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Hearing Loss and Ear Plugs

#941
Update to the post above.

Now that I have a little more time using these things, I guess those whiskers really aren't necessary. Yesterday at rehearsal I found I could pull the plugs out easily enough by grasping the body of the plugs. Just a matter of getting the right angle.
 
#942
I finally made the move.. I got myself a pair of custom ear plugs.. Gonna try that over the weekend, see if it can stop my ears from bleeding due to my egotistical volume demon of a guitarist..

bouchons.jpg
 
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#943
NightW0lf said:
I finally made the move.. I got myself a pair of custom ear plugs.. Gonna try that over the weekend, see if it can stop my ears from bleeding due to my egotistical volume demon of a guitarist..
Click to expand...

Haha, well I'm sure this guitarist of yours isn't the first to fall under the "egotistical volume demon" category...! Hope those plugs work out for ya! They look good.
 
#944
I wear cheap shooter's foamies, the bright green Remingtons. They cut way more dBs than fitted, balanced plugs (I still have those so yeah I A/B'd them). Noise reduction and saving your hearing is the point of plugs, period. Save the enjoyment of nuanced sound for when your role is that of music consumer and you put on your best phones. At work, foamies give you all the information you need to do your best. Don't fool yourself. If you use foamies at work, you'll HAVE some hearing left to play the audiophile.
 
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#946
P bass guy said:
Thank you for the tip about window down while driving. I have been under stress lately and have been smoking cigs often while driving, so my window has been down. this explains why my left ear has been driving me nuts. Time to stop smoking in the car.
Click to expand...

Or just stop smoking... You probably spend a high end used bass on that every year.
 
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#948
edpal said:
I haven't read the entire thread - way too long. BUt I'll add this - driving with your car's window down at highway speed, from what I read in an article by an audiologist, is about as damaging as 120 db. Lot of high frequency sounds being produced by the wind rushing past the opening and/or your ears. Convertible drivers and helmet-less motorcyclists are exposed to even more of that. Since reading that about 7-8 years ago I don't roll down MY window or I use the foam roll-up earplugs I keep in the console for the ear that is facing outward. Has seemingly helped my tinnitus and overall hearing tremendously. I was driving around my uncle who has tinnitus, first request he made was for his window to be rolled up, kicked his tinnitus up terribly.


Oh, if you hate plugs you could also consider buying really good quality headphones and using a small mic pre-amp and a mic to monitor the players around you. Like if you play in a garage and the drummer is 5 feet away from you and everybody else likes to turn it to 11. Current band plays in a very small room but we have a great headphone system.....I can feel my bass notes hitting my legs but feel like I am playing in quiet resturant. Bliss
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Couple years ago I drove from east coast to middle of rocky mtns, during one of the hottest summers ever. About 1\2 hour into the trip, my A/C failed. I had the family, so didnt want to stop and spend hours trying to get it repaired. Rolled down the windows and kept going. 3 long days later I got to my destination with near total deafness in my left ear.
 
#950
NightW0lf said:
I finally made the move.. I got myself a pair of custom ear plugs.. Gonna try that over the weekend...
Click to expand...

So, I tried them the first weekend and noticed, (contrary to the strong advice from the audioprothesist to get the 15 DB version) that 15 db was way too much, I ended up not wearing them more than 30 minutes. So I had the filters changed to 9db and tried then this weekend.. Guys, if you go that way, get the 9 db filters, it's plenty.

No buzz in my ears this morning, nor last night for that matter.. A good investment.
 
#951
I told my last band to turn down all the time. Given that we were all 16 they looked at me as if I was an old man asking them to 'stop blasting out rap-hop out of their boom-speakers'.

I just thought I was clever enough to realise that excessively loud noises aren't good for you and the macho noise competition isn't good for creating music. Ear plugs all the way.
 
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#952
JoeBbass said:
I told my last band to turn down all the time. Given that we were all 16 they looked at me as if I was an old man asking them to 'stop blasting out rap-hop out of their boom-speakers'.

I just thought I was clever enough to realise that excessively loud noises aren't good for you and the macho noise competition isn't good for creating music. Ear plugs all the way.
Click to expand...

Yea the rest of my band are strictly anti-earplugs, despite me clucking at them endlessly like an old hen!
 
#953
It would be easy...and it's often done...to blame my tinnitus on banging away in rock n roll bands through my teens well into my 40s...but that doesn't factor in the 18 years I spent working at various and sundry radio stations...living inside a pair of cans, up loud in search of that delicate balance between music and voice. You wouldn't have to have a degree on the wall to know about the damage I did to my ears along the way..but, hey, I was 28, and then 38, and still bulletproof!
Tinnitus is one of the maladies (I'm closing in on 60) I've come to live with. In all honesty, going out to a club or concert happens less often now than in years gone by, and much of the music I lean toward is focused on the acoustic side of things. I recently said to one of my Bluegrass buddies that, just maybe, I wish I had fallen off that side of the wagon when I was 16...but the Alice Cooper side of the wagon was just irresistible back then. Making a living...and not much of one...inside the cans was the kill shot.
I'm REALLY interested in visiting an audiologist to find out more about a pair of custom fitted earplugs. Thanks, Funkster. Thanks, Pacman.
 
#954
This is an invaluable thread! I want every 18 year old musician in the world to read it...just the way I want to walk up to every 18 year old cigarette smoker I see and preach about putting them down now, rather than when you're 55...'cuz you don't see very many 75 year old smokers...ya know?
 
#956
I've been using Radians One-Step Do-It-Yourself Custom Molded Ear Plugs for a few months now. I can hear the bass, drums, guitar, keys and vocals a'right...sometimes the vocals could be a little more pronounced but that may be partly the singers mic technique?
The ringing in my ears is no different after a jam than before (as I too was young and bulletproof for a portion of my life and now endure tinnitus) and we can get pretty loud for old dudes :bassist:
For about $20 seems like a pretty good deal to me!
http://www.earplugstore.com/radians-custom-molded-ear-plugs.html
Cheers!
 
#957
the harp unstrung said:
This is an invaluable thread! I want every 18 year old musician in the world to read it...just the way I want to walk up to every 18 year old cigarette smoker I see and preach about putting them down now, rather than when you're 55...'cuz you don't see very many 75 year old smokers...ya know?
Click to expand...

I agree with both. Wish someone would go back in time and slap me in the face for both starting smoking and listening to ridiculously loud music.

I really don't like the constant ringing in my ear, climbing up the stairs isn't fun either...
 
#958
A few days ago I suddenly lost virtually all hearing in my right ear. This was accompanied by the sudden onset of severe tinnitus in that ear. I immediately went to a specialist, who diagnosed it as auditory nerve dysfunction of unknown origin. I am being treated and the doctor is optimistic that my hearing might be restored. Me, not so much. He has forbidden me to even be physically located in a place where music is being played until this is resolved.

Other than this most recent episode I have had high-pitched tinnitus for ten years--24/7/365--but it has not affected my hearing and I've pretty much become accustomed to it. The new tinnitus is lower pitched and consists of three or four types of noises that seem to alternate and ebb and flow. Aside from the almost total loss of hearing in my right ear, the tinnitus is driving me crazy.

My main job is a Russian-English interpreter. This situation, if it becomes permanent, will mean the end of my career as an interpreter. (This is not a huge tragedy per se, as I am nearing retirement anyway.) As for music, I suppose I will be able to continue but at a greatly reduced level of functionality and enjoyment.

I would greatly appreciate any advice, input, words of encouragement, etc. from any of my TB colleagues who have dealt with this or a similar situation.
 
#959
I assume you are on steroids, if you started taking them fairly quickly, there should be a fairly good recovery , but not always... No promises unfortunately...

The next week will reveal all, there is plenty of hearing aid equipment available that will help no end, if the recover is not as hoped for.

Do you have a hearing loss on your good ear?
(I work in an audiology team in a large hearing aid company)
 
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