Expose to Loud Sound for Only a Few Seconds — Could I Have Lost Hearing?

I had earphones on, and my iPad glitched and it gave out a super high high pitched noise, it was only in my ears for about a second and a half. I don't have tinnitus, could I have lost hearing?

 

How loud was it roughly? And what was the noise like exactly?

Something similar happened to me in March, I already had T and H at the time but I didn't notice anything after the incident, then a day or two later my T and H suddenly drastically worsened out of nowhere like a delayed reaction.

Now my ears were already acting up, my girlfriend,brother and mother were all exposed to the exact same noise and it done absolutely nothing to any of them.

My advice would be to rest your ears from loud noises for a few months and use adequate hearing protection in future, stop using earbuds indefinitely, make an appointment with your ENT and explain what happened and ask for a short course of steroids(the sooner the better)
If he can't find a hearing loss associated with the trauma he most likely won't prescribe this treatment but it doesn't hurt to ask just incase.
Monitor any changes in your hearing over the coming weeks, if you notice something wrong or a loss of hearing then go to your ENT as soon as possible.

In the meantime make sure to rest up, take Vitamin B12, NAC and Magnesium to aid in any recovery that may or may not be taking place.

Goodluck.

 

It's been shown that damage occurs over days/weeks after the event which is why so many people have a delayed onset of tinnitus. I would be taking NAC, Magnesium, vitamin A, C, E, ACE, and a-lipoic acid at maximum UL dosages. Most of the studies show that tinnitus can be treated right after the event so if you do get T then those vitamins won't do much good. Don't listen to anything loud for at least 30 days. You're probably fine though since the ipad has a limit on what it can output.

 

I suppose it is a software limit however. When you turn the volume too high you will get a warning. You can choose to go beyond that if you are brave or have a natural neglect for hearing. If the software glitches or hangs, there is no limit to what it can put out (only limited by hardware). That's the problem with a software limit. The hardware is still capable of putting out 100dB+ if the software is not interfering.

 

Yes however the amount of power that can be supplied is limited. 100dB requires 10x as much watts as 90Db. You can get away with hearing 130DB for a second and not get permanent tinnitus (not good for your ears though). I would say the max output in db for in ear is about 110db for ipad. Haven't seen specs on it but assuming it is 110db the unit would have to put out 100x more power to get 130db and I don't see how that's possible.

 

woke up feeling normal, it was a high pitches sound for about a second , it was pretty loud but good thing i took them off quick