Even Low Volume Can Damage Hair Cells?

The inconvenient truth about wearing earbuds...

This might be the case for me then i have been using earbuds for prolonged hours at low volume and i got T . Though my reasons are other too accident and all . What are your views over this ?
I never thought low volume can cause T.

I have few people around me who blast their earphones day and night still they don't suffer from tinnitus.

Take Look at Comments , there are so many people who have hearing loss and no T

 

I think in many instances you can say "they don't suffer from tinnitus"...yet.
I understand that not everybody will develop tinnitus and there will be difference between people, I believe it is also a matter of time. When people say they rather are deaf than......, there is a good possibility they will have tinnitus later in life. And if people do not acquire tinnitus they still can become hard of hearing (especially in noisy environment). Just like you mentioned.
A full sized headphone is not protecting from hearing loss. There are plenty of people out there that acquired NIHL from full sized headphones. I understand the warning though. Do not underestimate the damage in earbuds can do.
Unfortunately what is not discussed is the sound level. Who knows what a low level is?

 

Hard of hearing is better than T

 

For some people earphones can irritate your ears and cause tinnitus or spikes.
As tinnitus has a long list of causes it's protecting or ears that is important more so if already have hearing and tinnitus problems.
For some people they get on fine with earphones but always best set at the lowest sound level to both ears .
I get on fine with them but only use them for short periods of time.

For anyone reading this you need to be your own judge and it's your decision to use them but stop using them if you develop tinnitus or they spike your tinnitus .....lots of love glynis

 

I am not so sure. A lot of it is about levels. I have sometimes debilitating tinnitus and hyperacusis. But at the moment I experience my hard of hearing to be more cumbersome.

 

Hard of hearing with tinnitus can be little bit problem

 

Hair cells are not damaged from headphones. Auditory nerve fibers are. The sound waves coming from the headphones, which are usually flowing into your inner ear for hours upon hours of listening, cause exitotoxicity. Nerve fibers become disconnected from hair cells of the inner ear causing you to experience sensations of fullness, ringing, and also sensitivity to sounds. It can also cause you to feel like you've lost your ability to pick up sounds like you did before. Our hair cells are meant to bend back and forth from noise. It's the vigorously long hours of listening to music that is flowing directly into your ear canal that causes this phenomenon.

There is a lot of false information being put out about how our hearing works and how the mechanisms can be damaged through trauma.

Here is an easy to read article for you about what I just explained:
http://m.nydailynews.com/news/natio...den-hearing-loss-risk-study-article-1.2230945

The leader of this research goes by the name of Dr. Charles M. Liberman - Director of Eaton Peabody Labratories and a Professor at Harvard Medical School.

 

I wonder if the nerve fibers can become strained rather than completely disconnecting?I mean these nerve fibers are part of the peripharel nervous system which can heal over time which in turn may explain why some peoples T and H completely disappears over time.I have T and H but my hearing acuity is still quite good,I can hear a pin drop yards out.More research needs to be done in this area.

Also in the past I have experienced distortion that resolved itself and during this period of T and H my distortion returned but again it's slowly going away?As I type now there are kids outside playing basketball about 100 metres away and I can hear their conversation clearly through the double glazed window.I have no haircell loss but would this suggest that my nerve fibers are damaged or completely disconnected?

 

I've been advised by an audiologist to have quiet purple noise playing while I sleep, to ease hyperacusis. I asked if this would make my hearing worse, and was told it wouldn't as long as it's pretty quiet.

So according to a trained professional, the verdict is no, constant low volume sound will not impair your hearing.

 

Being honest I don't believe one word of these so called professionals.Its them and them only that has me in this mess now.T and H are still a mystery to a certain degree so what qualifies them to make such a statement?I mean they can't definitively say that it won't make matters worse,no one can.

When I attended a professional who believe me is very educated,attended UCL etc.He told me my H was because of haircell death and then conducted a test that showed no haircell death whatsoever,he just stood there scratching his head as they have been thought to believe this is the cause,and when it evidently wasn't the cause in my case he didn't know what to do and just poured Jastrebroff crap at me and said I will be fine.

I have seen many top audiologists etc who are very well educated and not one mentioned the auditory nerve once,not even once!Everyone gets hung up on haircells and believe that they are the cause of every disorder related to the inner ear but it's simply not true.Dint get me wrong I'm not saying these people are idiots or anything like that,but their knowledge and education of the inner ear is out dated now and much much more is now known.

 

One thing I'd like to say Bill is that it's been discovered that new auditory nerve fibers try to take the places of previously disconnected and retracted nerve fibers. The thing is, these new nerves are not the correct kind. There are two types of nerves that make up our auditory nerve, afferent and efferent. If you think you have great hearing and can still "hear" kids playing outside from so far away, then why are you complaining about your hearing? I'm not asking that in a rude way but I'm curious as to why you think it's great that you are able to process sounds from so far away? Have you tried listening to music lately while having noises that were louder going on around you and you tried focusing on the sound of the guitars, bass, drums, vocals?

Johns Hopkins Medicine: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news...y_new_contributor_to_age_related_hearing_loss
Just a thought, they classify it as age-related hearing loss, but it has nothing to do with ones actual age. It all depends on how quickly hidden hearing damage has ensued in ones life. It can easily be sped up by let's say a person who didn't protect their hearing and played in a rock band for many years of their younger life.

Charles M. Liberman: http://www.masseyeandear.org/research/investigators/l/liberman-m-charles

Read up on this man's research on auditory nerve functions. There are documents attached on the lower portion of the webpage. It's the efferent nerves that allow us to process sounds more fluently and basically more loudly in our brain which means more afferent nerves (it's an outgoing nerve impulse - it brings sensory information from something "a sound you hear" and allows the brain to process it) will allow your brain to pick up and process sounds, but you won't be emotionally processing those noises and they won't be having any affect on the actual chemical compositions of your brain. The efferent nerves also give movement to our muscles which explains why diagrams of our brain when listening to music show that our "hearing" should be affecting the regions of our brain associated with muscle movement and functions.

 

As incorrectly explained in the video above, the reason why we lose the ability to distinguish sound when background is involved or in other words a sound wave that is higher in decibels than those closer towards is caused by lost "in-going auditory nerve fibers" (not outgoing) and not hair cells.

 

1)Yes I have and don't really seem to have a major problem with it,when there's background noise I can focus my hearing on what I choose although admittedly it's not as crisp as it use to be.If the background noise is quite elevated then I struggle a bit but at this moment it's not overly concerning.

2)My point about the kids talking was even at a distance I could pick out and clearly distinguish what each person was saying over any background noise,does this show fibre loss or fibre damage?Im aware that haircells are responsible for picking up the sound but the fact that I could clearly hear and understand and also process what the kids were saying leaves me confused as to what is wrong with my hearing.

3)I don't know why I have hearing problems,it's noise induced but what exactly happened to me I don't know.I will admit that sometimes I do struggle to process what people are saying to me even though I hear it loud and clear it just doesn't land with me and this only happened after T and H.Its like my brain doesn't know what to do with the information coming in.

4)When I listen to music I still feel emotions depending on what song it is,if it's sad it makes me feel miserable and reminiscent but if I listen to an inspiring track I feel uplifted and happy if this what you mean by not being able to emotionally process from music anymore.There are sounds I don't get joy from anymore and these are the sounds I'm sensitive too,which is pretty much everything now.I once loved the sound of my car but now I hate it because I know it will bring me pain.

5)I know deep down that my auditory nerve is the culprit,but to what extent I don't know,I don't know if I have nerve fibre loss or damage is what I'm getting at from my statements about hearing the kids playing basketball coupled with the fact that I have distortion that comes and goes which would indicate damage not loss?Im not an expert but just some thoughts,I'm asking for your opinion Nick.

 

I've always (95% of the time) worn over-the-ear headphones. I used earbuds sparingly for short bursts throughout the day.

Neither the earbuds or over-the-ear headphones were played loudly often. Maybe once a month I'd listen to a max-volume song for a minute or two, and even then I was within "safe" ranges.

My father has more noise exposure than me. 50 Metallica and Iron Maiden concerts, front-row near the speakers, 120db, and he also did a lot of noisy warehouse work with machines, plus listening to metal as a kid, but he got away with no T. Brother and mother both use earbuds/headphones all the time. Fuck me, I guess.

Didn't matter in the end. Guess I have "weak" ears.