Argument with Mom (Loud Voice / Shouting) and Worried Tinnitus Got Worse

[Guest9199]

Today my mom started using anger in her words as she talked to herself from our living room which is across from my room while my door was slightly opened and then she ran to my room and started yelling at me but luckily I had my earmuffs on before she said anything.

It says on the box that they have a 26 NRR on them. I'm really worried that I could have damaged my ringing ears even more with the protection on.

For most of it I hid in my closet with the muffs on and around the house while she was raising her voice. I eventually went outside for a short walk and then when I came back she had lowered her voice from yelling to shouting.

I'm really worried my earmuffs didn't protect me enough.

 

[HanaK]

You'll be alright! The human voice, even when yelling, can't damage your ears unless she screamed directly into your ear for quite some time. I'm sure her yelling fell short of 100 decibels, which OSHA (occupational safety and health) permits that you can listen to for 15 minutes without any damage. Since you had earmuffs on, the likelihood of any damage having happened is close to none. I hope everything is alright at home though and that this isn't a normal occurrence. If your tinnitus does seem louder it's probably due to stress or anxiety from the event. Be sure to put your earmuffs on/off slowly to avoid any pressure issues. If you're really feeling worried about damage, eat healthy foods, drink water, and try to get some rest. The stress from this happening is probably more likely to spike your tinnitus than the yelling your mom did since you had muffs on.

 

[Jazzer]

Your mum is in urgent need of some education regarding the severity of Tinnitus.
Some mum ??

 

[Bill Bauer]

Make sure she reads:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...im-being-murdered-by-merciless-tinnitus.29510

 

[Bill Bauer]

I'm sure her yelling fell short of 100 decibels, which OSHA (occupational safety and health) permits that you can listen to for 15 minutes without any damage.

The OSHA regulations for noise exposure (i.e. 8 hours at 85db TWA) is hilariously outdated.

The study the standards were based on was looking for permanent threshold shifts in large groups of industrial workers, and if the majority of workers did not see a permanent threshold shift the exposure level was deemed safe. Note, that's for the the majority of workers, some unlucky few still would lose hearing over time in an occupation at that level. Moreover, more recent research has shown that you can have significant hearing damage before ever seeing a permanent threshold shift. Many people with tinnitus and hyperacusis have a normal audiogram.

Those guidelines are for the healthy people. There hasn't been any research into what sounds can harm a person with tinnitus.

I am glad that OP is serious about limiting the noise he is exposed to.

Having said that, even if you get a spike, it will likely be temporary.

 

[Drone Draper]

My audiologist told me he regularly sees people who are workies with significant hearing loss and zero They only come see him because their wife has had enough of trying to speak to them.

Sorry to hear about the spike, OP. Hopefully it will subside.

 

[Guest9199]

You'll be alright! The human voice, even when yelling, can't damage your ears unless she screamed directly into your ear for quite some time. I'm sure her yelling fell short of 100 decibels, which OSHA (occupational safety and health) permits that you can listen to for 15 minutes without any damage. Since you had earmuffs on, the likelihood of any damage having happened is close to none. I hope everything is alright at home though and that this isn't a normal occurrence. If your tinnitus does seem louder it's probably due to stress or anxiety from the event. Be sure to put your earmuffs on/off slowly to avoid any pressure issues. If you're really feeling worried about damage, eat healthy foods, drink water, and try to get some rest. The stress from this happening is probably more likely to spike your tinnitus than the yelling your mom did since you had muffs on.

Thanks for the response and I really hope so. I took a long nap after things calmed down and woke up with a horrible feeling of anxiety and my eardrums were pounding back and forth, I was really worried I had made my tinnitus situation worse so I got a bottle of water hoping it would help prevent damage as you said.

My tinnitus seems at the same level it was before the fight and I was mostly in and out of the house during most of it with my muffs on of course. I only took them off briefly for about 7-8 seconds while in my closet to hear if she was done raising her voice but ended up just keeping the muffs on until she was done. Everything seemed muffled with them on I couldn't hear her unless I got out of my closet to head for the main door to get outside so I only heard her loud shouting briefly through the muffs but it seemed muffled. I used a pair of safety works earmuffs my dad has gotten me from lowe's.

I really hope I can rely on these in case of other bad situations like this.

 

[HanaK]

Those guidelines are for the healthy people. There hasn't been any research into what sounds can harm a person with tinnitus.

I am glad that OP is serious about limiting the noise he is exposed to.

Having said that, even if you get a spike, it will likely be temporary.

Yikes I better be more careful then been relying on the osha guidelines as to what to protect my ears from/not protect my ears from.

 

[Bill Bauer]

I better be more careful then been relying on the osha guidelines as to what to protect my ears from/not protect my ears from.

Take a look at the two posts below

Relative newbies to tinnitus are likely to find all the information/opinions above quite confusing. So here are a few common-sense rules to follow:

1. The best protection of all is avoidance. Even the best earplugs can't guarantee complete hearing protection so those relatively new to tinnitus are best advised to avoid prolonged loud noise exposure - especially amplified sound at for example live concerts and sports events. This may involve lifestyle changes.

2. When in doubt, use hearing protection. In the many tasks we all do through the week, some will inevitably involve exposure to noise - which may be at higher levels than we at first realise - so using hearing protection for many of these is only sensible.

3. Build quiet into your day. It's not a good idea to be wearing hearing protection all the time - so you need to give your ears a break by ensuring that there will be quieter times during your day when hearing protection isn't necessary.This may involve changing your routine. Use soft masking noise and light music (not using headphones) to avoid "silence" where tinnitus is most noticeable.

4. Don't stress about stress. Tinnitus newbies are forever being told that the thing which makes tinnitus worse is stress. But while it's true that how you are feeling at a particular moment can make tinnitus temporarily louder, it won't have a lasting effect. But prolonged loud noise exposure can make tinnitus permanently louder. So don't stress about stress - but do be concerned about noise.

I didn't read all the above comments, but did peruse a fair amount of it, and ran across many good points on both sides of the argument. What strikes me is there seems to be an underlying assumption (of course I may be wrong on this) that all brains and neurological systems are created equal. The way I see it, that's simply not the case, so everybody's way of dealing with tinnitus and/or hyperacusis is going to have to be highly individualized.

I read a book many years ago called "Adrenal Syndrome". A lot of the book touched on the residual resiliency of people's adrenal glands as they respond to life's stresses. Very low resiliency often resulted in months/years of chronic debilitating exhaustion following a stressful event(s) in their lives. Very high resiliency indicated essentially the opposite. The author broke this down into some rough numbers:

25% of people have low resiliency, meaning normal life stressors will often send them into some degree of a tailspin.
25% of people have high resiliency, meaning that no matter how severe a stressor comes into their lives, they will be able to cope without becoming debilitated to any degree.
50% of people fall somewhere inbetween.

I believe there are some kind of corresponding numbers for a person's brain and neurological resiliency as well, which can greatly affect the ability to cope with tinnitus. (I believe adrenal resiliency also plays a major role in our ability to cope). -- Based on these assumptions, it's pretty easy for me to conclude that what may be overprotection for one person will be underprotection for another, and vice versa.

I think the main point to understand for someone new to tinnitus is that their path forward is going to be a lot of "testing the waters". Generally, IMHO, it's going to take a few weeks or months to get important insights that will help us achieve a healthy balance. In all likelihood, most people are going to learn from experience when their over-protecting or under-protecting.

I've come to believe however, that in those early months, if one is going to err in either direction, it should be toward overprotection. It just seems to me the consequences of underprotection (which could result in permanent injury) in those early times are much more dire than the consequences of overprotection--which as I understand, generally results in temporary setbacks.

Doing a number of things to better support the brain and neurological system and the body's stress response (adrenal glands) is quite high on my list of recommendations I would make to anybody with tinnitus. Doing so might even prevent phonophobia or OCD, etc., as we go through our learning curves -- Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[HanaK]

Thanks for the response and I really hope so. I took a long nap after things calmed down and woke up with a horrible feeling of anxiety and my eardrums were pounding back and forth, I was really worried I had made my tinnitus situation worse so I got a bottle of water hoping it would help prevent damage as you said.

Sorry to hear that. I'm glad your tinnitus went back to baseline. I'm not sure if water helps with damage or not but it definitely helps with staying hydrated/anxiety. Maybe consult other sources to see what helps with hearing damage hehe. Definitely keep using the muffs though they do help a lot.

 

[ArtVandalay]

Why do you have earmuffs on in your house?

 

[Guest9199]

Why do you have earmuffs on in your house?

My mother always feels the need to shout or yell at me for every single thing and I could feel the pressure on my ears from it and felt it was making my tinnitus worse so I had to get a pair.

 

[Guest9199]

Take a look at the two posts below

So even though I wore my muffs there could still be some damage done to my tinnitus or my ears in general from the exposure of the shouting?

 

[Bill Bauer]

So even though I wore my muffs there could still be some damage done to my tinnitus or my ears in general from the exposure of the shouting?

Without knowing anything else about your situation, the answer is "most likely no." Even if at the time it felt like it was too loud - it might hurt you in the Long Run (if it were to happen often), but it shouldn't do anything this one time. If you get a spike and it lasts for longer than 24 hours, it might still be mostly due to stress.

The bottom line is that it would seem that it makes sense to try to minimize your exposure when you can, and to not worry about it too much when it is unavoidable.

 

[Guest9199]

Without knowing anything else about your situation, the answer is "most likely no." Even if at the time it felt like it was too loud - it might hurt you in the Long Run (if it were to happen often), but it shouldn't do anything this one time. If you get a spike and it lasts for longer than 24 hours, it might still be mostly due to stress.

The bottom line is that it would seem that it makes sense to try to minimize your exposure when you can, and to not worry about it too much when it is unavoidable.

Sadly tension does happpen often but it's mostly when I tell her my tinnitus is bothersome and if I ask for a favor then she just gets angry and raises her voice but it only happens once a day rather than the entire day because I try my best to avoid her. This happens everyday but I'd say this was the most extreme. I live in a downstairs condo where there probably isn't that much room to avoid the sound but I did manage to stay in my room's closet for most of it while she was in the living room. But also when I was heading outside she was at a close range from me when she shouted. I could send photos to determine the distance I had from her if you'd like.

 

[HanaK]

Just another word of input: Since it already happened, try to let it go. There's a very low chance of this incident having caused damage and stressing about whether or not this incident caused damage won't change the fact that it already happened. In fact, it may make your tinnitus worse to think about it. Just continue to protect your ears and avoid your mom shouting.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Sadly tension does happpen often but it's mostly when I tell her my tinnitus is bothersome and if I ask for a favor then she just gets angry and raises her voice but it only happens once a day rather than the entire day because I try my best to avoid her.

Show the post below to her
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...im-being-murdered-by-merciless-tinnitus.29510

I could send photos to determine the distance I had from her if you'd like.

Since you were wearing hearing protection, the sound was most likely at a safe level. However, if the sound gave you a spike or ear fullness or sounded too loud to you, then there is a chance that it was too loud for You (i.e., your ears are unusually vulnerable).

 

[Guest9199]

Show the post below to her
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...im-being-murdered-by-merciless-tinnitus.29510

Since you were wearing hearing protection, the sound was most likely at a safe level. However, if the sound gave you a spike or ear fullness or sounded too loud to you, then there is a chance that it was too loud for You (i.e., your ears are unusually vulnerable).

I'll be sure to show her that link to the post but she usually ignores the seriousness of this condition and what I have to say about it. My tinnitus seems to have settled for now but from just listening to it, it sounds the same so I would assume to think that I'll be okay and that the muffs provided enough protection like it says they would on the box but I guess only time will tell if my tinnitus will spike permanently and if this was just adding more damage to my already vulnerable ears

 

[Guest9199]

Last night I was yelled at again by my mother about something that wasn't a big deal that had happened and then I was asked about what I was doing constantly by her and she had a lot of attitude in her voice so it was almost raised and I'm very worried the short bursts of her yelling at me a couple times last night would have to be something I have to worry about. I don't know if a raised voice or yelling a couple times in one day would do anything to my tinnitus or to my ears but if anyone knows please tell me. This also happens a lot almost every day

 

[JohnAdams]

Moms are really good at arguing.

 

[Bndsmheowqhe]

Moms are really good at arguing.

I don't even bother talking to mine anymore.

 

[Jiri]

Last night I was yelled at again by my mother about something that wasn't a big deal that had happened and then I was asked about what I was doing constantly by her and she had a lot of attitude in her voice so it was almost raised and I'm very worried the short bursts of her yelling at me a couple times last night would have to be something I have to worry about. I don't know if a raised voice or yelling a couple times in one day would do anything to my tinnitus or to my ears but if anyone knows please tell me. This also happens a lot almost every day

I'm sorry to hear you have to go through this. Do you know what causes her anger and do you think you could just slip your earmuffs on and walk away until things calm down? I don't know your situation, maybe you could ask for help some of your relatives or call a helpline.

The good news is, I think those episodes you described are unlikely that caused you any serious damage. What distance is usually between you and your mother when she's shouting?

To put things into better perspective for you:

• a normal voice approximates to a sound pressure level of 70 dB
• a raised voice approximates to a sound pressure level of 76 dB
• a very loud voice approximates to a sound pressure level of 82 dB
• a shouting voice approximates to a sound pressure level of 88 dB

​

Source: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/voice-level-d_938.html

According to EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) you can be exposed to 88 dB(A) for about 22 minutes before you're at risk of hearing damage. Keep in mind that EPA has adopted the strickest noise exposure standards when compared to OSHA or NIOSH. So even by these standards you should be ok.

Source: https://midimagic.sgc-hosting.com/spldose.htm

The argument that these guidelines apply only to "healthy" people is somewhat flawed.

I have a bad case of phonophobia myself that I'm trying to work on. What helps me is to try relax myself so I can think clearly and then rationalize my fears away by factual evidence, research, general consensus etc.

Try and explain your situation to your mom, when she storms in your room plug your ears with your fingers and leave. Ask for help should this continue.

 

[Ed209]

Today my mom started using anger in her words as she talked to herself from our living room which is across from my room while my door was slightly opened and then she ran to my room and started yelling at me but luckily I had my earmuffs on before she said anything.

It says on the box that they have a 26 NRR on them. I'm really worried that I could have damaged my ringing ears even more with the protection on.

For most of it I hid in my closet with the muffs on and around the house while she was raising her voice. I eventually went outside for a short walk and then when I came back she had lowered her voice from yelling to shouting.

I'm really worried my earmuffs didn't protect me enough.

There is no need to sit in your closet with ear muffs on, Tony. Shouting is an inescapable part of life and it doesn't require the drastic measures you are taking. Your ears will be fine.

I do understand what you're going through though and I'd calmly talk to your mother about not shouting all the time.

 

[Bill Bauer]

I don't know if a raised voice or yelling a couple times in one day would do anything to my tinnitus or to my ears but if anyone knows please tell me.

Of course it is not promoting your healing.

Having said that, if it were doing damage, you would know because you would have ear fullness or louder T or new T tones. If you haven't been experiencing that, there is no need to worry. You still want to minimize your exposure to those shocks, though. There is a small chance that eventually if you keep getting those shocks you will get one of those symptoms.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Shouting is an inescapable part of life

Is it?!

 

[linearb]

Sounds to me like you have some things in your relationship with your mother that might be amping your anxiety about all this? The behavior you're describing from her doesn't sound healthy unless this was a really rare occurrence.

The sound of a human screaming is not going to do anything damaging to your ears unless they're literally screaming into your ear with their hands cupping it. From across the room, with a partial doorway? You're talking about 60-70db max. This is an anxiety problem not an auditory one.

 

[Ed209]

Is it?!

If you live in the real world, Bill, yea.

 

[Guest9199]

I'm sorry to hear you have to go through this. Do you know what causes her anger and do you think you could just slip your earmuffs on and walk away until things calm down? I don't know your situation, maybe you could ask for help some of your relatives or call a helpline.

The good news is, I think those episodes you described are unlikely that caused you any serious damage. What distance is usually between you and your mother when she's shouting?

To put things into better perspective for you:

• a normal voice approximates to a sound pressure level of 70 dB
• a raised voice approximates to a sound pressure level of 76 dB
• a very loud voice approximates to a sound pressure level of 82 dB
• a shouting voice approximates to a sound pressure level of 88 dB

View attachment 27685 ​

Source: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/voice-level-d_938.html

According to EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) you can be exposed to 88 dB(A) for about 22 minutes before you're at risk of hearing damage. Keep in mind that EPA has adopted the strickest noise exposure standards when compared to OSHA or NIOSH. So even by these standards you should be ok.

View attachment 27686​

Source: https://midimagic.sgc-hosting.com/spldose.htm

The argument that these guidelines apply only to "healthy" people is somewhat flawed.

I have a bad case of phonophobia myself that I'm trying to work on. What helps me is to try relax myself so I can think clearly and then rationalize my fears away by factual evidence, research, general consensus etc.

Try and explain your situation to your mom, when she storms in your room plug your ears with your fingers and leave. Ask for help should this continue.

Well when she usually yells or shouts it's on the couch which is a few feet from my front door which I was exiting back and forth each time she was raising her voice and she also did it as I passed her through the small hallway outside of my room where she was behind me. I can send pics of the places she did that at. And I also have muffs but refuse to wear them due to the occlusion effect as I'm worried it would worsen my tinnitus and ears in general.

 

[Guest9199]

Of course it is not promoting your healing.

Having said that, if it were doing damage, you would know because you would have ear fullness or louder T or new T tones. If you haven't been experiencing that, there is no need to worry. You still want to minimize your exposure to those shocks, though. There is a small chance that eventually if you keep getting those shocks you will get one of those symptoms.

Sadly for me this is a normal occurrence in my household :/

 

[Guest9199]

There is no need to sit in your closet with ear muffs on, Tony. Shouting is an inescapable part of life and it doesn't require the drastic measures you are taking. Your ears will be fine.

I do understand what you're going through though and I'd calmly talk to your mother about not shouting all the time.

I've talked to her and even had family members talk to her for my sake and I've also tried visiting my dads house and even my cousins and things don't workout. My cousin has dogs which bark very loud throughout the day and I wouldn't be able to stand it. My dad also has a dog and some very old doors which make noises when closing and opening them that irritate me.