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Damaged Hearing - My Story
I know threads have been created about this before, but I think it is an important subject and I think creating a new thread inherently gets more attention than replying to a thread several pages long already from a year or two ago. I hope someone finds my story useful.
About four years ago, 6 months or so into learning music production, I bought a pair of decent production headphones to produce on. I have produced and listened to music probably 95%+ of the time on them since then. They are good headphones overall, but they really clamp on the ears, and of course at excess volumes and long lengths of time can really mistreat the ears.
Essentially, for the past 4 years I have blasted my ears, sometimes for 8 hours in one day with music. About two years ago I was in my truck and in a rare moment of quite. It was night, in a semi-rural/suburban neighborhood where few people lived and I hadn't turned my engine on yet, so a very quite environment. That's when I noticed a faint noise in my right ear. The best way I can describe it was like someone vacuuming their car 3 houses down. In fact, had it been a Saturday afternoon that's probably what I would have thought it was. Since then, with a few isolated time periods, that sound has remained the same but hasn't gotten worse. I can go days without being in an environment quite enough to hear it (I have a loud a/c or fan on at night), a luxury many people with tinnitus don't have, but if it is quite, I can hear it. I think it is very minor tinnitus and it likely will never go away (hasn't in at least 2 years), but so long as it doesn't get worse, it isn't a big deal.
About a month ago I did an 8 or so hour session on a track (one of the ones I submitted to Colors so you better include it Raphie!!!) and at the end of the night my ears just hurt. Especially my right one. The next day was probably the worst day for my hearing in my life. It actually kind of hurt to listen to an instructor talk in one of my summer classes. I had constant moderate ringing, couldn't hear as well as usual, pain, ect.
To make a long story short, I was extremely lucky (again). I reduced my volume a lot and tried to not use headphones as much as possible. It took two weeks or so, but all of my symptoms went away except one. Still, a month later, certain high frequencies ring in my right ear and are minorly painful. A quick research and it seems like I have something called hyperacusis and I am just going to assume it will be permanent. I will probably have to take several more months to basically limit sound to all but a minimum. Hopefully with time it will go away with this measure. As a goal oriented type-A personality, taking a "break" from a major pursuit in life is not in my repertoire. But I really have to do something this time.
Overall, I actually consider myself really lucky. I mistreated my ears for 4 years in the studio, and even well before then as a listener on my ipod nano. My entry level tinnitus hasn't gotten worse despite years more of bad habits. I can live with the ringing in my ear when I hear high frequencies. It's annoying, but it isn't constant and so many people have it far worse.
Take Away Message:
The process of incurring an irreversible problem with your ears may not be gradual. I had no reason to think my relatively unremarkable 8 hour session a month ago, like so many others, would suddenly cause hearing damage that likely will be permanent. Keep the volume low. Don't wear headphones for hours on end.
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Songwriter/artist and reluctant producer.
My Soundcloud
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