Flying as Profession with Tinnitus

I got tinnitus about 9 months ago, after a loud club night. Before that I only had experienced very short tinnitus "pulses" that immediately faded away. After this night it was constant high pitch ringing but I could only hear it in very quiet environment. Fly back to home couple of days later and went to doctor who told that it will either go away by itself or will stay like that.

Audiogram was ok. Well after a week or so it actually started to fade away and was away until I traveled back to work and fly to Dubai, at the hotel it started again and its been ongoing since. Came back home 3 weeks later and went to have hyperbaric oxygen treatment which didn't have much affect.

My T remained same for the summer until I started to fly again, now short haul flights and its seems its slowly increasing in volume now.

Are there any other pilots in here who have any similar experience or have any of you experienced longer spikes after flying? In cockpit I have alpine party plugs and active noise cancelling head sets.

Decibels that I have measured are 85-90 in takeoff and around 65-75 during cruise. Can this noise still damage my hearing or is it the pressure changes that are affecting my tinnitus? I have never had any problems with pressure and ears in my profession. Anybody have any experience??

 

I think that most of this cabin 80 Db or so sound is low frequencies which isn't cut well by plugs

Perhaps you should invest into better pilot ear muff those are pretty good but expensive

Active noise canceling may not be the best perhaps

 

An alternative, and perhaps better, strategy to find pilots with tinnitus would be to post on a pilots forum about tinnitus. For example, I found the "Airline Pilot Central" forum and ask about tinnitus. I did a search and found 22 threads that mention tinnitus. There may well other forums. If you still want information, you can enter pilot into the search feature. You have to sort through the results, but there appear to be a few pilots here. I would think you would do better asking on a different forum though.

 

I was under the impression that Peltor muffs provided the best noise reduction. Is that not the case? I couldn't find any special ear muffs for pilots on amazon...

 

Hi,

Thanks for the info, I did the search and found some good threads. The problem with the pilot forum is that people don't want to express their problems so openly there as these things are sort of "tabu" still. This is by far the best forum that I have found when it comes to T so I was hoping to find some colleagues here also, and I'm pretty sure there are other pilots here also.
Anyway I hope to get some replies about pressure change affect to T, is it mainly temporary spike or can it make T permanently worse and if I continue flying will it keep getting worse?

 

I looked into this and found one study: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19198197

Via the PubMed abstract, it would seem – on the surface – that the prevalence of tinnitus is higher in pilots (than in the general population). However, when I read the conclusion of the paper itself, it would seem that commercial pilots do not have a higher incidence of tinnitus than the general population (last paragraph):

On the other hand, I believe a profession such as dentistry is known to have a higher incidence of tinnitus (as are of course construction workers).

 

Wow, I always thought it was very quiet up in the cockpit. I always imagined pilots used top of the range headsets with max hearing protection.
You don't wear your alpine party plugs on ascent and descent, right?

 

Hi,

Pilots do wear headsets but it depends of the company what kind of headset you have, some planes are very quiet in cockpit and some really loud. Anyway the whole environment is rather loud when you think walking on aprons etc where you hear constant engine noise, so pilots are actually one profession group that also suffer from t rather lot. My t however did not start due plane noise ( it might have had effect in long term exposure to noise) it started after loud club night in Dubai. Never had any other experience about tinnitus except fleeting tinnitus so I was surprised about it. I also never had problems with my ears during decent/acent. Now I have custom made earplugs that reduce noise by 15db, I wear those under my sennheiser anr headset all the time. Now my T has been stable for couple of months. I have some days it seems louder and then better days when it’s quiet. I also experience change in it after acupuncture and Sauna which is traditional thing to do in Finland. Actually I recommend to try it, just lay down in sauna for 30 mins and after I take shower and come out of bathroom my tinnitus is gone for 10-15 mins. Only conclusion I have made is that my t is still reactive and in that sense good cos it’s can also disappear for good, now had it about 10 months.

 

I have a sortlike problem, I also need to use intercom systems as a camera op.
What I personally do is, I bring my own in-ears and a very heavy peltor.
This allows me to put my intercom super quiet and still understand my director, and cut out most of the surrounding.
I figure that the sound in the cockpit is not higher than 90 dB, so which that technique you should be able to protect your ears and communicate decently.

The in ears I use is a premold that I use as plugs (can change filters), and when I need it I put my intercom in it.
It's a small investment to protect your ears.
http://www.variphone.com/en/headset-2g

I figure the connection with the intercom system of the plane also varies depending on the type of plane, in that case you get also some extra pieces to make it fit.

 

I have tried X5A earmuffs and Bose noise cancelling headphones on a flight. I kept swapping back and forth and had a hard time determining which was better, I think the NC headphones were actually better for low tones and the X5As have a slight edge for high frequency sounds. For sudden noises the X5A's are obviously better.

@Perttu I think you'll be okay with good hearing protection. I don't know how good 'alpine party plugs' are, but I would get the best earplugs you can get and make sure you insert them deeply.

 

Hi,

Yeah I already have custom made earplugs where I can change filters, they work rather well with anr headset and just heard that we are probably gonna get Bose aviation headset in near future so even better. I used to fly jets but now I’m in Atr (turboprop ) so the noise louder in low tones now. I measured that during takeoff it’s roughly 90 dB in cockpit for about 1-2 mins which after we change climb power and it quiets down to 75db. During cruise it’s about 65-70 dB so not loud at all. I was more worried about the pressure changes but after doing some research on pilot forums none of the guys with t seem to have any increase due pressure variations. I do 5 hops a day (on average) so there’s plenty of ascent and decent for one day. I have had some peaks I’m my t after work but it seems to stay rather same level and those peaks have also lasted maybe a day or so. Might be also that it seems louder cos I concentrate on it and try to figure if it’s getting worse ( I have now stopped doing it and I’m habituating much faster). Oh and I think my t is now moderate as I can hear it even when driving my car (winter tires with spikes) if I start to listen it, in the beginning of last summer it’s was only nuisance in very quiet place but I have no idea why it got louder. It has also changed higher pitch and is more reactive in my opinion.. time will tell how it will progress.. hopefully will go totally away after few years.

 

Maybe you should aim to fly A380s. They are unbelievably quiet even on take off.

 

Yes I do know that a380 is quiet however its not really just pilots choice which type he wants to fly. Company that you work for decides that and at the moment there are no a380's in any company close to home country. So the options are, quit my job (not really an option), change company (I would need to move another country) or just protect my hearing as well as I can and habituate. It seems that many people here are stressed about flying&tinnitus which is natural but people should also realize that pilots who actually fly thise planes for work are also one group of people who suffer t quite alot.

Still I have to admit that very few of us is speaking about it.

That is why I started this thread, I wanted to see if there are pilots also in here who could give their knowledge and experience about t in our profession. Mainly I'm concerned about the pressure changes, do they affect t or make it worse.. doctors say no but even they dont actually guarantee that.

 

The last time I flew, I felt some minor discomfort as my ears equalised in pressure. In my pre T days that never happened. No T increase thankfully.

I find most planes too noisy now. Never going on anything other than an A380 in future, but I read that a lot of airlines have stopped buying them.

 

Hi just discovered a prolonged ringing in my ears and thought it was a wax build up but it’s not the case so ‘hear’ I am. I fly for a living and am starting to have real concerns about how this might play out.... is it possible to continue with my career and suffer with tinnitus?