I'm mostly a lurker on this forum, but I wanted to post about this exact topic for a while.... I love loud and noisy music, but I also want to preserve my ability to enjoy it for as long as possible...

Anyway I wanted to share this panel discussion about hearing health https://www.youtube.com/live/KTJKsskbTxQ
It's hosted by Andrew Scheps (who also interviewed Steve) and they go into quite a lot of detail discussing hearing health, both from a physiological perspective but also how it relates to working in the music industry etc.
I definitely want to learn more about some of the things they discuss.

By the way, I also recall Steve mentioning somewhere in a podcast that he often wears earplugs on tour, except when he's on stage... I found this fascinating...
I wonder if it is possibly related to something quite crazy they mention in the video, i.e. people having more or less hearing loss in response to the same sound pressure depending on whether or not they enjoy the sound (i.e. person attending a concert vs factory worker)...

I hope this may be interesting for somebody else.

For anyone with mild to moderate tinnitus like me … try this One Weird Trick I read somewhere:
1. Put the palms of your hands over your ears, fingers to the back (kind of perp-walk position)
2. Leaving your palms over your ears, blocking them, drum your fingers on the back of your skull as hard as you can muster for a count of 50 or so - should sound like booming in your head
3. Enjoy a break from tinnitus

It works for me about 70% of the time, relief is in minutes or more.

I haven't had my ears checked in a few years, but the last time I got them tested things were looking pretty ok! I definitely have some tinnitus, but it's such a high frequency that I don't notice it or mind it very much.

Anyway, I didn't come here to share my personal tinnitus story. A few months ago I was told about this app "AudioCardio" and I've only tried it for a day because you have to pay. But basically, they claim that they can improve you hearing, and apparently they are backed by some science (I didn't verify it). I figured I'd share it in case someone is at their wits' end with tinnitus or hearing damage and is looking to try another thing. I'm also realizing this post kinda sound like a scammy ad "I've tried this NEW THING and it cured my _____"

I haven't posted here in a couple years and this is by far the weirdest comeback.

Damn, there's a name of legend! Welcome back!

Little ringing at times. Seems to depend on how well I clean my ears tough which makes no sense to me. Fun story. Use to know a enginner that would use a oscilator to tune into what freq. she was ringing at.

Even with years of playing in bands, I managed to avoid the tinnitus all the way until Dec 2019, when it just switched on all of a sudden. Now it's always there, which caused some disorientation and getting used to. I'm ok with it. High pitched and light, and it kinda fluctuates between a couple notes. Did some stunt guitar for a bandmate's solo stuff, and did manage to conjure up a guitar tone which matched my tinnitus exactly, which was kinda neat (Beetronic's Swarm Pedal was the key if anyone's curious). I was always pretty good about earplugs at shows after a certain point, and for sure in a loud rehearsal room, but I also play in a band without drums as my main thing, so I'm not getting blasted as regularly, either.

Went and saw some friends play at the Bottle back in April and the orange bullet cones just weren't cutting it. Had massive ringing and even a touch of headache afterwards, so we upped our plugs to Loops, and they're much better. Not cheap, but not too pricey, either. $35? They're little hollow rings with an ear plug that kinda work like a car muffler. We got the "Experience+" variant of the Loops which has a ring that cuts 18dB, plus a little rubber gasket that fits in the loop for an extra 5dB of extra protection. I like how they feel, and they nook right into the folds of the ear, so they really don't pop out. I did lose one at a big outdoor thing because the case is kinda squirrelly, but I'm hyper vigilant now. Some loud music maven in Vice gave a pretty solid rundown on them, and fittingly they said they saw a band with FM Rich F in it, and those of y'all that know him know he pushes a lot of air. Good enough for me so far.

Oh shit. I forgot about my massive vertigo problem in Jan of 2022. Dizzy, couldn't walk, constant spins while laying down that made me nauseated. Made my eyes ping-pong back and forth. Old buddy from touring days is an ear doc now, and I guess I struck the lottery on otic stones. They're little microscopic crystals that get dislodged from the ear and can rattle around in the ear canals. I somehow ended up with them in both my horizontal and vertical canals. Fucking suuucked. Ended up going to an ear specialist who essentially took me through a series of yoga moves (the Epley Maneuver) to get the stones out of the canals. I think I did five sessions, and the vertigo was cured, but at least it was expensive and my health insurance covered basically nothing. It was unlike anything I've gone through, and I only wish it upon my worst enemies. You know who you are.

^^^^^ That sounds completely awful, glad you got it sorted.

I had a weird ear thing for awhile, I was getting these occasional shooting pains in my ear, mostly the left one. Varied in intensity, sometimes barely perceptible, sometimes It Really Fucking Hurt. Went on for months. Couple nurses at my docs office thought it was allergy related, tried various things, nothing worked. Finally got to talk to an actual doctor instead of a nurse practitioner, and he was more clueless than they were:

He asks "any ringing?"
"Oh yeah, of course."
"How long has that been going on?"
"Haha. Decades."

And I could see his eyes light up "aha! His tinnitus must be the cause of the pain!" I'm like uuhhh, ima guess you don't know any musicians? There's no 54 year old musicians/audio engineers who don't have at least a little tinnitus, I assure you it's not the problem, my hearing's fine, I'd know if it weren't, my clients would tell me.

So he refers me to a specialist, I tell him what's up, he says "yeah you're clenching your jaw, you described the symptoms perfectly, just stop doing that."

Problem: Solved.

I have always had tinnitus in both ears, for as long as I can remember. I recall pretty clearly being fairly young, like 7 or 8, sitting in bed, hearing the little rings behind all the white noise as I lay in bed at night. I thought it was normal to hear this ringing. Funny, recently I read a story about a woman who was told in her 50s that the ringing in her ears that she had all her life was tinnitus and she thought it was just a normal thing that everyone heard. I'm sure we're not alone in that though.

The last couple of years, my tinnitus gotten a little bit louder, even though I don't expose myself to loud sounds much these days. Within the last year, even louder. Sometimes, I will come up from the basement where my office is, at the end of the day, and it'll be dead quiet in my house and my ears will be ringing like I just got back from a show and hadn't put earplugs in. This might sound awful and terrifying, but the honest truth is, I barely even pay attention to it. I've had it for so long, it's just natural for me to tune it out. So, sometimes I really notice it, but only after awhile, if I have nothing else on my mind, but then I'll completely forget about it.

I went for a hearing test last year and another one this year. I have above average hearing for my age, in fact statistically I have better hearing that people 20 years younger than me, and I'm almost 50. There is a consistent dip in the 4k range for both ears, though the last time I went in (about two months ago), the technician said I have asymmetrical hearing. Very mild, thankfully. I don't really notice at all. One thing that was difficult this last go around was hearing the sounds over my tinnitus.

There have been huge advances in the study and treatment of tinnitus within the last decade, and some really significant findings even in the last two years. There's been a discovery of a connection in the frontal cortex with tinnitus rings, that's kind of like a feedback loop, considering that tinnitus rings are essentially the hearing damage equivalent of phantom pain you would feel in your amputated arm. It's not really understood completely yet, but the theory is if you can somehow disconnect the feedback loop, you could remove tinnitus.

That being said, there's cognitive therapy for those who cannot live with tinnitus. The therapy essentially helps you tune it out. So, I don't think I really need it. However, there's some new technology that's available to go even further: it essentially tunes your brain to the tone in your ears to dull it, though it will never go away. I've brought this up with my ENT, who happens to have studied under a doctor who specializes in tinnitus. I ran this by her mentor and she verified that it is legit, as well as provide another piece of technology to look into.

This is the one she sent me - https://levomedical.com/
And this is the one I came across that she verified - https://neosensory.com/product/neosenso ... -tinnitus/

I don't know how much the Levo system costs, but you have to go through a doctor to get it. The Neosensory Duo, however, you can purchase/rent strait from them. I'm considering trying the Duo this year. Insurance does not cover tinnitus, unfortunately. You're kind of on your own there.

However, I have discovered that I have another type of tinnitus in my right ear, and this one is a real problem. It's Pulsatile tinnitus, and it's a problem because hearing high pitch noises tends to make my ear fizz and distort, with a slight physical sensation, along with a pressure, kind of like the feeling of the air pressure change in an airplane. Sometimes, the air pressure change happens when bending over or laughing for too long. Along with the pressure change is a pulsating sound - the sound of my pulse. Sometimes my hearing will go out temporarily in that ear.

I recently got an MRI and two CT scans, because sometimes this is caused by a benign tumor that grows in the ear canal (it's actually quite common and also linked to asymmetrical hearing). I just got my test results and while it's great to know I don't have any growths in my head, there's absolutely no evidence of what is causing the pulsatile tinnitus. Sometimes, this is due to high blood pressure, but I don't have high blood pressure either. It's really awful to have something wrong with you and find no evidence of what the problem could be. If it were a growth, my options would have been radiation, possibly surgery. But, I think my only option left is to just live with it. The only mechanism that seems to work is wearing really good earplugs. I have gone to a few shows over the years, but I have to wear earplugs the whole time, even when the music isn't happening. Just the sound of a crowd in a small room can set it off, which means I also have to wear earplugs in restaurants or out in public if there's not very good acoustic treatment. Band practice is really difficult, I can't really play live in front of amplifiers or it'll eventually set it off through the earplugs. So, band practice is actually at home, through amp pedals and vdrums, into headphones, where I can make sure the volume is really low.

My quality of life has suffered, but I wouldn't say that it's made life miserable. I just need to have earplugs on me all the time, and if my ear gets set off, plop an ear plug in and go about my business.

My left ear issue is still there but much less than at the start of this thread. About a year ago maybe.. don't remember the circumstances too well (may have been high) but all of the sudden I felt/heard a squishy sound in that area, almost like something was dislodging a bit. It lasted several seconds. It was weird and maybe a little.. satisfying? So perhaps that helped a bit, or maybe I've just gotten used to it to the point of barely noticing or caring.