Hair Cell Damage or Nerve Damage?

Sorry, I'm very ignorant about the subject.

But how do you know if you have hair cell or nerve damage?

In my case, I have listened to loud music, concerts, clubs etc...

I only have tinnitus in my left ear, sometimes loud, sometimes very soft and low.

I don't think I have hearing loss, maybe in the higher frequencies, so what kind of damage is this?

 

I also wonder about this thing. I used to blast my ears with loud music. I alwayd loved to use in ear buds but I had two hearing tests but no hearing loss. I got my tinnitus when I was 6 weeks in my benzo withdrawal so how can I be sure if it is nerve or hair cell related? I had bunch of tests and nothing came wrong..

I have my tinnitus in both ears and in my head. Very pissed off tea kettles.

 

Im Asking this...
because i have read that
when there is Hair cell = there is a decent amount of hearing loss.
and in these past 3 months i havent notice a deacrese on my hearing.
i can listen pretty well.
even hold a conversation in noise restaurants

 

¡Hey Poyraz!
same here, about blasting my ears with lous music, they never told me this could happend lol
anyways, i havent get an Audiogram, but i dont really believe in them to be honest.
i listen pretty much the same as i did before.
thats why i believe i might have it in the higher frequencies,
My T appeared after a long period of anxiety and panic attacks...
oddly this is nothing rare....

 

There's a test that the audiologist can do called a DPOAE test, which is an echo that measures the health of the outer hair cells. If you have hearing damage but the hair cells are fine that would mean the synapses underneath has been damaged leaving the hairs intact.
But because people differ a lot and the test is wildly inaccurate they can't really draw any conclusions unless you have a pre-made test for reference.. Audiologists believe that since you only really need to hear up to 8kHz they shouldn't put too much effort in developing methods to test beyond that.

Now as for the tinnitus, it could actually be produced along the entire auditory path to where it is perceived. Which is about 7 centimeters from ear, to brain-stem, to the brain sitting just 2 centimeters above your ear. Anything that can affect the auditory path may potentially cause tinnitus and deafness but mostly it will be produced in the ear.

The hearing damage would have to be in the same location as your tinnitus if it is caused by damage to the ear. In my case that's 13 kHz. The damage is only minimal and I wouldn't notice it until it was at least 10 times as bad.

If you wish to perform your own audiogram you can do it at home using the program called 'free hearing test', it won't give you absolute values but you will be able to determine if there are strange dips in your hearing or differences between the ears. It takes a few minutes to understand the interface but it's well worth it.
Strange dips could also be caused by an audio system so it's worth checking with multiple systems.

 

Apparantly there is evidence mounting that the Glial cells next to the synapse, which inhibits over transmission and therefor damage, is itself damaged after long periods of stress. This could be why our postsynaptic neurons are damaged before the hair cells.
The Glia does many things like supply nutrients, hold the neurons in place, and destroys any pathogens, it also insulates the neurons from each other effectively keeping them from short circuiting. They also reabsorb excess neurotransmitters keeping them from doing excitotoxic harm.
Much is left to be understood about the Glia but stress seems to cause damage to them.



In this picture the Blue cell would be linking to the Hair cell, and the Purple cell would go link on to the brain. This image is located in the cochlea.

 

Wow thank you Cityjohn! its seems very complex but i understood pretty well.
so who knew? bein stressed played a big role in this particular problem!!
thanks for the information.

 

I attribute the onset of my severe and sudden tinnitus to work stress, as well as 8 months of my new neighbor's high-pitched barking dogs, the source of even greater stress. Hysterical barking dogs have always been a negative trigger for me.

No matter what many "experts" say, based on what I've read on this forum and elsewhere, I believe that stress can induce tinnitus. The glial cell participation is something new to consider. I've done just a bit of research after reading your post, and there's definitely something to it. Thanks for the info.

This article from europepmc.org is interesting.
Excerpt: