Hearing Difficulties?pardon?

[Alan Day]

I have made a joking start to this posting but it is a serious subject that many people do not discuss.It is embarassing to miss hear or to ask someone to repeat what they have said for the third time.

I did not even think I had a problem in this area,my wife often says that I am not listening to her (a common male complaint) but often I just did not hear her or misheard what she was saying.I finally gave in and went to the hospital for a hearing test and sure enough I have partial hearing in the upper register.Quite bad in one ear and not too bad in the other.When there is a lot of peripheral noise I have great difficulty in hearing what people are saying and many times have received a peculiar look when I said yes when I should have said no,or visa versa.

What has caused it? I think excessive noise.I am an X Rock and Roller and ballroom dancer.I have played in bands for thirty or more years.I love listening to music in the car.When driving long distances with the window open the music gets turned up.The next morning when I get in the car the noise is deafening when the radio comes on.I have a sit on mower that is very noisy and makes my ears ring.

Many of you will recognise and have difficulties with the high pitched whistling in the ears.Then there is concertina playing,session playing,band practices in someones kitchen.In my Rosbif days at Mels house, there was in his basement me on concertina ,Mel on French Pipes,Keith on fiddle,Richard on Bombarde and Helen on Cello, I cannot begin to describe how much noise that is.

In Australia recent tests are showing that listening to MP3 players are creating a new generation of people with hearing problems.

I recently went to a party and one person was standing on his own and went and talked to him,I immediately noticed that he could not hear me properly and said I understood his situation.This chap was nearly in tears after a while( not due to my stories) but the fact that he was having a conversation with someone.He had not wanted to attend the party, always in public he would avoid talking to anyone and rarely went out of his house.

I am writing this as many of you will have good hearing,be careful and look after it. Many of you will be like me and I hope you will talk it over.

Al

[Jeff Stallard]

Wow, that's too bad. I have trouble hearing my girlfriend, but I think it's mental in my case. Kind of makes me glad I'm not a fan of concerts.

[Mark Evans]

Alan dear friend, I am in the same boat. I cannot understand most of what my children say(perhaps ingorance is bliss). They blur consonants in the popular speak of the day and I often find myself guessing at what they're talking to me about.

 

My students are warned: Use consonants and ole' Roly-Poly will comprehend.

 

I also had my hearing checked. A mirror image of your result.

 

In my case I suspect the years spent as a logger and later a carpenter using a chain and radial saw coupled with trap and skeet shooting in my early 20's. I was very foolish and wore hearing protection sporadically at best.

 

It distresses me to have my middle boy Claude with his portable CD player clapped to his head with the volume so loud that I can clearly hear the lyrics to Insane Clown Posse (shiver) . I ask him to turn it down and his reply is that the lower volume decreases his level of enjoyment. I look at him and say "eh, what did you say me boy". He smiles and turns the volume down temporarily.

Edited August 18, 2005 by Mark Evans

[Alan Day]

Jeff there was an article in the paper recently to say that men do have problems listening to women.The part of the brain which picks up speech from man to man is different from from man to women.To hear a womens voice it is the part of the brain which picks up song and men have to concentrate on that area to hear.

So "You never listen to a word I say" (how many times have I heard that),we have an excuse.

I pointed this article out to my wife and her reply "RUBBISH".

You just cannot win.

Al

[fiddlersgreen]

I believe there are some new and expensive hearing aids that are computer programmed to enhance only the frequencies that need to be amplified. Having spent many years in ship's engine rooms I expect I will have to learn more about this. Does anyone here have any experience with this type of hearing aid and how well does it do with acoustic music. Mike

[Ashkettle]

Over the years I've lost more of my hearing than I care to think about.

 

I would love to blame it on my time in the Army, but to be honest, I'd say it was the years of going to (and performing in) Punk Clubs with no earplugs.

 

My wife understands that I have some hearing problems (much to her dismay when she is trying to sleep and I want to finish watching a movie on TV), but I often see that look in her face that tells me I missed an entire conversation and am within inches of having a glass of icewater poured on my head.

 

Of course, I'm sitting at my desk with my MP3 player in my ears (nice bluegrass podcast for the moment) so I guess I'm just an idiot who deserves what hearing problems he has.

 

My problem is really with the lower registers though.

[Alan Day]

Your time will come Mark,when he has children you will hear him saying to his kids exactly what you are saying to him now.

Trouble is he will not remember you gave him the warning.

Mind you some of the sayings you come out with,even if my hearing was perfect, I would not be able to understand you.

Al

[Richard Morse]

I have pretty poor hearing too. It wasn't until getting into my latter 40's that I started noticing some hearing loss, particularly of the upper frequencies, and some minor

tinnitis. My doctor said that that's par for the course in aging men....

 

Unfortunately the next year I came down with labyrinthitis which cleared up quickly - but really did a lasting number on my ears. Since then I've had very little hearing in the upper registers and considreable tinnitis.

 

Apparently people can get ear infections which aren't substantial enough to cause labyrinthitis but still cause progressive hearing loss. So being a rock musician for most of your life isn't the only way to loose hearing. I've never been into rock or amplified music, and have only been to a couple concerts... and yet I have little top end left. It's no longer a joke in my family when my son lets me know that the phone is ringing....

 

A curious side effect to this upper-end hearing loss is that I can no longer tollerage even moderately loud noises. Just clinking dishes while washing or putting them away is painful. Hand clapping is *very* painful. If it weren't for earplugs I would have had to stop going to dances and sessions.

 

About those musician's hearing aids: While not quite "aids" (in the sound enhancing way) some of my friends use ER's products which are sound attenuating for various playing situations and instruments - and report really great results.

[Richard Morse]

I have pretty poor hearing too. It wasn't until getting into my latter 40's that I started noticing some hearing loss, particularly of the upper frequencies, and some minor tinnitis. My doctor said that that's par for the course in aging men....

 

Unfortunately the next year I came down with labyrinthitis which cleared up quickly - but really did a lasting number on my ears. Since then I've had very little hearing in the upper registers and considreable tinnitis.

 

Apparently people can get ear infections which aren't substantial enough to cause labyrinthitis but still cause progressive hearing loss. So being a rock musician for most of your life isn't the only way to loose hearing. I've never been into rock or amplified music, and have only been to a couple concerts... and yet I have little top end left. It's no longer a joke in my family when my son lets me know that the phone is ringing....

 

A curious side effect to this upper-end hearing loss is that I can no longer tollerage even moderately loud noises. Just clinking dishes while washing or putting them away is painful. Hand clapping is *very* painful. If it weren't for earplugs I would have had to stop going to dances and sessions.

 

About those musician's hearing aids: While not quite "aids" (in the sound enhancing way) some of my friends use ER's products which are sound attenuating for various playing situations and instruments - and report really great results.

[Spectacled Warbler]

Alan, thanks for telling us about the article explaining why men can't hear women. It was the best laugh I've had all day. In fact I'm still chuckling an hour later.

 

' To hear a womens voice it is the part of the brain which picks up song.......' So, so, true.

 

I showed the post to my better half, and he agreed with it, so it must be right.

 

I hadn't the heart to point out to him that when you wrote 'recently published' you meant about 5 months ago on 1st April.....

 

 

Joy

[JimLucas]

As usual, I want to caution folks to beware of oversimplification. Hearing damage may well result from exposure to too-loud noises, but when people with low-frequency loss suffer the same difficulty understanding speech as those with high-frequency loss, it suggests to me that there's more involved in the speech-recognition problem than just narrowing the range of sounds that you're sensitive to.

 

In fact, my most recent hearing test confirms that I can still hear sounds too faint for most people to detect, but for as long as I can remember I've found it almost impossible to understand speech if there's any sort of background noise. (I was advised by friends that if I wanted to learn Danish, I should listen to conversations in pubs. It doesn't work for me, since the normal background noise level in pubs is so high that I can't even understand clearly spoken English. )

 

Also, I worked for a while doing transmission testing for the phone company, where I learned that the range of effective frequencies for speech is 1000-3000 hertz. The phones are (or at least were then) designed to cut out frequencies above or below that range, since they just act as noise, making speech more difficult to understand. So if you have poor high-frequency hearing and you're having problems understanding -- or hearing -- speech, the first is probably not causing the second.

 

I have pretty poor hearing too. It wasn't until getting into my latter 40's that I started noticing some hearing loss, particularly of the upper frequencies, and some minor tinnitis. My doctor said that that's par for the course in aging men...

Unfortunately, that's true. Though not everyone suffers significant hearing loss with age, many do, and it can hardly all be blamed on listening to excessively amplified music. A common caricature of one or two hundred years ago is the old man with an ear trumpet. Farsightedness and blindness are other problems commonly associated with aging.

 

Women can also suffer age-related hearing loss, though I think it's more common in men. And on average, women's high-frequency hearing is better than men's at all ages. (I've told the story before of my friend who could hear bats, and who suffered physical pain from the whine of my computer terminal, which I couldn't hear at all, even when I tried.)

 

A curious side effect to this upper-end hearing loss is that I can no longer tollerage even moderately loud noises. Just clinking dishes while washing or putting them away is painful. Hand clapping is *very* painful. If it weren't for earplugs I would have had to stop going to dances and sessions.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

"Side effect" seems right. Maybe due to the same cause, but if noises with high harmonics cause you physical pain, yet you can't hear them, that sounds like two distinct effects.

[Samantha]

I have pretty poor hearing too ... [snip] ... - and report really great results.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Rich, I assume you posted this twice for the hard of hearing ?

Samantha

Edited August 18, 2005 by Samantha

[stuart estell]

Unfortunately, that's true.  Though not everyone suffers significant hearing loss with age, many do, and it can hardly all be blamed on listening to excessively amplified music.

 

Not all, no, but at the ripe old age of 30 I know exactly what has been responsible for destroying the top end of my hearing - I had tinnitus by the time I was 19, because I spent about 3 years playing in a very loud band band that relied heavily on guitar feedback, which is difficult to produce at low volumes, and when turned up has a terrible effect on your hearing. I have no doubt that as time goes on I'm going to really regret it.

 

I always wear ear plugs to gigs now, because I find even moderately loud volume levels uncomfortable.

[Mark Evans]

Mind you some of the sayings you come out with,even if my hearing was perfect, I would not be able to understand you.

Al

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Guilty as charged Al. A number of folks north and far east of the Mason-Dixon line have a hard row ta' hoe with my "isms".

 

As far as hearing aides: I hope they have improved. In the early 90's I had the opportunity to work with a Bach conductor up in Vermont who has no equal. In her 90' deafness had long set in. During rehearsals she would turn up the aides to hear every note. Frequently the cellist would have to tell her that they were feeding back.

 

During performances she turned them off and just felt the vibrations. She was magic.

[Wrigglefingers]

It's not just a male experience either. My hearing is shot at the top end, caused largely, I suspect, to habitually standing next to the bass bins at gigs. Conversation is difficult with background noise and I now avoid going to the pub as I haven't a clue what's going on most of the time. Although that may not be only be due to hearing loss.........

 

Incidentally there was an article on women's voices and the male response to them on Womans' Hour on Radio 4 today; this is the link.

 

Jill

[Richard Morse]

I have pretty poor hearing too ... [snip] ... - and report really great results.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Rich, I assume you posted this twice for the hard of hearing ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sorry about that! I didn't mean to respond twice. Looks like it was some net lethargy 'twas responsible for it. For some reason the concertina.net site was reeeeeeeally slow earlier today. I had to wait several minutes for each page to come up. When I did hit "add reply" nothing happened for the longest time... So I hit it again... which probably caused the double posting.

 

Though in this context it seems very appropriate!

[bellowbelle]

My husband is usually quite hard-of-hearing and though he does have a hearing aid, he doesn't like it so he doesn't use it. He's suffered a lot from tinnitus, too.

 

I, too, though far less than he has, I think -- have suffered from both some hearing loss and tinnitus, though both these conditions seem quite variable....which is why I am posting this.

 

Don't automatically give up all hope right away! They SAY that tinnitus is incurable, and in many cases it is, but mine comes and goes. I remembered, after several years, that I even had tinnitus as a child, but it went away. Usually, too, when it goes, things may even seem to be at the opposite extreme -- everything seems very quiet, and the tiniest noise seems amplified.

 

As for the deafness, mostly right ear, but even that is variable. I finally started to regain my hearing quite a bit after getting some treatment for headaches/migraines. So, apparently in my case there's a combination of conditions that contribute to it.

 

I found tuning forks to be helpful in my own self-treatment -- not just the sounds of them, but the actual vibrations the forks give when struck, sometimes make my hearing shift.

 

Also, although it's not recommended by every doctor or nurse and you should first be sure of what you're doing when you put stuff in your ears, I've had some good results from putting drops of certain oils and mixtures into my ears. I THINK garlic oil is one of the ones used, and mullein....don't take my word for it.

 

I KNOW that some hearing losses cannot be corrected and I don't mean to trivialize the frustration they cause. But, I really had gotten to the point that I thought my own hearing (and sense of well-being, balance, etc.) was really cooked. So, it was amazing to actually get it back, at least in large part.

 

For the record, though it is not the most popular treatment for migraines, the drug that I take once in a while for a headache (and that seems to help my hearing) is Fioricet. (I do rely on natural treatments, but, I appreciate this 'modern miracle' kind, too!) It seems that some people think it is addictive or gives them side effects, but, all it does for me is makes me feel normal again! I mention it because it took me YEARS to realized that I was actually having migraines....I'd had a preconceived idea of what a migraine is, and so I didn't realize that I was actually suffering from them.

[JimLucas]

Rich, I assume you posted this twice for the hard of hearing ?

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WWoouullddnn''tt tthhaatt bbee ffoorr tthhee hhaarrdd ooff sseeeeiinngg?? :D