I Still Don't Understand How Loud Noise Can Cause Tinnitus, Yet Not Necessarily Hearing Loss?

[DT_N_DA_CLUB]

So at 85 dB 8 hours you can get hearing damage. Most of us agree that standard is high for people with damaged ears and we say 4 hours can cause hearing damage.

It seems like some people that went to a noisy bar for a couple of hours. Maybe the music hovering around 85 db has had spikes.

So in case of the person that had a permanent increase did that also associate with hearing loss too.

It doesn't make sense if there was no change in your hearing after 2 hours of 85 dB that it can give a permanent increase in tinnitus.

 

[Bill Bauer]

It doesn't make sense if there was no change in your hearing after 2 hours of 85 dB that it can give a permanent increase in tinnitus.

It doesn't make sense for giraffes to have necks that are That long. And yet there they are.

 

[threefirefour]

It doesn't make sense for giraffes to have necks that are That long. And yet there they are.

Well from an evolutionary perspective it does, to eat higher leaves. What doesn't make sense is the fact their laryngeal nerve does that thing where it goes all the way down it's neck and back up.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Well from an evolutionary perspective it does, to eat higher leaves.

For our purposes, giraffes' long necks didn't make sense to the ancient Romans, just like what T does doesn't make sense to us now. Eventually it will all make sense. Meanwhile we are to observe what T does and act accordingly.

 

[DT_N_DA_CLUB]

I know tinnitus isn't fully understood. Can there be nerve damage without hearing loss?

 

[Aaron123]

Can there be nerve damage without hearing loss?

Without measured hearing loss on an audiogram, yes.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Without measured hearing loss on an audiogram, yes.

Could some people's T be due to nerve damage? Could an acoustic trauma cause nerve damage?

 

[JurgenG]

It's also possible without any damage I believe. Just like neck patients can have T.

 

[PaulBe]

Could some people's T be due to nerve damage? Could an acoustic trauma cause nerve damage?

Sound is an energy, and the middle ear is all about specialized functions. Excess light energy can damage the eye, excess heat energy can destroy the skin, sound energy is just another energy acting on specialized tissue, and in (individualized) excess, it will do damage. The lottery comes in not being able to know how much is too much until its already happened.

 

[Kratos]

It's literally impossible to have T without hearing loss, everybody who is alive losses hearing slowly year by year, so everyboy has some degree of hearing loss.

 

[fishbone]

It's literally impossible to have T without hearing loss, everybody who is alive losses hearing slowly year by year, so everyboy has some degree of hearing loss.

That's not always true. People can possibly get tinnitus from neck issues/tmj, stress, meds. Noise induced tinnitus seems to be very common, but hearing loss and tinnitus is not always a direct correlation...

 

[Gman]

That's not always true. People can possibly get tinnitus from neck issues/tmj, stress, meds. Noise induced tinnitus seems to be very common, but hearing loss and tinnitus is not always a direct correlation...

Everyone is continually losing cells in their body - it's normal. Some get replaced, some like the hearing hair cells do not (unless of course you're part bird). So it is progressive - it is accumulative. Hearing loss happens with aging, even if it is not perceivable or measurable. What the tipping point is between hearing loss and getting T, seems to be a mystery because it doesn't happen to everyone.
So I guess to emphasise what you're saying, hearing loss isn't a good predictor for developing T and there are many other possible triggers for it. But everyone one alive has hearing loss to a certain degree.

 

[fishbone]

Everyone is continually losing cells in their body - it's normal. Some get replaced, some like the hearing hair cells do not (unless of course you're part bird). So it is progressive - it is accumulative. Hearing loss happens with aging, even if it is not perceivable or measurable. What the tipping point is between hearing loss and getting T, seems to be a mystery because it doesn't happen to everyone.
So I guess to emphasise what you're saying, hearing loss isn't a good predictor for developing T and there are many other possible triggers for it. But everyone one alive has hearing loss to a certain degree.

No one is here to argue against aging and hearing loss Everyone is different, and not all results are the same...

I made the point that just because one has tinnitus, doesn't mean that they will always have hearing loss or vice versa.

 

[DT_N_DA_CLUB]

So I guess my point is that people can possibly get a permanent increase in tinnitus by being exposed to a night out at a loud bar for a couple of hours but the noise isn't damaging for that duration. So If a person was exposed about 85db in 2 hours without any increase in hearing loss how does their tinnitus change permanently if there wasn't a permanent threshold change?

 

[Dem]

So I guess my point is that people can possibly get a permanent increase in tinnitus by being exposed to a night out at a loud bar for a couple of hours but the noise isn't damaging for that duration. So If a person was exposed about 85db in 2 hours without any increase in hearing loss how does their tinnitus change permanently if there wasn't a permanent threshold change?

Maybe sound not loud enough to hurt healthy hearing cells is loud enough to damage yet damaged and weakened synapses and hair cells.

 

[Tempest]

My theory is that all chronic tinnitus have to do with hair cells dying, either due every day noises or just normal aging. Just because you cannot hear change after a hearing loss, doesn't mean that it didn't happen. It can happen over-night just due normal aging. If one of your hair cells dies and its responsible for hearing the frequence, let say 4302Hz, you never would notice. That's how things like mp3 codec do, they delete frequences that ain't important and that's why most people can't really tell the difference between a compressed and an uncompressed audio file.

 

[Starthrower]

A few different ideas for you. The frustration with this condition - tinnitus - is the lack of actual proof or explanations.

And when there are explanations they are often challenged with other studies.

https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-have-tinnitus-in-one-ear-but-no-hearing-loss

While many hearing disorders also have concurrent tinnitus, it is also not at all unusual to have tinnitus without an ear disorder or hearing loss because there are many, many causes of tinnitus. Unilateral (one-eared) tinnitus with hearing loss should be evaluated for possible ear and hearing nerve problems (such as acoustic neuroma), but it can occur alone and sometimes will become bilateral (two-eared) tinnitus at a later date.

https://www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/hearing-health/tinnitus/causes-of-tinnitus/


Most cases of tinnitus are linked to hearing loss caused by damage to the inner ear. This type of hearing loss is called sensorineural. Another common cause is exposure to loud noise.

Less commonly, tinnitus is linked to hearing loss caused by a blockage or ear condition that affects the outer or middle ear and stops sound waves from passing into the inner ear. This type of hearing loss is called conductive.

https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/understanding-tinnitus-basics

Although tinnitus is often associated with hearing loss, it does not cause the loss, nor does a hearing loss cause tinnitus. In fact, some people with tinnitus experience no difficulty hearing, and in a few cases they even become so acutely sensitive to sound (hyperacusis) that they must take steps to muffle or mask external noises.


https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/looking-for-feedback-—-drs-office-idea.26688/


Basically, in a nutshell, I ended up seeing tons of specialists because I was told my hearing was normal and therefore the cause of my tinnitus had to be non-auditory related. So the message would be to physicians: rely less on audiometry and more on patient history – specifically a history of noise exposure.

 

[Marko Nakovski]

I have had tinnitus for almost 2 years after party indoors. After my tinnitus onset I still continued to go out to bars, nightclubs and loud places with earplugs. Everything was fine before I did a terrible mistake and went out to shoot indoors and I developed hyperacusis. After that my ears hurts from almost any sound, but my tinnitus hasn't changed and my hearing is good like before. Lots of people have tinnitus or hyperacusis but don't have hearing loss.

Tinnitus, hyperacusis and hearing loss share some similarities for sure but they are all different which means that the ear is very, very complicated. The more I'm searching, reading and trying to understand the mechanism of the ears the more I realise how far away is mankind from understanding the complexity of the ears. One can have only hyperacusis, only hearing loss without tinnitus or hyperacusis, tinnitus and hyperacusis without hearing loss and many different combinations.

 

[Emperor-Drax]

What if you had tinnitus (along with an extremely sore ear) from noise exposure, but then the tinnitus goes away? Could it be that the inner ear parts weren't damaged, instead the tinnitus was due to a high level of middle ear distress?

 

[PeteJ]

That's not always true. People can possibly get tinnitus from neck issues/tmj, stress, meds. Noise induced tinnitus seems to be very common, but hearing loss and tinnitus is not always a direct correlation...

But, the worst cases of T - people here posting saying it's loud or they constantly get spikes or that it is drowning out other sounds - how many of those are related to TMJ?

I don't know if this is correct or accurate but my impression of those who have TMJ or bad TMJ seem to have T at a lesser volume or it's 'less debilitating?' Maybe, I am wrong, though. I have some TMJ or my dentist thinks so. He said there is nothing I can do about it, though. He just told me to eat soft foods and relax my jaw. I watched some youtube exercises for relaxing your jaw and my T seemed to 'pause' or change for a split second but nothing major. The 'spike' or current loud/high frequency T I often have nowadays didn't go down or anything. But, 'pulling my ear' for one of the exercise was kinda painful....isn't that strange or is it normal?

I think the damage or nerve damage - in which the cochlear damage is present - I wonder if the brain communicating with the auditory system is receiving communication that 'something is wrong' and then one or the other or both are just 'talking to each' other about it and it just comes out as ringing, buzzing etc. as T? I think the researchers/scientists need to figure out how/why it's happening and hopefully a clue/understanding will allow for something to be done about it.

I hope the upcoming devices/treatments work - meaning offering sufficient improvement. If any can help hearing loss, that is good, too, obviously.

 

[PaulBe]

What if you had tinnitus (along with an extremely sore ear) from noise exposure, but then the tinnitus goes away? Could it be that the inner ear parts weren't damaged, instead the tinnitus was due to a high level of middle ear distress?

I can be that the tissue damage is there but at the sub-clinical level, as in you don't perceive it because enough reconstruction has occurred that renders the left over damage irrelevant in practical terms. That, or you could become aware of a perceptible change in the right conditions, but at the everyday level you don't notice it. The body just reconstructs, but "healing" is our subjective interpretation of the results of that reconstruction. Like I said a year ago: lottery. Small injuries can do big damage and big injuries can leave minor damage, and all points between. Its all about luck.