Audiogram and Other Hearing Test Results

@Rb86 Sorry! I missunderstood your question there. My first hearing test showed the same result basically.

 

@Yuri_ol One audiologist told me that even dips down to 20 db is still in the normal hearing range. Also, I’m 33 years old. I’m not in my twenties anymore.

So no, I don’t have any hearing loss. I have a really good hearing, and I still have T. But yea, my ears and hearing are definitely overworked.

The noise is in the brain, it’s ”stuck” there. That is what T is. It’s a signal from your nervous system.

 

My brother's hearing test showed this and it was in a category 4 which said “rapid hearing loss” - are these numbers the amount of dB loss on an audiogram? I guess so because below 40 it’s “mild hearing loss”?

Also, it doesn’t appear to be high frequency hearing loss, does it?

P.S. my brother had tinnitus after an explosion in the army but his tinnitus disappeared.

Likewise, my last hearing test had no hearing loss but I’m the one with the chronic tinnitus.

Such is life eh.

 

Yes

It depends who you ask. Some doctors think that anything under 30 dB is "normal".

 

Hey,

I am new here, a sufferer for about 5 weeks. I visited two ENTs and had an audiogram test done.
Both doctors said that I have healthy ears. There is no inflammation outside. Seems that my Eustachian tube is also ok as Fluocinolone does not help.

I've been given medications - a vitamin complex - B1, B2, B6, B2, C, melatonin and ginkgo biloba in one pill. Additional vinpocetin for blood circulation in ears and head. If this won't help after a month then I should not take them anymore.

According to the docs I have good hearing. One said to get attention of the neurologist.

I hear sounds too loudly - the doctor said that my "threshold" has been lowered and as the result I hear tinnitus and some sounds are annoying. According to him the cause of my tinnitus is long-term stress - I admit that I have lived in stress for few years - it is not life threatening of course but I struggle to get a better life and my efforts usually yields nothing because I am sick for another thing too.

How do you see my hearing test results? I had two, more-or-less they are the same.

 

Yeah, you've got a little bit of hearing loss there friend.

 

Even the tonal audiogram is showing damage, how in the world is that fine?

At this point is is certain when an ENT says "normal hearing" they mean just mean the bare vitals to hear a 1on1 conversation are working. The fidelity and clarity of one's hearing can be very poor especially in a noisy bar or listening to music but it doesn't matter to them because the bare vitals are still there.

The cochlea can be completely trashed and one would still be able to hear a 1on1 conversation in a quiet room. That requires only a very selective amount of hair cells and nerves. People with hyperacusis, tinnitus and noise induced pain usually will have hearing damage outside of the human speech range.

 

Thx, guys. The hear loss is according to the doc outside of the human range, the second doc said it wasn't bad and it is even "normal" because everybody has hear loss, question is how big it is.
I can live with such "hearing loss" level really fine, the problem is the tinnitus. I can't believe it can show up even if my hear is not so bad. Otherwise everybody with hear loss would have tinnitus.

What can I do more in my case? I guess doc will not want to do another tests or do a therapy of some kind because he said to me that I need to make a peace with tinnitus and go along.
It is crazy up because I can't even drive my car without ear plugs.

 

There's a thing called hidden hearing loss which is out of the range of the human voice range, so if you have an average of a 40 dB dip on the regular tonal audiogram, then who is to say what your higher frequencies look like. They could be worse. Either way, you can protect your hearing; time is the best healing and thing you can do for your hearing and ears right now to make sure they do not stay compromised. Right now, if your ears are bothered by driving your car, then wear the plugs, hopefully with the months that come, it will subside and become bearable again. Just to protect, or at the very best, avoid over-loud noise exposure, or exposure to any noise you note bothers your ears.

 

If you wear hearing aids, it might help with tinnitus.

 

You have HF hearing loss. Probably best to try hearing aids with maskers. Audicus has some reasonable ones. Clara and Dia models. Clara you can add all the bells and whistles, Dia is just basic but you can add maskers and a remote control. I actually have a set of both the Dia and Clara model. I have a similar audiogram as you do.

 

Thanks guys. I see no recommendation from you to have any MRI scan or so, so I presume that my case is a typical one - tinnitus caused by the high frequency hearing loss. It makes me wonder though that a lot of people have such hearing loss and they have no problem with tinnitus.

My doc booked me in into some kind of group meeting on how to cope with this kind of sound in your head. I am gonna ask for hearing aids.

Hopefully my ear pain will go off soon, I have it sometimes for few minutes. Don't know if this is a result of irritation of the ear though.

I will try to return to the exercising at gym.

 

it could be. Do you have a history of over-exposure to loud noise?

 

You mean a concert or disco party? Then yes but it was years ago. Recently had nothing which could trigger tinnitus or could be a breaking point leading to it.
I do not count things like a horn of the car which everybody can hear sometimes or breaking pot on the ground.
I even read a weird thing that doing an exercise when you are under stress may lead to the tinnitus because of the cortisol. I guess I am just trying to find a source of it in my case, can't accept that some people go for the concerts, nightclubs, listen to the music via ear phones and their ears are fine. I didn't expose myself more than average Joe and I am fucked up.
And the doctor says "get use to it" with no bother to check that maybe there is a problem with a neck, didn't propose any therapy - no laser, no sound, nothing.

 

Audiologists and others are telling me that my loss and tinnitus is probably not noise induced but rather that it is caused by a middle ear problem.

My tinnitus is around 1,000 Hz, constant ringing in the left, near constant in the right. I also have some hissing/reactivity that competes with many sounds. It’s been 2.5 months.

Does this make sense? ENT appointment is in two weeks.

 

Noise induced hearing loss often exhibits the 4k notch, and your audiogram does not show this.

 

@Digital Doc Thank you for your input.

 

To be a bit more precise, I think the theory says something slightly different: the noise losses are supposed to match the energy distribution of the sound source that gave you the acoustic trauma. This is because of the frequency distribution of the hair cells in the cochlea, and how density of energy maps to each of the tonotopic regions of the cochlea.

Music generally has a lot of energy around 4 kHz so if you've gotten an acoustic trauma from music (concerts, pub, etc), then you'll likely have a 4 kHz notch.

But if you were exposed to a blast of sound that had a lot of energy around 1 kHz, then your losses would likely be around 1 kHz. According to the central gain theory, you'd also expect your T to be around 1 kHz.

 

Makes sense.

 

Here are my test results. Started noticing hearing loss beginning of year in my left ear. No known cause. I don’t listen to loud noises. My right ear is fine. High frequency tinnitus for over a month now. ENT had me in and out so fast I have no clue what she was saying. Any insight appreciated. I’m 47.

 

Today, about a year after my tinnitus worsening due to an explosion, I was at the ENT of my local hospital after a referral of my GP. A year ago I did HBOT and steroids, to little avail.

The reason I continue my quest is because I'm not coping well at all, and I feel I have to do at least something for my family. My wife has seen me increasingly depressed during the last year, and I can't spend time around my kids as much as I like for fear of them screaming. My social life has gone down the drain as well. About three weeks ago I had a major breakdown and was put on sick leave, which is for another three weeks. At present, I feel like I will never be able to get back to work. I have problems concentrating, sleeping and am feeling very depressed and suicidal. I obviously don't want to be gone, but I feel like there is little value left for me in this life. I don't have any plans, because I remember my old life and am scared of death.

In my normal audiogram, I have a dip of 4kHz of 20dB in my right ear. That's the lowest point and very different from my left, which is much better. In the extended audiogram there's a steep slope towards 55dB at 14kHz. We didn't continue to 16 kHz because although I couldn't hear 50dB at 14kHz, the 55dB tone got me jumping off my chair. My left ear is better as well in the extended frequency range. Then came the tinnitus testing. I could pick between 3 narrowband noises and picked the highest (this was around 8kHz), because it was the best match for my noise-like tinnitus. It was still below the frequencies of my tinnitus, but I could only pick between these 3 sounds. The audiologist measured my trhesholds, and then matched my tinnitus to about 20dB SL. Then she tried to Mask using the same narrowband noise. At 25dB SL over headphones in both ears, she stopped as she thought I would be uncomfortable due to the earlier discomfort during my extended HF testing. I said I believed I could still make out my tinnitus signal at that loudness because of the insufficient overlap of frequencies. She simply noted that MML was greater than 25dB SL and that we stopped masking because of hyperacusis. My result in the tinnitus questionnaire was 73/82 points, or very severe.
Already at the matching and masking I could feel like that the audiologist felt sorry for me.

If you're still reading I would like to ask:
Most tinnitus is matched to numbers below 10dB SL yet I have a 20dB SL match.
I already feel like I've got the world's loudest tinnitus, and I'm not overreacting to any of it, and this seems further proof that no human has ever learnt to deal with such a noise.
What can I reasonably expect in terms of habituation and getting on with my life if this is where I'm at 1 year down the line?I feel like it's simply not possible and that the way I'm coping today is realistically the best possible outcome given my stats.
Can someone knowledgeable chip in? @Ed209 @brownbear, or anyone? I'm 33 years old by the way.

Thanks.

 

That looks a lot like my audiogram after many many years of hearing problems, and my subjective feeling is I am a bit more deaf, that I have hearing loss. Years back I would score at zero across all frequencies. Basically with an audiogram like yours now I do need to focus and totally concentrate on what people are saying to understand them. It is like if I don't pay my full attention my brain interprets sounds super slow or misses words.. so maybe it has to do with hair cells or synapses.

However, I believe there may be an individual difference for each patient even having the same audiogram result, depending on how hair cells kick in to amplify or inhibit sound when it reaches your hearing threshold (in this case, meaning the lowest sound you can hear).

 

@lou1972... Man that looks almost identical to my results. Mine are a bit higher, but still got tinnitus in the same ear and like you no issues with my right ear and like you I’m 47... lol. Don’t rule out AIED, turns out that’s what I have. Looking for a Rheumatologists to pin point exactly what I’ve got.

 

How did they diagnose or test you for it? Do you have allergies? I read a post that some think it's a trigger?

Thank you in advance!

 

@Capstan, fortunately, I actually have a really good ENT. Initially he thought I had a hi low drop issue, but he sent me to get blood work and that’s how I was diagnosed with AIED. No allergies. Now I’ve got to see another specialist to make sure it doesn’t progress further and continue to attack my hearing. Bummer part is can’t see the specialist until May.

 

Your story feels so familiar to what I'm dealing with right now. I don't have an excellent ENT so thank you for sharing. It's a question I need to pose to him. I wish you the best dealing with it. I read your post to Dr. Nagler too. You are very fortunate that you have a good ENT to catch this before it went too far.

 

@FGG @mrbrightside614

I did have an expanded Audiogram. The graphs goes up to 20,000 kHz. However, the corresponding table shows the actual readings up to 16,000 kHz.

Left ear: 5 dB at 8,000 Hz, 20 dB at 10,000 Hz, 30 dB at 12,000 Hz, 60 dB at 16,000 Hz


Right ear: 20 dB at 8,000 Hz, 20 dB at 10,000 Hz, 30 dB at 12,000 Hz, 65 dB at 16,000 Hz.

I was told that the drop off at the higher frequencies is within the normal range for someone my age (60). Also, I was told that the results of several other test showed only OHC damaged. That remains to be seen. But I pray that it is only OHC and not SC and/or IHC. Thank you.

 

Mine is so great for 26 years old

Can't wait to see at 50 years old what it'll look like. Hope FX-322 will be there

I got a new one some days ago which said -70 dB at 4 kHz but I don't believe it.

"Hmm what ?""Hum ok" without hearing aids difficult to understand everyday speech. Tinnitus intensity is day by day but still better than in the beginning.

For ENT my hearing loss is "genetic" (Lol)

 

If they told you that you had OHC damage, that can be measured clinically. If they told you that you had"just OHC damage" they actually can't determine that with available testing. You would definitely benefit from HC regeneration drugs though. Maybe synaptopathy drugs too but no way to test for that.

 

Looks genetic.I also have , I believe , genetic hearing loss. If you had taken ototoxic drugs you would have had other symptoms.
It may stabilize, my hearing hasn't worsen since I have tinnitus

You would be a good candidate for fx 322.