Accidentally Turned Up Headphones to Maximum

Last week, I accidentally cranked up my iPod's volume to max when I wanted to grab something from my pocket. I was exposed to the extremely loud noise for about 2-3 seconds before I could take the earbuds out. My tinnitus, which I've had for a few years now, caused by loud drums, has gotten worse after that.
Has that happened to anyone else? Did the ringing go away after a while? It's getting better in my case and I'm hopeful, that it'll cease soon and just go back to the ''usual'' tinnitus.
I'm just kind of afraid, the short exposure could've damaged my hearing. I measured the sound of the earbuds at max volume with my decibel meter and it showed about 120 dB(a). I don't know how accurate that is and how sound behaves inside the ear, but it's kinda terrifying, since I've read, that exposure to a spl of 120 dB, can cause irreparable damage even if it's just for a short time.

 

Calm down first, your anxiety could make it seemed like you are hearing it louder than usual. And 2 - 3 seconds at 120 prob won't do anything.

 

This happens to me all the time man, it's like I'm cursed or something. Sometimes I have a spike, sometimes not, but my T is getting worse by the years, so I'm sure it's not helping it.

Sometimes it's headphones, loud horns, fire alarms, just everything you can think of. Lately there's been a lot of firecrackers so I am always on the edge, it's one of the benefits of living in a shitty eastern european country, lots of firecrackers and people being animals. And just the other day I was at work and a coworker dropped or basically just threw his plate into the sink and it was just so loud, why do people do that.

 

Also, if you're afraid of this, I think ipods have volume limiters in their settings (my nano does). You can force its maximal volume to be lower so you won't accidentally go over a safe limit.

 

I know. I usually do adjust the maximum volume, but when I hook up the iPod to the car via USB, it somehow always goes back to max volume and I forgot to change it back. I'm always checking it now though. I learned my lesson.

 

Aw, that sucks... But there's nothing you can do about it now. Just try to stay calm.

I doubt if the 120dB reading is actually accurate. There's no reason any player would need to go that loud, and/or no reason any earbuds would need to be that efficient. My iPod Classic has one of the lowest outputs of all devices I know.
I'm guessing that the actual volume was lower, and since it was only 2-3 seconds, you're probably fine.

Does your iPod have a 'lock' slider or something?

 

Yeah it does. It's just a regular iPod touch (USA model). I must have unlocked it accidentally when I grabbed something from my pocket I guess. The European iPods are limited to 100 dB as far as I know. The US ones don't have any volume limit , so 120 dB can be reached pretty easily I think, not sure though.

 

This may not be helpful to what just happened, but as a tinnitus sufferer I make a point of never wearing headphones to listen to music, games or movies. It's just not worth the accidental exposure.

 

Yeah, I am trying to do that too and keep listening to music on headphones to a minimum. But if I'm on a train, it's the only option to listen to music. And I really don't wanna give that up. I'm also really careful about my ears all the time, so accidents like this are even more annoying.

 

Yet another setback today. We were all in one big bunch for the photograph shoot at work and someone told a joke and everyone broke into a loid laughter. My poor ears, they just cant get a break. I know its so weird to complain about people having a good time but some people really have such a loud laugh, if I were to measure it Im sure it would be 90 dB or possibly even more. Well hopefully there is no additional damage, my ears did feel a bit sore after.

 

Sucks to hear. I also had a setback at work today. I took out something from a closet and I accidentally pulled out the plate. It fell on the closet's floor and the sound was extremely loud. My ears were ringing really bad and I couldn't hear anything a few seconds after. Seems like stupid stuff like this always happens, when trying to be extra careful.

 

Well the same thing happened to me today with headphones. Yesterday I had the headphones out of my laptop so the volume was set way up almost to max because the tiny speakers are barely audible. But today I put it headphones and forgot about the volume and it blasted me with loud music until I threw them off. Why do I have to be so dumb? The worst thing with these sudden noises is the shock of it, because you're not expecting it. Silence, then suddely full blast.
Hopefully it wasn't loud enough to cause anything permanent, but with hearing damage being cumulative you never really know.

 

I agree with this.

I have had plenty of times my tinnitus spiked because of such things. Its your anxiety that makes you think that its much louder. I highly doubt that just 2-3 seconds would really do that much damage...

 

It's more likely that your worrying about it making your tinnitus louder is actually what's making it louder.

You can make tinnitus louder just by thinking about it.

I had a firework go off 5m from my ear last week, and that spiked my tinnitus because I was so worried that just as I was starting to get to grips with it, I had this setback that could've stopped my recovery forever or something.

I managed to convince myself that it probably didn't really do any noticeable damage and didn't make my tinnitus worse. After calming down for a good while and not thinking about it, it was back to normal.

 

Does your tinnitus increase if you move your head or neck or mouth?

 

No not for normal movements. Only if I contort it in some odd way, but I tend not to do that