Tinnitus and No High Frequency Hearing Loss?

[DanMan1982]

Any connection or info to be shared on tinnitus and NO high frequency loss? I've read that, when this is the case, there's a maybe chance of it going away?

Went to the audiologist, said I have perfect hearing when compared to my pre-tinnitus hearing exam several years ago. They also tested ultra- high frequency, and the came back great, also identical to last exam.

My possible causes: 1-2mg ativan daily for several weeks, or daily anxiety/stress/panic.


Thanks and have a quiet day. God bless.

 

[Dr. Nagler]

Went to the audiologist, said I have perfect hearing when compared to my pre-tinnitus hearing exam several years ago. They also tested ultra- high frequency, and the came back great, also identical to last exam.

When your audiologist says that you have "perfect hearing" when compared with your pre-tinnitus audiogram of several years ago, that is an oversimplification. Nobody has perfect hearing ... because even in the best of cases we lose 0.5% of our hair cells every year of our lives. So just because your hearing thresholds are 20dB or less across the board, that doesn't mean you have perfect hearing. Moreover, audiologists do not test every single frequency. So theoretically you can have a threshold of 10dB at 500 Hz, 750 Hz, 1000 Hz, 1500 Hz, 2000 Hz, etc., but have a threshold of 60dB at 900 Hz ... and your audiogram would look "perfect," because nobody ever tests for 900 Hz.

Hope this helps more than frustrates.

stephen nagler

 

[attheedgeofscience]

Nobody has perfect hearing ... because even in the best of cases we lose 0.5% of our hair cells every year of our lives.

I am not sure that is an accurate statement (re: "best of cases") - it may be true 'on average' however:

The hair cells in the human inner ear are born in the first trimester of embryonic development. These cells are expected to survive, without renewal, for life. Intuitively, it seems that the expectation for a cell to survive over nearly a century is rather demanding and imposing. However, several other cell types in the human body are capable of such long service, including, most notably, muscle cells and neurons.

Source: http://bmb.oxfordjournals.org/content/63/1/25.full

The inner ear's hair cells should last a lifetime, or nearly. But constant noise or a sudden shock from an extremely loud noise can damage or even kill them. And like nerve cells, once they're damaged, they don't heal or regenerate.

Source: www.roche.com/media/store/roche_stories/roche-stories-2012-12-20-10.htm

In other words, people who avoid noise exposure can be expected to maintain fairly good hearing throughout their lives.

 

[Stink]

I am not sure that is an accurate statement (re: "best of cases") - it may be true 'on average' however:

In other words, people who avoid noise exposure can be expected to maintain fairly good hearing throughout their lives.

naglers right you're wrong
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11710464
http://hsci.harvard.edu/hearing-loss-0
We experience the slow progression of hearing loss as these fragile cells die due to excessive noises, exposure to certain drugs, and aging.

people lose hearing every year when they age!!

 

[MattK]

In other words, people who avoid noise exposure can be expected to maintain fairly good hearing throughout their lives.

"Fairly good" hearing is not "perfect" hearing. Also, that the inner hair cells can last a lifetime, that does not necessarily mean they will have their resiliency of when they were "perfect". Just as our teeth could last a life time, that does not mean they are as good at 90 years old as they were at 20 years old.

I'm a little surprised that you seem to be in opposition to what Dr. Nagler was saying. I still remember when I was brand new here, I said my hearing was perfectly normal according to my audiologist. And you were one of the first people to point out that audiologists only test for a limited amount of frequencies, and not every frequency that humans can hear. So you went on to say that just because my audiogram is normal, that doesn't mean my hearing is normal. And that seems to be what Dr. Nagler is saying, but now for some reason you seem to be in disagreement, or am I just misunderstanding something?

 

[Dr. Nagler]

@MattK and @Stink, the important point here is that no matter how cautious one is in life, at the time of death one will not have the same number of hair cells he or she had at the age of three. That is just the reality - because you simply cannot be 100% cautions 100% of the time and live normally. So whoever it is that you are responding to in your posts, that person is talking about theory and not about real life. I don't think it's a matter of who's right and who's wrong.

stephen nagler

 

[Stink]

@MattK and @Stink, the important point here is that no matter how cautious one is in life, at the time of death one will not have the same number of hair cells he or she had at the age of three. That is just the reality - because you simply cannot be 100% cautions 100% of the time and live normally. So whoever it is that you are responding to in your posts is talking about theory and not about real life. I don't think it's a matter of who's right and who's wrong.

stephen nagler

it was attheedgeofscience who said this, one post above mine!
point is attheedgeofscience had to be corrected!

 

[Dr. Nagler]

it was attheedgeofscience who said this, one post above mine!
point is attheedgeofscience had to be corrected!

OK, that explains my confusion then. Thank you.

The important principle here is that in the real world one dies with significantly fewer hair cells than one has as a child ... and while some of that hair cell loss can be reflected in an audiogram, much of it is not due to the technical limitations of the study.

 

[attheedgeofscience]

I'm a little surprised that you seem to be in opposition to what Dr. Nagler was saying. I still remember when I was brand new here, I said my hearing was perfectly normal according to my audiologist. And you were one of the first people to point out that audiologists only test for a limited amount of frequencies, and not every frequency that humans can hear. So you went on to say that just because my audiogram is normal, that doesn't mean my hearing is normal.

Question: In an attempt to determine the validity of two pieces of information, both of which cannot be true at the same time, but where one piece of information is backed up by a source, what does audiological testing have to do with settling the argument?
Answer: Nothing.

Dr. Nagler claim: inner ear hair cells die at a rate of 0.5% per year in a best case situation (no source provided for information).
ATEOS claim: inner ear hair cells have the potential to survive a lifetime (source provided).

Dr. Nagler's claim ≠ ATEOS' claim

Which claim is then true given that both claims cannot be true at the same time? This is a simple exercise in logic, and as such, has nothing to do with audiology, medicine, inner ear hair cells, or whatever else.

The informal walk-through of the above information would be something like the following: best case scenario - as suggested by Dr. Nagler - probably is a situation where an individual is exposed to daily living (and therefore noise, as an example) and hence hearing deteriorates over time at a rate of 0.5% per year. However, the very premise of the argument is flawed because being exposed to daily noise is not a best case scenario (logical fallacy). @Stink then provided a piece of information which only served to back-up Dr. Nagler's assumed argument (remember he did not provide a source), but since we have already established that being exposed to noise is not a best-case scenario, the counter-argument by @Stink is likewise a logical fallacy.

In common plain language, the reason we tend to have deterioration of hearing is because we are exposed to constant daily sources of "ototoxcity" (in the widest possible sense) i.e. noise, medication, genetic factors, disease, and the list goes on. In other words, if we reduced those impacts, our hearing really would survive much much better. Humans have - due to a go-with-the-flow mentality - come to accept that hearing loss is a fact of life (when in fact it does not have to be). But we do not realize this because we do not change our ways of living. That - in a nutshell - is the lowdown of it all. Hence the quote below:

In your own argumentation, you managed to commit two logical fallacies. You can find them in the chart below. I leave it - as an exercise - to find out which ones they were (click to enlarge):

As for the LLLT-thread where @Dr. Nagler was somewhat active (to say the least)...

...the most common fallacies he - frequently - committed were:

1. Appeal To Authority.
2. The Texas Sharpshooter also known as "cherry-picking" (as in cherry picking information to back-up an argument).

attheedgeofscience
18/APR/2015.

 

[Stink]

As for the LLLT-thread where @Dr. Nagler was somewhat active (to say the least)...

you are pathetic, referring to old threads like that!! give it a break!

 

[attheedgeofscience]

you are pathetic, referring to old threads like that!! give it a break!

Perhaps. But at least I can present a logical argument. Which is more than I can say about... (fill in the rest of the sentence yourself).

 

[Dr. Nagler]

you are pathetic, referring to old threads like that!! give it a break!

My friend, the topic is tinnitus in the face of a "normal" audiogram. I logged out to see what all the ruckus was about and immediately logged back in so that the "stuff" would be gone from my monitor. I can now totally understand why you posted what you posted, but for the sake of continued dissemination of information that might actually be helpful to tinnitus sufferers, please try to stay on topic and ignore the noise. The admins here have had to shut down some very good threads over the past months because of precisely the sort of interference you've been objecting to. It's been a pattern.

There's a saying in the South: "Cow shit don't stink 'til ya step in it." I've learned that lesson the hard way over the years. So please take it from me. Watch where you walk ... and stay on topic!

 

[MattK]

My friend, the topic is tinnitus in the face of a "normal" audiogram. I logged out to see what all the ruckus was about and immediately logged back in so that the "stuff" would be gone from my monitor. I can now totally understand why you posted what you posted, but for the sake of continued dissemination of information that might actually be helpful to tinnitus sufferers, please try to stay on topic and ignore the noise. The admins here have had to shut down some very good threads over the past months because of precisely the sort of interference you've been objecting to. It's been a pattern.

There's a saying in the South: "Cow shit don't stink 'til ya step in it." I've learned that lesson the hard way over the years. So please take it from me. Watch where you walk ... and stay on topic!

You're right, I was going to reply to ATEOS' response to me, but I have decided not to because too many threads have been hurled in the wrong direction because he wanted to throw in his 2-cents. Honestly Dr. Nagler, if anyone else responded to this thread and gave your answer, I bet he'd have no problem with it. But since it is you, and he seems to have an ax to grind with you, he decided to nit-pick your answer. As I said in my point earlier, ironically enough when I was new here I made the claim at some point that my audiogram show I had perfect hearing and he gave me an answer very similar to what you gave.

 

[attheedgeofscience]

But since it is you, and he seems to have an ax to grind with you, he decided to nit-pick your answer.

As I said in my point earlier, ironically enough when I was new here I made the claim at some point that my audiogram show I had perfect hearing and he gave me an answer very similar to what you gave.

The following is what I wrote to you (as you claim)...

To understand why tinnitus (and hearing loss) is so much more common than it should be in today's society, we have to look at the human ear in an evolutionary context. Our (inner) ear is simply not meant for the kind of noise levels that we are surrounded by everyday. There is noise when we are in the car, train, airplane; there is noise when we walk down the street, go to the shopping mall, eat at a restaurant, when we go to the fitness club, and... when we constantly listen to portable music...! Our ears were simply not meant for that kind of noise; our ears were designed to be out and about in nature. We are treating our ears like doormats.

...and even though the information is already a year old, it is very much in line with what I stated in my post above (in this thread).

You have therefore managed to commit yet another logical fallacy:

All in all, you have therefore now managed to commit four logical fallacies - which, objectively speaking, says as much as about your intelligence, as it does about your personality.

attheedgeofscience
19/APR/2015.

 

[MattK]

@attheedgeofscience: as I said, I don't want to get off topic in this thread, as Dr. Nagler is right, too many threads lately have had to be locked up because of side-arguments. If I decide to reply to this, it will be in the form of a PM or another part of the board that it is more suited for.

 

[Zechariah]

@attheedgeofscience , thanks for the logical fallacies chart. It is brilliant. Countering logical fallacies will be so much easier from now on when you can actually "name" them. I think I'll also print it and put it on the wall that it's ready when I'm having the next argument with my girl friend

 

[ampumpkin]

good God... and you're gonna tell me that such a behaviour is acceptable on TT? what the hell?? @jazz

 

[linearb]

View attachment 6082
To understand why tinnitus (and hearing loss) is so much more common than it should be in today's society, we have to look at the human ear in an evolutionary context. Our (inner) ear is simply not meant for the kind of noise levels that we are surrounded by everyday. There is noise when we are in the car, train, airplane; there is noise when we walk down the street, go to the shopping mall, eat at a restaurant, when we go to the fitness club, and... when we constantly listen to portable music...! Our ears were simply not meant for that kind of noise; our ears were designed to be out and about in nature. We are treating our ears like doormats.

I have been curious about this, and carried a db meter with me a bit lately. Basically, even walking through a metro station around here, can expose you to close to 90db -- that can't be good for anyone. Ambient volume in my apartment is around 38db, but if I crack a door to the outside (I'm in an urban area) it's easily 65, and upwards of 75 when planes fly (directly) overhead (which they do a lot).

So, whether or not I can help myself at this point by just getting out of that environment, isn't something I know... but I think I'm going to find out! I have had a bunch of experiences where the subjective volume and nature of my T diminish significantly after spending a few days in a much quieter and more naturalistic place.

It sounds like I would be able to go live someplace like that long-term and keep my current job (I can work from anywhere that I have internet access). So, I'm thinking pretty hard, about just doing that -- go live someplace quiet and beautiful for a year or two, and see what impact that has on my T as well as my general stress level and health. If it worked well enough to have some sustained periods of being less bothered by this stuff, then that would probably keep me off benzos.

Time will tell, I guess.

 

[svintegrity]

@linearb You mentioned you were on Klonopin earlier and that it was very devastating. What dosage were you on? I sure hope your experiment of being in quieter places works! As you say, time will tell. Let us know.

 

[linearb]

@linearb You mentioned you were on Klonopin earlier and that it was very devastating. What dosage were you on? I sure hope your experiment of being in quieter places works! As you say, time will tell. Let us know.

I took 2mg/day for years, frequently combined with alcohol. (I was never really a binge drinker, but I probably averaged 2-3 drinks a day for much of that time, and that's obviously a really, really bad idea).

If I ever find anything that works well for me, lifestyle changes or otherwise, rest assured that I will be here trumpeting it from the rooftops.

 

[linearb]

I'd also point out -- Given how well Klonopin "worked" for this problem, I would consider simply reinstating it and trying to move on with my life, but I have a deep suspicion that a lot of my anxiety (and perhaps even my tinnitus) may relate to having taken so much of that crap during the end of my formative years. And, I've read a lot of accounts of people suffering terribly for years after getting off of benzos, and then at some point 3,4,5 years later, really turning a corner. So, given that I've toughed it out 2 years already, I think I owe it to myself and my family to try to just hang in here for a while longer.

I realize that some people might think upending their lives and moving into a rural environment, is a drastic alternative to benzos. Based on my history, I personally choose to think that benzos are a drastic alternative to upending my life and moving into a rural environment.