I Just Don't Understand Why My Ears Are So Reactive

[Tom Cnyc]

It's interesting they state:


Everyone quotes the OSHA guidelines as the gold standard for what is safe.

The World Health Organization (WHO) criteria is much more conservative:
75dbA - 8 hours
78dbA - 4 hours
81dbA - 2 hours
83dbA - 1 hour

Yeah I tend to think it's somewhere in the middle. I go with starting at 75 dB, but use 5 dB as the halving.

I go to lots of shows and the only thing that ever made my tinnitus worse is when I had a BAD ear infection.

I'm always cautious with 30 dB reduction and stand in back. I also only go to licensed shows (105 dB limited in US at FoH).

My tinnitus had faded to almost zero pre infection. Post "spike" (11/1) it has started to show the same pattern again. Up and down. I really only hear it in bed these days but I'm OCD and it keeps me up a bit.

 

[Tom Cnyc]

Do you go on diabetes forums and tell the diabetes sufferers to eat as much cake as they want and to not bother with their insulin shots? The shots hurt and the cake tastes good - you only live once! Whatever you do, do not let diabetes drive your bus.

Actually diabetics do consume some sugar, safely. A more appropriate comparison would be to stop insulin.

You seem very willing to try extreme measures. Why not try Liam Boehm method for us all?

 

[Alue]

@Alue You state that you don't have physical tinnitus which can cause many problems with headphone use. Even for some with no physical tinnitus problems, headphones can still compress many sensory nerves around the outside of the ears including the jaws.

What do you mean by saying I don't have physical tinnitus? I have head and ear tinnitus, and my head tinnitus is somatic. It doesn't change with jaw movements, but if I press on my zygomatic process it zings. I've always wondered why that is.

That's an interesting comment. Maybe the nerves that are agitated do get compressed. It's been that way since my original acoustic trauma before I ever wore headphones or earmuffs.

 

[Alue]

I go to lots of shows and the only thing that ever made my tinnitus worse is when I had a BAD ear infection.

That's interesting. During the fall I had a double ear infection while traveling. Surprisingly it did not get worse (even temporarily) when I had the ear infections and was on antibiotics. But noise that is supposedly safe for everyone will set it off.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Why not try Liam Boehm method for us all?

At first, I thought that Liam was like Gaby - one of the people who had committed suicide. The only mention on this site of Liam that I could find was

Cochlear hair cells can be replenished by fasting, water fasting, relaxing techniques and through health and nutrition to stimulate stem cells in this area.

I have already been fasting and water fasting. Is there anything more to his method?

 

[Tom Cnyc]

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/liam-boehm.30735/ there is a whole thread on him man.

 

[Tom Cnyc]

also - how long have your fasts been, and has it helped at all?

 

[Juan]

This is expressly NOT TRUE. The tests are carried out in the range that someone would actually wear earplugs. These tests were carried out in environments where the dB rating was 85-110 dB based on frequency.

https://www.audiologyonline.com/articles/making-the-case-for-custom-12959

well, that "information" seems a sales pitch for custom earplugs. As someone who has suffered from severe hyperacusis, I have spent the money on both custom earplugs and foam earplugs. For me foam earplugs provide more sound reduction when properly placed. As for the reduction of high levels of noise, when my hyperacusis was at its worst I could hear someone speaking in a normal or even low voice wearing earplugs plus Peltor Optime III earmuffs on top, so I guess neither custom nor foam earplugs provide great noise reduction.

 

[Juan]

It's interesting they state:


Everyone quotes the OSHA guidelines as the gold standard for what is safe.

The World Health Organization (WHO) criteria is much more conservative:
75dbA - 8 hours
78dbA - 4 hours
81dbA - 2 hours
83dbA - 1 hour

All those guidelines are set and drafted so that companies can meet them no matter what. They are not really design to fully protect people from hearing damage, let alone entitle them to compensation for a job-related injury.

 

[Juan]

EU is also a bit more conservative. In European union, EU-Directive 2003/10/EC sets the lower action limit value to LEX,8h to 80dB(A) and Lcpeak to 135dB(C). One of the actions that needs to be taken when one of these lower action limit values is exceeded is to provide the hearing protectors for the workers.

The trick there is that companies can meet standards even if there are frequent peaks of noise well over 100 dbs. If a worker is exposed with naked ears every day to over 100 dbs in the long run there is a fat chance of developing hearing problems due to noise at work.

 

[Tom Cnyc]

well, that "information" seems a sales pitch for custom earplugs. As someone who has suffered from severe hyperacusis, I have spent the money on both custom earplugs and foam earplugs. For me foam earplugs provide more sound reduction when properly placed. As for the reduction of high levels of noise, when my hyperacusis was at its worst I could hear someone speaking in a normal or even low voice wearing earplugs plus Peltor Optime III earmuffs on top, so I guess neither custom nor foam earplugs provide great noise reduction.

Try not to be so cynical man. These people aren't out to get you. Those readings have no reason to be faked.

Also, 36 dB of reduction isn't enough to stop anyone from being able to hear one another. Normal conversation is 65 dB or so, so yeah. You can hear 30 dB conversation. Hearing protection isn't meant to deafen you.

 

[Juan]

Try not to be so cynical man. These people aren't out to get you. Those readings have no reason to be faked.

Also, 36 dB of reduction isn't enough to stop anyone from being able to hear one another. Normal conversation is 65 dB or so, so yeah. You can hear 30 dB conversation. Hearing protection isn't meant to deafen you.

Well, I am just talking about my experience. If wearing high-attenuation earmuffs plus foam earplugs I can clearly hear someone talking, how could earplugs reduce 100db+ sound to levels that are bearable for someone with severe hyperacusis, taking into account that the decibel scale is logarithmic?

 

[Tom Cnyc]

Well, I am just talking about my experience. If wearing high-attenuation earmuffs plus foam earplugs I can clearly hear someone talking, how could earplugs reduce 100db+ sound to levels that are bearable for someone with severe hyperacusis, taking into account that the decibel scale is logarithmic?

I'm only saying that earplugs are rated for high volumes, and should be taken seriously if properly fitting.

When I had truly life altering hyperacusis, I did not expose myself to loud volumes, and didn't go to restaurants except during off-peak hours. My hyperacusis faded slowly over 12-16 months and I slowly introduced louder and louder environments as I felt better. I went from wearing earplugs while watching television / anytime more than 2-3 people were in the room to going to a 3 day music festival in 2 years.

I dunno why our ears have been reactive at times, but my hypothesis has long been that H is related to a muscular issue. Your inner ear has tensed up to protect itself, and like a fist that you held for months on end, has gotten very sore and sensitive. Unfortunately, unlike a fist, you can't voluntarily release these muscles. They're reflexes. It wasn't until I started to calm down about my issues that my hyperacusis started to fade away.

 

[Juan]

I'm only saying that earplugs are rated for high volumes, and should be taken seriously if properly fitting.

When I had truly life altering hyperacusis, I did not expose myself to loud volumes, and didn't go to restaurants except during off-peak hours. My hyperacusis faded slowly over 12-16 months and I slowly introduced louder and louder environments as I felt better. I went from wearing earplugs while watching television / anytime more than 2-3 people were in the room to going to a 3 day music festival in 2 years.

I dunno why our ears have been reactive at times, but my hypothesis has long been that H is related to a muscular issue. Your inner ear has tensed up to protect itself, and like a fist that you held for months on end, has gotten very sore and sensitive. Unfortunately, unlike a fist, you can't voluntarily release these muscles. They're reflexes. It wasn't until I started to calm down about my issues that my hyperacusis started to fade away.

Hyperacusis can go away spontaneously and nobody really knows why. Conversely, it can come back due to loud noise.

My guess about hyperacusis is that there is a combination of causes that set it off, muscles tense up and they are a contributing factor, but in the cases where hyperacusis does stay and becomes permanent there has to be deeper damage, maybe to the haircells or auditory nerve, plus a deterioration of brain processing of sound, maybe due to worse synapsis between neurons. That's my guess out of very long experience suffering from hyperacusis.

Some people experience improvement, sometimes for a few years, and then there is a relapse and hyperacusis starts again. Other people have a brief stint of hyperacusis followed by a long period feeling "weird" around sound, having pressure some days, etc and then one single bad episode with sound makes hyperacusis appear at full blast. I say all these things to warn people not to be caught off guard and be careful with sound, because sometimes hyperacusis is sort of dormant but lurking on the background.

 

[Tom Cnyc]

Hyperacusis can go away spontaneously and nobody really knows why. Conversely, it can come back due to loud noise.

My guess about hyperacusis is that there is a combination of causes that set it off, muscles tense up and they are a contributing factor, but in the cases where hyperacusis does stay and becomes permanent there has to be deeper damage, maybe to the haircells or auditory nerve, plus a deterioration of brain processing of sound, maybe due to worse synapsis between neurons. That's my guess out of very long experience suffering from hyperacusis.

Some people experience improvement, sometimes for a few years, and then there is a relapse and hyperacusis starts again. Other people have a brief stint of hyperacusis followed by a long period feeling "weird" around sound, having pressure some days, etc and then one single bad episode with sound makes hyperacusis appear at full blast. I say all these things to warn people not to be caught off guard and be careful with sound, because sometimes hyperacusis is sort of dormant but lurking on the background.

When I dealt with hyperacusis it was accompanied by ear fullness, which leads me to subscribing to the muscular theory.

In the end, none of us truly know, and most of us are getting information anecdotally from a self-selected source of hard-core sufferers.

 

[Greg Sacramento]

I have head and ear tinnitus, and my head tinnitus is somatic. It doesn't change with jaw movements, but if I press on my zygomatic process it zings. I've always wondered why that is.

That's an interesting comment. Maybe the nerves that are agitated do get compressed. It's been that way since my original acoustic trauma before I ever wore headphones or earmuffs.

The zygomatic process is a protrusion from the rest of the skull, like the bumper of a car. If you are wearing double protection - ear plugs and part of the time headphones in an environment of 80 - 85 decibels, that should bring the sound level down to a safe level.

So it's not dangerous sound levels and according to case studies - the problem would be bone and nerve compression from headphone use that also may be increased with forward head bending. Maybe also complicated by bending your head over a plate of food while chewing. So many case studies refer to this.

There's three sensory bones and many major nerve and arteries that past thru areas around the outside of the ears.

You can find pictures of the nerves and arteries and they will show a heavy network.

Here are the regional bones.
https://teachmeanatomy.info/head/osteology/temporal-bone/

 

[Juan]

When I dealt with hyperacusis it was accompanied by ear fullness, which leads me to subscribing to the muscular theory.

In the end, none of us truly know, and most of us are getting information anecdotally from a self-selected source of hard-core sufferers.

Yeah, we can just draw from our experiences. Ear fullness can be caused by muscles or also inflammation. Permanent sensorineural hearing loss is not caused by muscles, and that what leads me to think of damage to haircells or hearing nerve as contributing factors.

 

[MSF]

To the OP, were you talking a lot while you had your ear protection on? I wonder if what you are experiencing is the result of the occlusion effect rather than the actual environmental noise. Because from what you are describing, you were more than protected against background noise levels.

My one takeaway from having gone through a period of being extremely zealous with ear protection (earplugs) is that the potential harm from things like the occlusion effect, or simply removing your earplugs too quickly, sometimes far outweighs the risk of simply dealing with the noise without them.

 

[Bill Bauer]

also - how long have your fasts been, and has it helped at all?

Normally, I fast for about 40 hours. The last time I eat is at 4 pm. Then I don't eat anything that evening and the following day. Then on the morning of the day after, at around 8 am, I begin eating again. I've done this about 10 times (I've been doing this about once a week). It has helped with my weight, but it hasn't had any impact on my T.

 

[Alue]

All those guidelines are set and drafted so that companies can meet them no matter what. They are not really design to fully protect people from hearing damage, let alone entitle them to compensation for a job-related injury.

Believe me, I know this all to well. You're preaching to the choir. My initial acoustic (blast) trauma was a job related injury.

 

[Alue]

The zygomatic process is a protrusion from the rest of the skull, like the bumper of a car. If you are wearing double protection - ear plugs and part of the time headphones in an environment of 80 - 85 decibels, that should bring the sound level down to a safe level.

My Bose headphones don't really cause that much pressure (not compared to my earmuffs that is). I know it should be a safe level, but I also know I get a very real spike after these situations, it's predictable, and not immediate either. My stress level doesn't seem to matter either. A year and a half ago when I developed a new permanent tone, that was after spending time in a similar noise level with hearing plugs in.

So it's not dangerous sound levels and according to case studies - the problem would be bone and nerve compression from headphone use that also may be increased with forward head bending. Maybe also complicated by bending your head over a plate of food while chewing. So many case studies refer to this.

There's three sensory bones and many major nerve and arteries that past thru areas around the outside of the ears.

You can find pictures of the nerves and arteries and they will show a heavy network.

Here are the regional bones.
https://teachmeanatomy.info/head/osteology/temporal-bone/

There's no doubt that my tinnitus is noise induced, but sometimes I do wonder about how head posture etc. can contribute when the nerves are already inflamed. I do have forward head posture. I hate it, but it's not so easy to correct.

I'm familiar with temporal and facial bones, hence me using the term zygomatic process. Before I got tinnitus I was looking into getting double jaw surgery, but that became low priority and may never happen now.

Is it strange that I can only modulate it by pressing on the zygomatic process? It seems most people with somatic tinnitus can modulate it with jaw movements.

What is the mechanism for noise induced tinnitus being somatic? Is it cross-talk between the nerves?

 

[Alue]

To the OP, were you talking a lot while you had your ear protection on? I wonder if what you are experiencing is the result of the occlusion effect rather than the actual environmental noise. Because from what you are describing, you were more than protected against background noise levels.

My one takeaway from having gone through a period of being extremely zealous with ear protection (earplugs) is that the potential harm from things like the occlusion effect, or simply removing your earplugs too quickly, sometimes far outweighs the risk of simply dealing with the noise without them.

I only had earplugs and no NC headphones for the first hour or so. It was still uncomfortably loud with earplugs.

I wasn't talking a lot, but I did talk some. The occlusion effect is real and I experience it a lot. I have a deep voice which seems to echo and boom when I have earplugs in despite being soft spoken. It makes it hard to communicate with earplugs in while in a noisy environment, but it's better than no earplugs.

 

[Vincent R]

I only had earplugs and no NC headphones for the first hour or so. It was still uncomfortably loud with earplugs.

I wasn't talking a lot, but I did talk some. The occlusion effect is real and I experience it a lot. I have a deep voice which seems to echo and boom when I have earplugs in despite being soft spoken. It makes it hard to communicate with earplugs in while in a noisy environment, but it's better than no earplugs.

The American Navy carried out a study on foam earplugs. They concluded that properly inserted, they provided 15 decibels or more in protection. Moreover, the occlusion effect is hampered if the earplugs are placed deep into the ear, getting down to 7 decibels.

You did everything right. It sure seems odd that your tinnitus is acting up. I can't explain it, but I'm thinking to myself that aggravated nerve damage doesn't sound like a plausible explanation.

 

[Greg Sacramento]

@Alue There's many detailed and complicated articles on cross-talk, but here are two easy to read articles. Many with hearing loss tinnitus up to 2/3 also have physical tinnitus cross over talk.

https://osteopractor.wordpress.com/...logical-considerations-and-treatment-options/

http://www.tinnitusjournal.com/articles/somatic-tinnitus-8696.html

 

[Alue]

@Alue There's many detailed and complicated articles on cross-talk, but here are two easy to read articles. Many with hearing loss tinnitus up to 2/3 also have physical tinnitus cross over talk.

https://osteopractor.wordpress.com/...logical-considerations-and-treatment-options/

http://www.tinnitusjournal.com/articles/somatic-tinnitus-8696.html

Thanks. I'll look at those on the weekend when I have time.

I've been meaning to ask since you seem knowledgeable in this area. Do you know of any connection between maxillomandibular position and cervical posture? I believe mine are related. Years ago I had several lateral cephs that seem to corroborate my suspicion.

 

[Greg Sacramento]

Notice the lower two red jaw lines extending into green lines. The C1 C2 axis has a route to the lower moving jaw. Notably this would also include other discs plus nerves and muscles of both jaw and neck discussed in first link above. Association of cross talk can also include sinuses, Eustachian tube or auditory tube, facial nerve and eyes also discussed in first link in post above.

 

[Alue]

Notice the lower two red jaw lines extending into green lines. The C1 C2 axis has a route to the lower moving jaw. Notably this would also include other discs plus nerves and muscles of both jaw and neck discussed in first link above. Association of cross talk can also include sinuses, Eustachian tube or auditory tube, facial nerve and eyes also discussed in first link in post above.

Thanks. I can see with old lateral cephs that my nasopharyngeal airway is actually narrowed depending on my head posture (which is why I think I have difficult to correct forward head posture as it is more open in this position). This is going beyond tinnitus, but some of your posts make me wonder if there is a connection.

All that being said, the association between noise level (even if it's 'safe') and the way my tinnitus reacts is undeniable. Three years of observation and it's a predictable response.

 

[Greg Sacramento]

my nasopharyngeal airway is actually narrowed depending on my head posture

Some of many thoughts:

The question would be if this happened during childhood or as an adult.
There are a few known connections with this to tinnitus.

With the neck it may be also having a narrowed major artery as well such as the vertebral artery.
With this it can also happen from hyperextension of neck from a laying down position. Or having high cholesterol.

The maxillary sinus is usually sensitive and sometimes salivary glands - oral mucosa, gingiva and other oral complications.

Smoking or being around someone that does is almost always one cause or problem.

A question would also be if laying on your back with head on pillow causes a spike.

 

[Alue]

Some of many thoughts:

The question would be if this happened during childhood or as an adult.
There are a few known connections with this to tinnitus.

It happened during childhood. Poorly done orthodontic treatment: bicuspid extractions and cervical headgear worn at night. I think the cervical headgear had way too much pressure on it.

I didn't get tinnitus until I was an adult. I went from silence to loud tinnitus overnight after a sudden very short duration acoustic trauma.

With the neck it may be also having a narrowed major artery as well such as the vertebral artery.
With this it can also happen from hyperextension of neck from a laying down position. Or having high cholesterol.

The maxillary sinus is usually sensitive and sometimes salivary glands - oral mucosa, gingiva and other oral complications.

Smoking or being around someone that does is almost always one cause or problem.

A question would also be if laying on your back with head on pillow causes a spike.

I haven't really noticed much of a spike with sleeping posture or posture throughout the day., but I will keep an eye out for it.

Right now my head is still screaming from the restaurant. No new tones this time (at least for now).

 

[Greg Sacramento]

nasopharyngeal airway is actually narrowed

It's hard to say what caused your restaurant spike. One could be forward neck/head posture looking over your plate of food while chewing with or even without headphones. Threshold lowering with ear protection is possible as with keywords ears and hearing. An occlusion effect. Any of this can cause effect in a New York minute. The zygomatic process as we discussed above - maxillary sinus pressure from protection pressure of headphones may be cause of spike while moving head.

Consider trying a little warmth all over - a minute here and a minute there from the shoulders up. A warm wash cloth rinsed out from sink facet.

Update: Maybe too much salt or sugar in the food.