It's Impossible to Avoid All Random Loud Noises

[iAzra]

@Rhea ARe you still using plugs all the time? I've read your posts and you're reading my mind

 

[Nic B]

Car horns, diesel engines, loud talkers, slamming doors, fire alarms, and the list goes on and on and on.

I've spent too much energy trying to avoid all these things, and its just making me neurotic. And I honestly don't think many of these sudden loud noises have any impact on my T. It's really the anxiety that hits after a sudden loud noise that is the real problem... "Oh no, did that make it worse...(ear check)" You know the drill.

I think we just have to accept the fact that our years will get blasted with some unexpected noise every now and then and move on. Thought?

This here, folks, is pure habituation gold.
You got it buddy!!! The being neurotic about tinnitus is wayyyyyyyyyy more damaging to your habituation than random loud noises.
Be proud of yourself, the realization you just had is a big important one!
GOOD JOB!!

 

[Nic B]

If anybody needs to know how long this couple has been married and they still are married! Ask me.

I'll take a wild guess... is it 25 years?

 

[Joe Blow]

Yeah, I *hate* the random loud noises, but there's really nothing you can do about it -- who knows when they're coming, right?

One thing I've noticed is that, not only have I lost high frequencies (over 12 Hz), but I can listen to the same song about 30 times and never really notice the lyrics that well. The music is in the foreground, the voices are in the background. I'm not sure if that's consistent with anyone else's experience or not..

 

[Ilija]

Bear in mind that most of these unpredictable loud noises will not damage your hearing, even after repeated exposure. E.g. A door slamming is 90Db, which is well within the safe zone for a 1-time event, in fact you could safely be exposed to 90Db for like 2 hours a day.

VERY few loud noises in everyday life run the risk of immediate damage. If it's a one-time, unexpected thing, the best thing to do is ignore it. I still get caught off guard every now and then - it's not nice to be half a metre away from a slamming boot or a shouting person - but I know that, reasonably, there's no way on earth they could damage my hearing in the short time I'm exposed to them.

If a loud noise persists for some reason, I plug my ears (generally with my fingers, I don't carry plugs) and get out of there.

I agree, what seems to make Tinnitus worse for me is my anxiety after these loud noises.
Loud door slam "check tinnitus" "become neurotic again" and there you have it an anxiety spike.
The sound sensitivity I have now is probably the result of me being neurotic and checking all sounds to see if it's me or some other source, after a while my ears just started picking up on stuff.
Then I had a big spike and after it went away everything seemed much lower.
Now I've started focusing on it again and BAM headaches, neck pain from all the stress, anxiety...
But I know I did it once and I can damn sure do it again.

 

[Gosia]

I'm refreshing the topic. I've been doing much better last days. I slept very well two days ago. Another ETN said my T will go away. Normally ''If it doesn't in a month, contact a theraupet..'', but it will go. He gave me hope. I'm in my 6th week and I've noticed a fading of T.
Today at school. HUE, heavy windows, nothing to do with those you have at home. Must be 2 m high and 2m large. It was warm so many windows were open. I was sitting around 1,5m away from the one which suddenly SLAMMED with all the power. I jumped of course but 2 seconds after I only thought that it must have reached my hair cells and probably destroyed a few more of them and therefore all my chances from curing of T are gone are largley diminished. Of course, no possibility to find information about how demaging this kind of things are to ears. Can it compare to a thunder, a gun shot, loud music? If I didn't notice the change in T right after, can I be sure it didn't influence my T somehow?
Has any of you experience a T spike after this kind of sudden slamming of sth heavy?
Of course, it had to be the window right next to me...all the other people were further. What's more I coudln't see it coming cause I had my back turned to it...

 

[geg1992]

I'm refreshing the topic. I've been doing much better last days. I slept very well two days ago. Another ETN said my T will go away. Normally ''If it doesn't in a month, contact a theraupet..'', but it will go. He gave me hope. I'm in my 6th week and I've noticed a fading of T.
Today at school. HUE, heavy windows, nothing to do with those you have at home. Must be 2 m high and 2m large. It was warm so many windows were open. I was sitting around 1,5m away from the one which suddenly SLAMMED with all the power. I jumped of course but 2 seconds after I only thought that it must have reached my hair cells and probably destroyed a few more of them and therefore all my chances from curing of T are gone are largley diminished. Of course, no possibility to find information about how demaging this kind of things are to ears. Can it compare to a thunder, a gun shot, loud music? If I didn't notice the change in T right after, can I be sure it didn't influence my T somehow?
Has any of you experience a T spike after this kind of sudden slamming of sth heavy?
Of course, it had to be the window right next to me...all the other people were further. What's more I coudln't see it coming cause I had my back turned to it...

From what I've gathered, noises like this shouldn't cause problems at all, they're very short bursts and I doubt they're over 100db, or if so not much over! It's the prolonged noises we need to worry about.

This is just what I'm living by, I'm not ENT!

 

[Gosia]

thanks anyway Unfortunately I can't be sure if it wasn't more than 100 db..I downloaded two applications to measure noise, but I'm afraid the're crap and exagerate a bit. Otherwise that means I'm constantly in danger. When I measure my teacher talking at the class, it jumps over a 100 db too, so..Sure it was short. One second. But so are the explosions..Oh gosh, I'm probably panicking, but this window was really heavy..eh :/

 

[Gosia]

Random loud noise again yesterday..a train horn. I don't think however that it was extremely loud cause my boyfriend was even a little closer and it didn't make him jump or whatever and it's a kind of train which replaces a tramway or buses in Sicily, but still..I can't even tell for sure how far I was from it and I just wish I knew the decibels..all I know I was fine lately and now I succombed to unberable noise again. All this during my dream holidays...

 

[Mike TerMaaten]

wasnt even a gunshot or something crazy loud just a really high pitch noise,I guess Ill never really know,two years of hard work and effort wiped out in an instant

Amazing..... Wow. 2 years of hard work and effort, That's exactly what i've done. Complete devotion to getting over T. then 1 little incident, i'm extremely careful

 

[Mike TerMaaten]

Noise-induced damage to inner ear hair cells is actual, physical damage. You can't see it with the naked eye, like you would see a bruise or a cut finger, but in principle it is the same. It's not some mystical phenomenon that we know nothing about; it's as simple as that. The only difference is that, unlike physical damage inflicted on other parts of your body, physical damage to your inner ear hair cells can never repair naturally.

Amazing.

 

[glynis]

Hi Rhea,
Have you tried any desensitizing for your ears and not fearing sound like a fobia and reducing time out side with plugs in as it can get better slowly ?.....lots of love glynis

 

[Nucleo]

Noise-induced damage to inner ear hair cells is actual, physical damage. You can't see it with the naked eye, like you would see a bruise or a cut finger, but in principle it is the same. It's not some mystical phenomenon that we know nothing about; it's as simple as that. The only difference is that, unlike physical damage inflicted on other parts of your body, physical damage to your inner ear hair cells can never repair naturally.

You're right about that. Destroyed hair cells are replaced by scar tissue. The only way to see the real damage is to cut open the cochlea and image it under a microscope.