Bar Music Noise (Around 85 dB)

Hello Guys i went to the bar ,and i music loudeness was around 85 db. I was there for one hour, i was wearing foam ear plugs, but it seems they werent fitted properly.
I had promised my seldfi would never go to loud event, but i was enjoying my drink and stayed for 1 hour. It seems music was not loud at all. I am panicking now..do you guys think T will spike?

 

Not at all.

 

Even had you gone totally without ear plugs, 85dB for one hour is not enough to cause auditory damage. If your tinnitus spikes at all, it'll likely be due to your anxiety about the noise rather than the noise itself!

Stephen Nagler

 

Thanks Stephen ,
Just woke up , and no spike in my T. I do hear slight whistle ,but that's type spike after two beers .
Why does T spike after a loud movie ?i knkw loud movie wouldn cause more damage ..ie kill more hair cells .
I feel so much better that I can atleast go to a bar with ear plugs .

 

Don't know, @Sean. Mine doesn't spike after loud movies, but it spikes like crazy after I eat Thai food. Go figure. I'm fine with Chinese, Indian, Armenian, Greek, highly spiced, mildly spiced, anything at all ... except Thai. Problem is I love Thai food. So I eat it a few times a month. You think I'm gonna give up something I love because of a sound in my head? The only way I'd do that would be if Thai food caused some sort of permanent damage to my auditory system.

Stephen

 

According to current safety guidance you are safe for up to 8 hours at an average of 85dB, without ear protection, so as the others have said don't worry.

One of the reasons you might get a spike after a loud movie is because of the way the ear is said to protect itself . This can make things sound a little flat and dull, because the ear is trying to stop sound being amplified, causing it damage. And when that happens, when external sound is dulled, you hear your T a lot more. It can last for a while after exposure to the noise too.

Although I may not be correct about the ear protecting itself, this summary on AoHL was from a study published last year http://www.actiononhearingloss.org....he-ear-protects-itself-from-noise-damage.aspx

 

@Steve makes a very important point above.

And there's a corollary to it: If you use the loudness of your tinnitus as a guide for how you live your life, then you are unnecessarily depriving yourself of many of the things that make life enjoyable! Instead of using the loudness of your tinnitus as a guide, use the threshold for actual damage to your auditory system as a guide.

As @Steve says, "According to current safety guidance you are safe for up to 8 hours at an average of 85dB, without ear protection."

Stephen Nagler

 

I was at a tgi fridays the other night eating dinner at the bar and just with the music playin on the speakers in the backround and people around eating it said it hit 93 db so i figured i was okay without earplugs, cause was only there two hours and went outside every half hour to smoke a cig. T didnt spike at all.

 

Your ears will be fine. It's the cig that'll kill you!

Stephen Nagler

 

Hello Dr. Nagler, you know me on the yuku forum under the name tinnitusmick. I'm doing a lot better with my tinnitus, habituated, but I still worry about loud noises possibly worsening my tinnitus.

For example today my baby niece was crying, I put earplugs in which was pretty embarrassing, holding her she dropped a teething toy on a hard wood floor and it made a sharp noise (no earplugs) and I kept checking for any changes etc, whats that barely 90dbs?..lol.

Sudden loud(ish) noise is going to happen, you can't avoid it, if only auditory damaging noises increase tinnitus...should I stop worrying about sudden loud noises in daily life?

My obsession with guarding against noise started in October, as you know my tinnitus unexpectedly got worse, I blamed a noise that happened the same day, got stuffy, full ears for a week, the same as when I first got noise induced T in 2012, but I'm not sure if it was the cause. Worrying about sudden loud noise is getting old fast!

 

I've also experienced a T spike after, but I've been told not related to, noise exposure. Was wearing hearing protection. The ENT I saw after pulled out impressive "plugs" of cerumen from both ears. Had no idea. He remarked that between those plugs and 22 dB hearing protection plugs, I probably had ~30dB noise attenuation during the ~2 hour blues fest, which I assume was not uncommonly loud given middle age crowd. Says T spike is likely stress related. Hooray for ear wax! Spike is now abating some after 3 weeks, although sleep still a bit fragmented.

Question: Are conventions and guidelines for thresholds for potential damage not dependent on past damage and/or age? I've seen little mention of this here or elsewhere.

 

I was wondering that as well. If the hair cells are a bit injured is it easier to injure them further. But I have gone out quite a bit since t and have had no change.

 

Oh yes i know, quitting smoking is the next on my list... Its just sooo hard!!!!

 

I understand that, @mick1987. But the fact of the matter is that there is nothing you can do about it. Sudden loud noise exposure is a fact of life. Worry about things you can control ... and then do something about it. But worrying about things you cannot control serves to do nothing except make you frustrated and unhappy.

As I see it, anyway.

Stephen Nagler

 

The OSHA guidelines are set to protect 90% of adult ears.

Stephen Nagler

 

Thanks for your reply Dr. Nagler, everyday (most) noises aren't going damage the auditory system, if that's the case, everyday sudden loud noise won't increase tinnitus?

 

To bring a bit of levity to the conversation, one might say the 90% of the population that does not have T. Joking. Of course if it were study, the question would be whether the sample population were stratified or no.

Stephen: I did not know you participated here, as I'm fairly new. I read a great deal about your work, a bit obsessively as one might imagine, at my T onset 20 some years ago. You are an inspiration.

Michael

 

Thank you for the kind words, @MichaelR, and for taking the time to say them.

Stephen Nagler

 

Mick1987: I also fear sudden loud noises .i try to wear ear plugs when I go out ..but how much can you really protect from unexpected loud noise ?there is always something on back of mind that what if there is sudden loud noise ?I knkw there is no point of worrying ,but can't help it .

 

everyday loud noises aren't gonna make a difference, the other day i was swapping one of my rental bike with a customer when suddenly i saw a big firework ascending from the beach(25M from my location), i had my hands full and didn't have time to protect my ears, then BANG, left ear took the shock...

nothing changed, tinnitus as usual

 

Because my tinnitus worsened in October (full, stuffy ears for a week) I blamed an everyday loudish noise that happened 6 hours earlier, now it could have been totally unrelated but from there on I was a lot more cautious around sudden loud noises. It makes sense though that the only way noise could increase tinnitus is from auditory damage, most everyday loud noises won't damage the auditory system so maybe I should relax a bit more, plenty of sudden loud noises have happened since and there has been no changes in my tinnitus.

 

you stated in a previous thread that your brother thought a car crash had happened, so i guess you've been exposed to something equivalent to a shotgun and that's of course enough to create a TTS and unfortunately a new tinnitus...

 

OK maybe that was an exaggeration it sounding like a shotgun..Lol, but yes it was LOUD, my brother did say "bloody hell, that sounded loud! Like a car crash!"

I tell many people and they don't believe its possible, plus the delay of 6 hours of it happening and me getting blocked, stuffy ear that lasted a week was identical to the TTS I got through extreme smoke alarm exposure a year before.....