Hi all,
4 days ago on the 7th September I was online with some friends and we were communicating via microphones. One of my friend's soundcards bugged, which made is microphone volume shoot up really high for a sudden few seconds. It stunned my ears and made my hearing muffled and caused them to ring/hum at a relatively low pitch. In the previous few weeks I had been listening to music almost every night with these headphones, never would I say at a terribly high volume, but occasionally quite loudly. So for the next four days I experienced some problems with my hearing that I will now outline.
I'll give a brief chronology of the next 4 days:
- day 1, stayed the same as after incident
- day 2, the ringing died a little, hearing was still muffled, began to get a bit worried
- day 3, to my relief the ringing had stopped and across the course of the day I lost the muffledness. However, at the same time a very high pitched hissing (much like the sound of turning a TV on) came to the forefront, mainly concentrated in my right ear. On this day I had gone to see a nurse, at the time most of the ringing and muffledness had cleared up, so I didn't bring up the hissing and he said that my eardrums were fine and that my ears were just healing.
-day 4, the hissing remains, except its focus has changed to the left ear, only really audible at quiet times (e.g. when trying to sleep). It's not unbearable, just annoying and upsetting. It's giving me anxiety as I am continuously fearing that it won't go away (as I did with the previous ringing and muffledness).
Throughout the 4 days I have felt pressure and a little pain in and behind my ears and still do to an extent.
So my question is, will this final 'hissing' go away? I am going to see a doctor again tomorrow to bring up this hissing sound with him and see if there's any advice/supplements that he can suggest to help maximise my recovery (do you know of anything that'll help?).
I've heard stories of people having been at concerts and getting the same sort of thing, but it lasting for sometimes 3 weeks. However, I am worried that though I have not been exposed to such things as they have, and thus you'd expect me to recover in a few days, that I am nearing the end of my 'recovery' period without fully losing this hissing noise.
Is it just a case of, it will take as long as it takes, even if it didn't feel like a severe exposure to loud noise, or am I likely to be stuck with this permanently? I am quite young (turned 18 in August), does this improve chances of healing?
Past health of my ears: I had some ear infections when I was a young infant and I believe I've had some form of extremely mild tinnitus all my life: when I 'squeeze' or 'tense' my ears there is a light, low pitched 'swooshing' noise. It's not audible when my ears are in their relaxed state. At the moment this swooshing is the same as its ever been. (it's in my right ear)
So yh, I am just very worried and wish to know if anyone has any statistics or expert knowledges (or even similar life-stories) that can indicate whether I'm going to fully recover from this or not.
Thanks,
Evan MF
4 days ago on the 7th September I was online with some friends and we were communicating via microphones. One of my friend's soundcards bugged, which made is microphone volume shoot up really high for a sudden few seconds. It stunned my ears and made my hearing muffled and caused them to ring/hum at a relatively low pitch. In the previous few weeks I had been listening to music almost every night with these headphones, never would I say at a terribly high volume, but occasionally quite loudly. So for the next four days I experienced some problems with my hearing that I will now outline.
I'll give a brief chronology of the next 4 days:
- day 1, stayed the same as after incident
- day 2, the ringing died a little, hearing was still muffled, began to get a bit worried
- day 3, to my relief the ringing had stopped and across the course of the day I lost the muffledness. However, at the same time a very high pitched hissing (much like the sound of turning a TV on) came to the forefront, mainly concentrated in my right ear. On this day I had gone to see a nurse, at the time most of the ringing and muffledness had cleared up, so I didn't bring up the hissing and he said that my eardrums were fine and that my ears were just healing.
-day 4, the hissing remains, except its focus has changed to the left ear, only really audible at quiet times (e.g. when trying to sleep). It's not unbearable, just annoying and upsetting. It's giving me anxiety as I am continuously fearing that it won't go away (as I did with the previous ringing and muffledness).
Throughout the 4 days I have felt pressure and a little pain in and behind my ears and still do to an extent.
So my question is, will this final 'hissing' go away? I am going to see a doctor again tomorrow to bring up this hissing sound with him and see if there's any advice/supplements that he can suggest to help maximise my recovery (do you know of anything that'll help?).
I've heard stories of people having been at concerts and getting the same sort of thing, but it lasting for sometimes 3 weeks. However, I am worried that though I have not been exposed to such things as they have, and thus you'd expect me to recover in a few days, that I am nearing the end of my 'recovery' period without fully losing this hissing noise.
Is it just a case of, it will take as long as it takes, even if it didn't feel like a severe exposure to loud noise, or am I likely to be stuck with this permanently? I am quite young (turned 18 in August), does this improve chances of healing?
Past health of my ears: I had some ear infections when I was a young infant and I believe I've had some form of extremely mild tinnitus all my life: when I 'squeeze' or 'tense' my ears there is a light, low pitched 'swooshing' noise. It's not audible when my ears are in their relaxed state. At the moment this swooshing is the same as its ever been. (it's in my right ear)
So yh, I am just very worried and wish to know if anyone has any statistics or expert knowledges (or even similar life-stories) that can indicate whether I'm going to fully recover from this or not.
Thanks,
Evan MF