Audiogram and Other Hearing Test Results

Would you like some feedback on the results of your audiological evaluation?

Post your audiograms and other results in this thread.

Feedback is not guaranteed, but our members do their best. Also, none of us are medical professionals unless otherwise stated.


Information published on this thread and website is not intended as a substitute for medical advice. For medical care, consult a medical professional.

 

I was able to dig the old results I got 1 month after I started to experience tinnitus.
At that time there was slight drop at 4K but when I play that tone myself both ears seem to be identical.

I personally noticed that I lost high frequencies in the left ear but this just happened after the cold and flight 3 weeks ago. Before that I was able to hear all the tiny details.

I have a feeling that my hearing gradually got worse in the left ear after the tinnitus. I wish I would know why.


I don't know if what happened to me can be called acoustic trauma?
Yes, I did listen to some music but not at painful levels.

It might be from listening to the iPad every day for 45 min at gym. (not at full volume - 75-80% or less).

It might be from two audio sessions I attended in the store. (1.30m each at 75-100 dB levels, average 80 dB).

Or it might be from playing the high frequency tone to test my hearing (that showed capability to hear up to 18400 Hz).

I wonder what @attheedgeofscience thinks about my tests?

Sometimes I feel like lost in my left ear is more depressing than the tinnitus.

I love high frequencies and the details in that spectrum and losing it is huge disaster for me.
I was always an enthusiast of listening to music at low levels to appreciate the purity and quality of the sound. Not hearing that anymore sucks so much. I made a mistake at some point. BUMP!!!

 

The hearing test included the speech frequency range from 0,250 to 8 kHz.

Your left ear shows early signs of the NIHL (a notch at 4 kHz with 25db HL); the loss is not severe. Over time it may get worse and become what is called a "cookie bite" in audiology terminology. Generally your hearing is what it should be for your age. But according to specialist literature on audiology and tinnitus - such as that authored by Dr. Wilden - "dips" on an audiogram, along with ski-slope HL with a magnitude of 20, 25, 30 db or more, is a cause for concern (in relation to tinnitus). Your left ear is possibly also beginning to show early signs of loss in the lower frequencies.

The HL between right and left ear is slighly asymmetrical. The scanned audiogram is slightly unclear, but as far as I can tell, there is no significant deviation between air- and bone-conduction tests (which is as it should be). The test included the 3 kHz frequency; the 0,125 kHz frequency was excluded (but would probably be worthwhile examining in a future audiogram re: possible reverse ski-slope HL, left ear).

Without a full range audiogram (0-16 kHz), a proper audiometric assessement is impossible; HL can occur at any and all frequencies (and unexpectedly).

 

they say my hearing loss is mild, less than 20%, one ENT told me around 5-10%, mine looks more than that... I don't know how to read them, but it doesn't look good to me.. they didn't seem real interested in my tinnitus or my results.. any opinions?

 

Thx
What would be the best next steps in your opinion?

Also do you believe that I might be hearing better when t started and after cold and flight hearing might get worse?

 

@jeannie

I have a similar audiogram as you do with a downward slope in the higher frequencies. One ENT said that the inner ear is sending errant signals to the brain causing tinnitus. He recommended seeing Paula Schwartz. I've never been there, but talked to them on the phone a couple times. http://www.tinnitusclinicminnesota.com/.

Others say that the noise is coming from the brain only (Autifony & some ENT's) One ENT I seen said his tinnitus went to his brain and that Intratympanic steroid injections would not help him. ( he has since left and they no longer do the dexamethasone injections for tinnitus) http://www.pehni.com/patient_ed/tinnitus.htm

I will try to find my most recent audiogram and post it.

 

Here is my audiogram from yesterday. A few comments:

1) I note a slight difference in the air-bone gap in my left ear (in blue) at the 4k range. I still have some inflammation on my left eardrum and my ENT says that he thinks that difference is because of that inflammation that seems to be getting better.
2) Not noted here, but I have a downward slope in the high frequencies on both ears. I believe down to about 50dB near 16k range (the machine cut off after 16k)
3) The sound sensitivity test is at the bottom (Hyperacusis). According to the audiologist, anything above 85dB is considered sound-sensitive, so it shows both my ears are slightly sound-sensitive starting in the high frequencies.

They also matched my tinnitus SL to about 9dB and the tone to be around 1500kHz (although I think I screwed that part up and I think it is more in the 4-600kHz range).

My tinnitus is mainly situated in my left ear, sometimes small sounds appear on the right side but 95% it is on the left side.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

 

I have done 2 audiogram once last month and once yesterday
Both seem normal upto 8khz

 

@marqualler My audiogram pre-T somehow looks like yours.

I have attached:
- 1 audiogram before I had T (from 2011)
- 2 audiograms after I got T
- 1 DPOAE after I got T

I'm sure that I have a steeper gap around 6-6,3khz, if it was tested out more finegrained around that area. When I listen to:

20Hz to 20kHz (Human Audio Spectrum)

I cannot hear the sound between 6-6,3khz'ish at all, if it is a little low in volume.

 

What is the tinnitus clinic recommending for you? I may go there as it's a little over a hour away for me.

 

I have had three hearing tests, including a bone conduction test. They were all up to 8 kHz and I was informed each time that my hearing was within the normal range and that I did not need a hearing aid. I asked why the higher frequencies were not tested and was told that equipment to do this was not available and that it wasn't necessary as human speech ranges only up to around 8 kHz, so it seems that audiograms in the UK are geared purely towards whether or not a hearing aid is required and tinnitus is irrelevant, so I'm not surprised that progress in understanding this disorder is slow. I wasn't offered a copy of my audiology report. The attitude just seemed to be, we don't know what causes it, just go away and do relaxation exercises and plug in a sound machine.

 

It's up to me at this point. I could go through TRT but it's so expensive. The doctor I met with didn't seem to think hearing aids would be that beneficial to me. I'm thinking what I will do is wait and see if I keep habituating and work on mindfulness, etc., to try to get the same effect as TRT. If not in a few months, I'll see if I can dig deep into my pocketbook to pay for it...

 

I must add, one of the audiograms was carried out at a private tinnitus clinic (hearing test up to 8khz). They also actually tried to determine the frequency of my tinnitus, for which they had the equipment, and told me my tinnitus was about 10 kHz, although I said I could hear two different sounds, so I found this difficult to do. I would have thought such a clinic would be able to perform an audiogram for frequencies higher than 8 kHz, but they also told me the equipment for this didn't exist. They told me they could offer me treatment that would cost £3000, but didn't explain exactly what it was, but I suspect it was Neuromonics, I didn't ask because I felt that their main purpose was to make money and not to understand or assist in the research and treatment of tinnitus.

 

Hi. Does anyone know if results of a tympanogram showing a stiff and rounded middle ear system contributes to T? Does this mean fluid or ear infection (current or past?)
Also can anyone comment on the hearing test results? I am posting both test results below. Any light that could be shed on this would be greatly appreciated.
Doctor says; a"your left ear is stiffer than the right and you have some hearing loss but we won't be giving out hearing aids today" Not very helpful to me. Idk. Maybe it's just me expecting some me sort of explanation.

 

I finally had the high frequency audiogram test which I attach here. It is just a screenshot from the software as audiologist did not have the setup to print the correct high frequency report. The audiogram shows some loss in high frequencies in the left ear which matches exactly what I noticed. My left ear has tinnitus which might be 10K sound where I have the slope on the audiogram. (I never tried to match it but it is similar to 10K or higher frequency)
It is extremely difficult to catch those high freq sounds during the test because I hear my own T and when light hi frequency sound is generated I had hard time noticing it as I was distracted by my own T. When I asked the audiologist to tell me the frequency before each test it was much easier to hear the difference as I was concentrating and listening for incoming sound if any.

 

This is my latest audiogram:

I am trying these hearing aids today:http://www.samsclub.com/sams/ghi-simplicity-premier-ote-hearing-aid-pair/186212.ip?navAction=

 

I have had a dpoae test done, it has shown that in my left ear emissions are normal up to 4kHz but above that (or close to 5kHz) they disappear. From an amateurs point of view I am assuming that for those frequencies my hair cells are dead, not responding or something along those lines. Is this correct anyone know?

I have a normal audiogram, with no notches in it but have straight tone t in my left ear and an intermittent t tone in my right ear. On my audio report it say results indicate normal cochlear outer hair cell function for the dpoae test, which I find odd, how can it be normal if above 4kHz there are no emissions for the left ear.

@attheedgeofscience sorry im going to link you as you seem to be a person who can answer these questions, feel more than free to ignore if busy

@martin12 I know you have had a few threads discussing these tests as well, any insights on this one?

 

I wouldn't stress about this test. There are different criteria for a pass other then all the emmisions being present. They look at the SNR and I think the pass (showing normal outter hair function) can be based on a minmum mean SNR in both or each each ear.

 

@attheedgeofscience

Here is my latest hearing test, any input would be most appreciated. This test is up to 16khz, it's scribbled right below the 125-8kz portion. Also the acoustic emmisions test was done up to 16khz as well. I see my hearing drops off dramatically after 8khz, prior to the sudden hearing loss I could easily hear up to 17khz, I know this for a fact, I had a highly tuned ear from being in the audio industry for most my life.

Thanks so much!

 

No problem.

For your age (of about 40 years old), your hearing within the speech frequency range (0-8 kHz) is really quite good. You can in fact see the "speech banana" has been drawn (in a grey background colour) on this particular audiogram - and you are nowhere near entering that region. Additionally, you are within the "official limits" of showing no hearing loss i.e. hearing thresholds within 25db HL for a standard audiogram (0-8 kHz). In the very high frequency range (>8 kHz) you are showing a drop beyond that (especially right ear). However, there is relatively little literature on very high frequency audiology as the medical community has developed a practice of not testing it because there is no "need" from an audiology point-of-view (i.e. you don't need the higher frequencies above 8 kHz to detect speech, as you probably know). Furthermore, an audiogram cannot be used in order to detect tinnitus directly. But, based on literature from Dr. Wilden - who has refined the concepts of audiology for tinnitus purposes - early symptoms of cochlear overstrain start already with a hearing loss of 10db (or more). I had four consultations with Dr. Wilden (each lasted about 30 to 45 minutes), and I also had follow-up conversations via e-mail and telephone and I have also spent many hours of reading his online material, and based on that, I have no doubt that someone such as Dr. Wilden would say that your tinnitus is due to hearing loss in the higher frequency regions. Your hearing loss is asymmetrical (left/right ear) which provides a further clue (e.g. a unilateral ear infection, ototoxicity from topical ear medication, auditory insult from a single source of noise, etc.). The hearing test did not include the 0,125 kHz frequency; the 3 kHz frequency was included; a bone-conduction test does not appear to have been carried out. That is what I see.

From my own personally acquired knowledge, there does not necessarily have to be a correlation between tinnitus severity and the extent of HL. In other words, it is perfectly possible for your complaint of "severe bothersome tinnitus" to be true both subjectively (and objectively!). Another "proof" of this is all the people who attend concerts and end up with tinnitus after the event. In many such cases the hearing threshold returns to normal levels some 24 to 48 hours after the auditory insult, but the tinnitus remains (and in some cases is severe regardless of audiometry findings which typically would be what they were before the incident).

It is difficult for me to "recommend" any remedial approach really. The conventional medical community (i.e. your average family physician, ENT, or neurologist) does not address subjective tinnitus diagnostically nor are they in a position to treat it (they don't have the competence/knowledge to do so as we are all aware). If you approach doctors who work within niche fields of medicine (e.g. Prof. Jeanmonod in Switzerland or ENT surgeons at the Acquaklinik in Germany) they will have a more refined understanding of tinnitus within their fields of study. A pre-consultation via telephone with Prof. Jeanmonod (neurosurgeon) would typically take some 15-20 minutes and based on your audiogram he would probably conclude that you do have a loss of auditory input to the brain - which is the primary objective he tries to ascertain before being willing to accept you as a patient at his clinic (other criteria is that you have had the condition for a year or more and that you have made attempts to somehow rectify your situation via other means e.g. TRT, CBT, and/or off-label drugs). The patient review starts off with a high resolution EEG-scan which looks for a clinical finding of thalamocortical dysrhythmia (a concrete and objective diagnosis). Regardless of the exact findings, however, most patients will probably receive the diagnosis: chronic and resistant tinnitus. An ENT surgeon, on the other hand, and with knowledge of the latest developments in otology medicine would approach the situation using a mixture of objective findings along with a narrative diagnosis (i.e. letting you the patient tell the doctor what transpired prior to you - the patient - developing tinnitus). If there is sufficient evidence to suggest that you would qualify for an intervention using drugs such AM-101 or OTO-311, that could then theoretically proceed. The only problem is that the pharmas are currently not willing to supply doctors with their drugs for non-study purposes (I have previously attempted it via "official channels" i.e. a physician licensed to partake in clinical trials, and the answer from the pharmas was "no" even though the surgeon was willing to perform the procedure).

The above highlights the two main areas whereby the practical arm of medicine (as opposed to the theoretical arm) is attempting to treat patients medically: the neuro-perspective (loss of auditory input causing dysfunction(s) in the brain) and the cochlear-perspective (associated with certain pathology states of the inner ear, see literature on NMDA receptors, for instance). The AM-101 trial is aimed at acute tinnitus. The OTO-311 trial which is expected to go ahead later this year and does not yet a have a patient eligibility profile defined - at least not the last time I was in contact with Otonomy Inc (04/FEB/2015). But it is perhaps possible that they will accept patients with a longer history of tinnitus. I am also aware that Gacyclidine (OTO-311) is considered a more potent NMDA-antagonist than Esketamine (AM-101). AM-102 is of course another development which may be coming forward later on, but may only accept healthy volunteers to begin (and all of this is purely speculative on my part - and hence my use of "may").

Recently, there was a medical finding in relation to a single patient study of tinnitus which showed that tinnitus is "all over the brain" (or words to that effect). If I recall correctly, the article either concluded (or at least insinuated) that tinnitus may therefore be harder to treat (than previously thought). I am sure there are fine researchers behind the study, but I should like to just add a piece of "practical advice" in relation to such conclusions: all of the current neuro-physical models of tinnitus almost certainly assume that loss of auditory input is maintained (as conventional medicine has not yet figured out how to restore hearing loss). It is therefore "too easy" to conclude that tinnitus is more complex (and thereby insinuating that it is also more complex to treat) as we don't really know what happens if you were to restore auditory input (to the brain). Would the brain start show signs of plasticity and move away from its fixed pathological state if such a restoration were to take place? As I type these lines, I can say that my own tinnitus is a good 50% better than it was at the onset of my ordeal back in April, 2013. Back then, my tinnitus was "off-the-chart" especially at night-time with some 6-to-7 different tones when lying in horizontal position. Not so now. Not at all, in fact. I haven't used sleep medication (of any kind) since many, many months and I still fall asleep within a couple of minutes every night. Quite different from the early stages of my tinnitus ordeal when I would get perhaps 3 or 4 hours of seriously interrupted sleep per night. I did stem cell therapy and LLLT as well as several brief rounds of Flupirtine (in order to mitigate the risks of liver toxicity), and I have also been very disciplined with respect to using earplugs (i.e. using them whenever there is any risk of noise exposure). Was it the therapy or was it the tincture of time that led me to a +50% improvement? I cannot answer that: I am a one-man study and statistics cannot be performed on one person alone. But I have shared my audiograms and shared the knowledge that I have. Some people have had a laugh at my expense saying my stem cell- and LLLT-treatments were a scam since I wasn't cured 100%, but if you compare my own results of +50%, that in fact - and in retrospect - is much more realistic if you compare it with the initial anecdotal results of volunteers of the AM-101 trial as well those who attempted Trobalt (i.e. the results are apparently tangible, but modest). So at least I have not been misleading the forum (I could easily have claimed a 100% success rate if I wanted to, in order to "not lose face", so to speak). From my own experience, a 50% improvement is the minimum necessary to regain basic functioning (when initially suffering from catastrophic tinnitus). On days where the improvement is around 70% better (vs. baseline) that is when I start to really feel human again, but I would say that a +80% improvement is necessary to "forget" that a person is suffering from tinnitus (when the initial comparison baseline is "severe tinnitus"). At least that is my own experience.

Still, I would not specifically recommend doing what I did. I only did what I did - in part - because clinical trials were not available to me as a Dane living in Germany. TRT and various hybrids of psychotherapies seem to remain the standard recommendation by the established medical community in the year 2015 for the treatment of subjective and non-treatable objective tinnitus.

attheedgeofscience
03/MAY/2015.

 

@attheedgeofscience

Thank you so very much for your detailed analysis my friend. I really appreciate it.

 

Is habituation possible for a hearing loss like this? Actually it (the audiogram) has been like this for 8 years (accident)(actually improved since then) but i only got T 5 weeks ago (i believe due to stress).

Struggling to live. Please kindly tell me its possible. I need all kind of support right now.

 

Yes your loss is not too severe and can easily be compensated for with a HA ....
You will be ok.

 

Thank you so much. You are giving me hope.

 

Oh sry may be a confusion. I meant Tinnitus related to the hearing loss and the possible habituation.

 

Of course. Honestly, I have seen many people with that type of loss habituate. Keep busy, protect your ears and read the success stories.

 

You are still very new . Just know that it is par for the course to be struggling right now. There is a ton of support here. I am sorry you are struggling also but glad I can help in anyway possible ...
Ben

 

could that dip of 20 db be the reason??

 

My recent audiogram. I recently had surgery on my "bad" ear. That ear always had reduced hearing but this surgery really did a number on my high frequency hearing, and led to some really bad T in that range (I have pegged the T to around 7 kHz). Will definitely be looking into a hearing aid with a high frequency range and tinnitus masking feature. Will a hearing aid even help given the nature of my hearing loss and the area of my slope?

 

My audiogram for my right ear is worse than that. 65 db loss from 2-8K hz. Straight accross. Probably higher, but that's a standard test.