter times during your day when hearing protection isn't necessary.This may involve changing your routine. Use soft masking noise and light music (not using headphones) to avoid "silence" where tinnitus is most noticeable.

4. Don't stress about stress. Tinnitus newbies are forever being told that the thing which makes tinnitus worse is stress. But while it's true that how you are feeling at a particular moment can make tinnitus temporarily louder, it won't have a lasting effect. But prolonged loud noise exposure can make tinnitus permanently louder. So don't stress about stress - but do be concerned about noise.

 

[MikeO123]

My guess is that you will receive a variety of responses to the question but my suggestion is to carry earplugs with you and wear as you feel you need them. The louder the environment, the more likely you will be to wear them. You be the judge of that.

Thank you for your response. I think that's probably the best thing too, being smart. I don't want to get stuck in the habit of automatically wearing them everywhere and being paranoid because I already feel myself going down that path.

I was gonna go hiking today and was thinking about wearing them when I'm driving and when I'm in the woods even though there's probably not gonna be anything loud. I'm constantly worried about making things worse.

 

[MikeO123]

You should "play it by ear." If you get a spike or a full ear sensation after spending time at a restaurant, you will want to wear protection, or, better yet, avoid going there for the next year or two. If you have always been ok after spending time at a store, then you will likely continue to be ok. Listen to the signals given to you by your own body. If you are at a restaurant and it feels too loud/irritating - leave. Also, check out the posts I quoted in the first post of
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/learn-from-others-mistakes.29437/

Ear plugs can provide a false sense of security:


Check out

Thanks Bill, I'm definitely going to avoid loud places. It's the random unexpected loud noises that give me anxiety and make me worry about making the tinnitus worse. I'm tempted to wear earplugs whenever I drive or even go to quiet places like a park but I might be overdoing it.

 

[Ken219]

@MikeO123 Now you have it. It will be a life long endeavor. Avoid all loud noises when possible. Spikes can also happen for no reason. 30 years of tinnitus and many spikes experienced I pray for better treatments or cure.

 

[coffee_girl]

I'm very careless around noise, i generally protect my ears when i hear a car coming by cupping or pressing down on my lobes. Otherwise in my house i smash dishes daily or some days when i wake up I have a fit and start throwing things which then creates noise but my ears seems to put up with it.

 

[Bill Bauer]

I'm tempted to wear earplugs whenever I drive

I went on a road trip once, and after I didn't wear my earplugs for a couple of hours, I got a T spike. This has convinced me to wear earplugs (on road trips I wear noise cancelling headphones over earplugs, or I wear ear muffs to give my ears a rest from earplugs) when I drive.

Wearing hearing protection in a quiet park seems like overdoing it. However, wearing it to a supermarket that has metal carts and those beepers at the checkout counters, might be a good idea. I wear earplugs when I walk by a busy street where trucks and motorcycles might accelerate as they drive by. I don't wear them on smaller, quieter streets. In my experience, underground parking garages are not safe for people like us - they often have heavy metal doors that slam generating tremendous noise.

You will never be able to protect yourself against all noise and spikes. But this also means that everyone whose T has faded has had spikes and still ended up being ok. So try to minimize the number of times you get spikes, but don't worry too much when you get exposed to noise - chances are the spike is going to be temporary.

Use your common sense. You don't want this to become debilitating:

o this behaviour hasn't stopped. The behaviour has actually gotten worse (some of you will read this with a 'WTF is wrong with you' reaction, and that's fair enough, my own family say it to me regularly). Nowadays, I am double protecting in the house and out of the house, in my car (I still drive as I have to for work) and when walking the dog. I listen to the tv and films on subtitles and with no volume. On the rare occasions that I watch something with the wife that requires volume, I can't hear the volume anyway through the double protection. I sleep in earmuffs as I can hear the road outside through the single glaze windows. I take baths and don't shower - if I have to shower it is in peltor muffs. When washing my hair, I used waterproof 'swimmers' earplugs and take great care not to make undue noise and splashing. I don't go out really much any more. I have friends over but make excuses not to go out to restaurants or places where it could be loud. I have even started saying no to golf (sounds stupid, but I have). My world has become a lot smaller. I am getting chewed up inside now as it is my brother's 30th birthday tomorrow and his wife has organised a meal for friends in London. I'm invited, she even consulted me on venue and booked a private room, but as it gets nearer I know that I will likely not go. I want to go, but I feel I just can't. I am also in the midst of a spike right now, caused by some road traffic noise. My front door is 20-30m from a road. I like to avoid exposure here and so run to the car/run the dog past the road to quieter wooded area, but today, I felt my earplugs 'pop' maybe due to wax behind the ear, and I'm now terrified it wasn't in correctly and I've caused lasting damage - this worry and spike is despite me having earmuffs ontop of the plugs.
...I also spend ages pushing the plugs into my ears; if they crack or make a sound or pop, I repeat the process until they do not do this when i take my hand away. Embarrassingly, yet truthfully, it has sometimes taken my 20 mins to leave the house satisfied that they are in ok. If they 'pop' when 5m from the front door, I am back in the house repeating the 'process'.

It is important to mention that these things did not happen to me at once. They were incremental, but they are at the point now where I do not recognise the person I was before they happened. I have almost become used to this life. Trying to do something different or outside of my limited comfort zone, puts me into a panic attack and weeks of protracted stress and rumination. The double protecting within the house started when I was caring for a sick family member, who has since died. I didn't want any spikes ontop of that stress...but since I started doing it, it has now become habit...

Would I like things to be different - obviously yes!
Would I rather live like this than have the tinnitus get worse - sadly also yes, which is why I continue to do it...probably