do your ears ring 24-7?

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anyone notice this thread is from 2003?
when I was a recording major my ears would ring almost all the time I would sometimes have trouble going to sleep. until I read an article about how tinitus is a mental thing and can be treated. Over a few weeks or so it went away completely, after i was convinced it was just in my head. I never notice any ringing now, if i think about it i can hear a little ringing. I think everyone's ears ring a little if they are in a totally quite room and they listen for it. Though Im sure people have much worse cases, I believe alot of it is in our head.how many have had tinitus before they knew what it was? I didnt have it until I heard about it and thought "yeh my ears ring sometimes". and may i remind you, it did keep me awake at night sometimes.
 
royharper3220 said:
anyone notice this thread is from 2003?
when I was a recording major my ears would ring almost all the time I would sometimes have trouble going to sleep. until I read an article about how tinitus is a mental thing and can be treated. Over a few weeks or so it went away completely, after i was convinced it was just in my head. I never notice any ringing now, if i think about it i can hear a little ringing. I think everyone's ears ring a little if they are in a totally quite room and they listen for it. Though Im sure people have much worse cases, I believe alot of it is in our head.how many have had tinitus before they knew what it was? I didnt have it until I heard about it and thought "yeh my ears ring sometimes". and may i remind you, it did keep me awake at night sometimes.
Click to expand...


Tinitus is mental... but it still means your cilia are being damaged. Your hair cells are dying or dead. It's the exact same phenomena as an amputee feeling their limb still there and even imagining sensations. Your brain loses a nerve and creates fake sensations for that nerve. Tricking yourself out of tinitus is just stopping your brain from telling you something is up.
 
Try this if it keeps you awake...

I've had tinnitus for years (from artillery, not music). I sleep with an electric fan running in my bedroom every night -- it masks the ringing nicely.
 
I know this thread is old but Im replying any way. When I sleep in a quite room I can hear a faint ring in my left ear. All it took was one loud concert and a few shots from a shot gun to cause that. I hope someone learns from my mistake. It doesnt take much to damage your hearing.
 
As I've mentioned in the Q-tip thread, I have mild tinnitus and some high frequency loss in my left ear from damage done by a really bad cold. So noise isn't the only thing that can affect your hearing.

I've been wearing earplugs for 12+ years. Yeah, it sounds weird to play a gig or rehearse with them, but once you do it enough you get used to it. Much better than the alternative! I used to use the foam ones, but they muffle too much. Lately I've been using the ones that look like Uhura's earpiece in Star Trek. Much more even attenuation across the spectrum than foam.
 
So how does one go about getting those nice earplugs that are shaped to your ear? Or really anything that doesn't change the sound as much as the foam ones. Do you have to set up a doctor's appointment? Cause my health insurance blows.
 
During the late 60's I had a great rock band and wore ear plugs even then. Never ever had any serious hearing problems.

Then I got drafted into the army and while trying to qualify with a 45 pistol a 1st Lt. got feed up with my not being able to hit the target - walked up beside me and fired a full clip off right beside my right ear. I've had ringing ever since.

I've learned to live it but it can be a pain sometimes. I also notice a difference in intensity when my weight goes up or down.

Strange stuff.
 
Yeah, I'm 21, and I've had ringing ears for about 5 years...

It's because I've been a gigging drummer for nearly a decade, and didn't take hearing protection too seriously. The big killers were a show where I had a monitor blaring right into my ear, my guitarist and I writing a song when it was WAY too loud, and Audioslave's second show ever. :)

Anyway, there are some developments I've been following very closely.

Apparently, gene therapy may be able to regrow damaged ear hairs:
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=43502

Another method of treatment is "laser therapy" which looks promising:
http://www.rj-laser.com/therapy/tinnitus study.htm

And finally, there's chemical treatment. I couldn't find the same stuff I was reading, but here's the American Tinnitus Association's current abstracts of research:
http://www.ata.org/research/current.html

The best thing to do is to grab a few $10 pairs of earplugs...they flatten the music out instead of killing high frequencies, and put those things everywhere. I have them at my house, in my cymbal bag, and in my car.

- Jarick
 
First, I want to thank the person who started this thread and also the person who resurrected it. I've got both tinnitis and some high frequency hearing loss, probably due to some stupidly loud garage-band jamming as a teenager.

But over the past few years I've also developed a new set of symptoms that have so far baffled a team of doctors, and I want to know if anybody else is experiencing anything like it.

When I'm exposed to high-volume noise in a reverberating environment (like, say, screaming kids in a middle school gymnasium), I get a buzzing sensation in my right ear that's really uncomfortable, but not exactly painful. It's kind of like having someone play a kazoo through my ear canal, or like listening to a speaker with a torn paper cone.

I lived with it a few years without much concern because it only happened in really loud, acoustically "live" environments, but now its happening at lower volumes and in a greater number of settings. And it's happening in both ears.

I've had several sessions each with a GP, an ENT, and an audiologist, but nobody can find a cause for these sensations. Right now I'm trying to make an appointment with a neurologist.

Anyone want to play armchair diagnostician with this? Anyone out there experiencing the same thing?
 
I hears something about manganese, but need to research it.

I use the vic firth cans and they are very limiting, then I mix into them, better than completely reducing all sound b/c that's too drastic.

George Thurogood and They Might Be Giants did it to me.

I always have plugs with me in a small film can and some alcohol swabs to clean my fingers before inserting, they are very cheap about $2 for 100, and get plugs a lot at a time very cheap, sometimes I get the flesh colored ones and cut them in half, with a clean scissor, I don't need an inch of plug w/ 1/2" hanging out my ear.
 
Hey Hapi,

I get the same thing too, except it's from any loud noise. It's just the right ear, and it feels like the pressure in my ear goes way up, and it doesn't go back down until after the noise goes away. Sounds like speaker crackling when it goes up or down, and it's very uncomfortable.

I also haven't heard anything about it.
 
i have slight higher frequency loss in my right ear. It seems when i put earbud headphones into my ears, the vocals seem more to the left side...its quite weird. And im only 16! im a drumm but its not from drumming cause ive ALWAYS worn protection when playing, its from seeing bands like Sum41 and being in the pit where they blow the shit out of the speakers until you cant even hear the mix nicely...its just loud. So i actually got my dad to get me a pair or the medical ear plugs, like the 200$ (im Canadian so its more) but because of out health plans we got 3/4's of it covered. My dad already had a pair and he told me about them because he saw me going out and giging with my band alot and he thought it just might be more suitable than the sponge-type ones that i had been using..so theyre VERY helpful ...all you need to do is go to your doctor and ask him! Anyways lesson learned NO MATTER WHAT ALWAYS WEAR EARPLUGS AROUND LOUD NOISES!
 
If you're in your twenties now and play rock without plugs, you'll be hearing your drummer's sizzle cymbals 24/7 when your 57, just like me. Do yourself a huge favor and wear 'em.
 
David Artis said:
During the late 60's I had a great rock band and wore ear plugs even then. Never ever had any serious hearing problems.

Then I got drafted into the army and while trying to qualify with a 45 pistol a 1st Lt. got feed up with my not being able to hit the target - walked up beside me and fired a full clip off right beside my right ear. I've had ringing ever since.

I've learned to live it but it can be a pain sometimes. I also notice a difference in intensity when my weight goes up or down.

Strange stuff.
Click to expand...

That really sucks. I get bitter when I catch a cold from someone. You are noble for your forgiveness.
 
pdadda said:
So how does one go about getting those nice earplugs that are shaped to your ear? Or really anything that doesn't change the sound as much as the foam ones. Do you have to set up a doctor's appointment? Cause my health insurance blows.
Click to expand...

Go to this site for more information on earplugs and the partner clinics where you can purchase them and get them custom fitted: http://www.hearnet.com/index.shtml

Musicians earplugs: http://www.hearrecords.com/shop/index.shtml


I just got a pair of these and used them at a gig for the first time last week, and they are excellent! I could hear everything and there was *no* ringing afterwards! I had to pay for them out-of-pocket, but they were worth every last penny!

-mr moon
 
thanks to all you guys who are warning the younger crowd to protect our ears, just thought I'd let you know somebody is listening. I'm 23, in a band, and while playing a show doesn't seem to bug my ears, practices in a small room sure do, so I usually stuff kleenex in them after they start to get annoyed, but after reading this I'll start plugging them up right off the bat. Same goes for shows. I'm also starting to do a good deal of mixing, and I've heard that 90 dB is the optimum mixing level, which is quite high by my standards, because I prefer mixing at a comfortably low volume level. But I want better mixes, so I'm turning it up, but should I be worrying about my hearing at this level? I guess nobody here is a doctor, but what do you think? Oh, and is there an easy way of telling what dB level my monitors are putting out? They're Behringer Truths, running out of an old Mackie 24-4. Thanks again for the warnings.
 
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old cars

mine ring. went cross country (almost coast to coast) in an old, extremely loud van. 4 long days of white noise. the day i arrived, my ears rang.
*@$#%@&$#

think i can sue ford?
 
well, I' cant agree more. I haven't developed any hearing loss so far, but I use plugs whenever I go to performances since all of my friends tend to like to stand next to the speakers. sometimes it actually HURTS to stand next to them (but I can imagine you can all vouch for that :) )

using earplugs is like changing or cleaning contacts... don't, and you'll get fucked eventually...
 
I think I have seen 85db as the recommended mixing level. There is some kind of meter you can get at Radio Hut fairly cheap I hear. I also like to mix pretty quiet at least to start. Once I think I have a decent sound, then I turn it up to check the critical stuff. If I have it loud from the start, by the time I get things set up my ears are already too shot to do critical mixing.

I have had that kazoo thing happen in my ears before too. But it was at a loud venue. Sometimes i would plug my ears for temporary relief. I HATE it when the sound guy is one of the hearing-damaged, and he doesn't know he is killing us with the treble! Happens all too often in clubs. I hate myself when I forget my earplugs. I thought I had really done it at a gig recently; my ears rang for like 4 days and I was worried. Luckily they are pretty much back to normal now. But I sure don't want to slip up again and cause something more permanent.
 
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