Help Me Troubleshoot My Music Distortion

Maybe the CD player thing had to do with hyperacusis improving? Background noise like the hum of a refrigerator seemed on par with speech when my loudness hyperacusis was really bad (Loudness has gotten largely better, but I now have pain...but I’ve been on Clonazepam for months now so who knows if I stop taking it the hyperacusis could return to previous levels...scary).

Along the same lines of complexity that you mentioned before... Perhaps where various instruments occupy swathes of the same frequencies you’re having some type of issue with picking out things occupying the same frequency space. That would possibly relate to your ability to then hear them when the instrument is isolated.

 

I wonder if this is part of why my hearing isn't that bad on paper but horrificly distorted. It looks like Azithromycin is an exception to most causes of hearing loss in that in the cochlea it destroys inner hair cells first.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaotolaryngology/fullarticle/496255

 

It honestly sounds like every single frequency is distorted. The only thing that sounds normal to me are pure tone wind chimes if ringing one at a time (both high and low frequency chimes equally). And 8 bit video game music.

 

Yeah the distortion thing I wasn’t referring to just the missing instruments. I really hate it for you. You said hope dies last for you so you seem optimistic. I’m very pessimistic so I admire that. Hopefully it gets better or help comes sooner than later.

 

Believe me, I am pessimistic too. Well, short term I am. Long term I think science can solve this.

I am 42, so I hope within my lifetime, music will be beautiful again (I would say sooner by I have brain stem hearing damage too I believe). That's all I really want before I die. My husband left and I don't have a family but I believe I will have music again... someday. That's what keeps me going (and obsessively on this forum). If I get to have that again one day it will be enough happiness to carry me through. But I believe I will--we all will probably that aren't octogenarian now. It's just getting through this part with all the horrible distortions.

 

This seems to be based on a severe drop in hearing at certain frequencys- which explains why some sounds can be heard and others are missing.
Certainly a 50db drop off would lead to certain instruments being inaudible.
You should be checked for menieres or if no vertigo hydros which means to much fluid in the inner ear. This can cause hearing loss that can fluctuate and also distort.
I had menieres 21 years ago couple of vertigo attacks and fluctuating hearing loss and sensitivity in the left ear with Tinnitus. Awful but luckily I saw a great naturopath who help me get rid of the vertigo ( only had one recent mild attack) and whilst I still have some hearing loss it is not to bad and I can enjoy music.
The tinnitus also reduced to almost zero( only notice at night if I put finger in ear.
2 months ago whilst travelling the tinnitus flared up and was bothersome. I have been using sound therapy and taking anti oxidants and ginkgo bilobs taurine and other anti oxidants and slowly the tinnitus is improving.
Suggest looking at sound therapy international as it has helped me immensely and supplements that seem to assist.
Relaxing is important for ear issues and is difficult when these issues arise but I find the sound therapy very helpful re relaxing and sleep and it is early days but my hearing and tinnitus are greeting better. Also I have cut out salt from dirt and eat mostly fruit vegetables and rice.
Hope this helps

 

The 50-60db drop is only at 12000hz. My hearing also doesn't fluctuate. I don't have Meneire's. It was suspected at first but eventually ruled out.

After more research, it appears I have widespread inner hair cell damage from the azithromycin ototoxicity (vs the OHC damage much more common) +/- kv3.1 potassium ion effects in the brainstem. That's why my hearing problems are so vastly different than most.

 

Hi FGG, I have hearing distortion too, making things sound tinny or metallic, for example paper sounds like I'm gently rubbing two pieces of copper pipe together. Furnace has a whistling sound over it, like some bird. Thing is I have never been exposed to any medications since it started, only loud noise at work. I think maybe the distortion is loudness hyperacusis affecting only high frequencies. My 8000 Hz audiogram looked normal. Just my two cents. I hope both of our situations improve.

 

I finally got all of my music software reinstalled. I wish I could show you on a synthesizer what I think is going on.

 

That's easy. Record your screen and publish on YouTube.

 

Oh yeah.

 

This is the first time I’ve seen this thread. There are numerous things that could be going on; there could be some sort of maladaptive processing going on in your auditory cortex. From a psychoacoustics point-of-view, the way the brain processes a specific frequency is quite complex, especially when one listens to a broadband sound that contains many different frequencies at the same time. It can be a challenge for the brain to analyse and interpret everything that’s being heard, so any significant sensorineural hearing loss (some may be hidden) is likely to disrupt this process to varying degrees. This is why we have speech in noise tests.

This may be worth reading:

Frequency Resolution

Let’s talk about some other aspects of sensorineural hearing loss and processing. First, we will address frequency resolution. Frequency resolution is purported to be how well the ear can tell apart two sounds that are close in frequency. Most audiologists remember from their psychoacoustic training that frequency resolution can be relatively poor in cases of sensorineural hearing loss. Data from Nelson and Turner (1980) documents this. The psychoacoustic tuning curve is an indication of how precisely frequency is encoded in the auditory system. It indicates that if you put a sound in at 1,000 Hz and you measure the resolution of the auditory system, you see a very sharp resolution right around where you put the tone. The auditory system becomes very insensitive to sounds on either side of that tone very quickly, because of very precise tuning.

If you move to someone with a flat sensorineural hearing loss, and you do the same experiment, the psychoacoustic tuning curve requires a higher level of stimulation before you can get a response from the patient. You see much broader tuning. In other words, sounds at a very similar level, maybe a half octave difference still can create stimulation and perception in the auditory system in the same frequency region. Basically, the person has lost the ability to tell two closely aligned tones apart from each other. This is one of the observations that I think most audiologists are pretty comfortable with.

This loss of tuning shows up in different functional ways, and I want to dig more into that. Before I do, let me talk about some data from Simon and Yund (1993). There is tremendous resolution variability from person-to-person. In general, as you get more hearing loss, difference limens get greater, meaning the resolution is getting poor. The reason I like their graphic in the paper is that it shows you the amount of variation. Just like the observation that Plomp (1986) made about the signal-to-noise ratio loss is that the relationship between threshold and this level of distortion is weak at best, and there is a lot of variability from person to person. That is going to be a theme you are going to hear from me for the rest of the hour. The distortional aspect can show up with a lot of variability from person to person.

https://www.audiologyonline.com/articles/distortional-aspect-sensorineural-hearing-loss-11976

 

So is it possible this is all cochlear? I don't have much hearing loss evident on audiogram or at least it's all high frequency.

 

I am really starting to think some of the distortions are a form of hyperacusis but I also have pitch changes and missing sounds which may just be a separate problem.

 

There’s really no way of knowing as this is all guesswork, but your symptoms seem to point towards some sort of cochlear synaptopathy. This would explain your hearing distortion and your problems processing sounds whilst having a “normal” audiogram.

There’s a lot of information that needs to separated and processed when we hear a broadband sound, so I could imagine that having hidden hearing loss could really throw a spanner in the works when it comes to recognising and interpreting words and sounds with absolute definition. Hearing distortion is not too uncommon amongst tinnitus and hyperacusis sufferers.

Just out of curiosity, have you done a speech in noise test? Or an ABR test?

Some research has shown that people with cochlear synaptopathy have a reduced amplitude on wave I.

 

I have and passed with 100%. Yet I need captions to understand tv. Could this still be synaptopathy?

 

Have you had an ABR test? It would be interesting to see if you have a reduced amplitude on wave I.

Like I said before, it’s total guesswork from what we can gather on a forum, but at the same time, it can be very difficult to find someone in audiology who will be keen enough to run tests and try to find out what is going on.

My best guess is that you may have some disrupted signals going to your brain because of some form of hidden hearing loss that is currently unaccounted for, and that your brain is struggling to process and interpret what it is hearing.

 

I haven't. I even asked for one and was dismissed.

Would my electrocochleogram be at all useful information with this?

 

They usually do an ECoG if they think you may have Ménière’s disease. What did they say about your results? Another possibility when going down this avenue is auditory neuropathy, which is something I believe a dear friend of mine had who recently passed away with Friedrichs Ataxia. They may also be able to shed some light on possible synaptopathy.

It really depends on what they were looking for and what they found. What have the clinicians you’ve seen so far actually told you? Sorry if you’ve already mentioned this as I haven’t read the entire thread.


Auditory synaptopathies can be distinguished from auditory neuropathies by ECochG: individuals with synaptopathy appear to have enhanced adaptation to frequency specific tones whereas those with neuropathy had abnormal low frequency adaptation.44 The inner hair cell ribbon synapse is unique to the auditory system. Therefore, genetic auditory synaptopathies typically only cause deafness; in contrast, genetic neuropathies frequently affect other peripheral neurons as well leading to syndromic phenotypes. Auditory synaptopathies are rare and so studying these genetic lesions is of utmost importance to improving our understanding the human auditory system and CI outcomes.

Calcium influx at the base of the inner hair cell near the ribbon synapse is mediated via the Cav1.3L‐type Ca2+ channel, encoded by the CACNA1D gene. Otoferlin, encoded by the gene OTOF, is one protein responsible for regulating exocytosis of glutamatergic vesicles at the presynaptic site. The vesicular glutamate transporter type 3 (VGLUT3gene) is responsible for glutamate uptake at the postsynaptic site. Synaptopathies can therefore be classified specifically based on the site of lesion to the synapse: pre‐ or postsynaptic. This high resolution classification will assist with analysis of electrophysiologic data in these individuals. Specific genetic lesions that cause pre‐ or postsynaptic auditory synaptopathy will be described in detail below and are summarized in Table 1.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/lio2.288

 

They were looking for Meniere's initially. I was actually diagnosed with it but it turns out I actually have vestibular migraines and Meniere's was ruled out by a better Otologist. The first Otologist actually didn't even read my EcochG results (really) and just assumed they'd be positive.

Would you be able to distinguish whether I had low frequency adaptation or enhanced from these results? I have attached them.

 

I’m not an expert so I can’t give an opinion that’s of any use to you. From what I’ve read, however, your results appear to be abnormal.







Perhaps @brownbear could shed more light on this?

 

I'm sure my results are abnormal but I really don't think it's Meniere's. When I had my vertigo episodes, my hearing was normal: no fullness, no tinnitus, no abnormal hearing.

My hearing loss occurred separately when I took 1000mg of Azithromycin every other day for 6 weeks (a doctor misdiagnosed my problem as being related to Lyme coinfections because I had Lyme a decade or so earlier). One study showed about 30% of AIDS patients on that dose lost their hearing (the only usual people who got that absurdly high dose). Most regained it back but I didn't get so lucky.

Anyway, I had ocular migraine symptoms before my attacks as well and have responded to anti virals and the migraine trigger avoidance diet with no more attacks.

It seems i have (well controlled) vestibular migraines and ototoxicity.

I'm not disputing that my Ecog is abnormal but two otologists since the first have seen the results and know my history and have said I do not have Meniere's at least.

 

I should add though that Azithromycin likes to attack the Stria which is also abnormal in Meniere's patients. I wonder if this could produce similar results.

I also wonder if this is enough to produce my hearing symptoms or if regeneration can even help me if my stria is destroyed.

 

Has anyone mentioned cochlear hydrops?

 

I had a follow up Ecog at Hough that was much more in the normal range (I need to see if I can get those records though) and did not show results within the hydrops range.

My hearing was the same at this visit.

 

Hi, about 2 weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night to ears so full I thought I was going deaf. I had a hearing test (OAE and normal audiogram) and my hearing has since gotten worse. Certain instruments are now missing from music, sometimes voices sound distorted, and sometimes it even sounds slow. There’s been some slight improvements but I’m worried about this never going away. It’s made music very painful to listen to because I can’t help but point out the missing parts of the music. Doctors have no idea what’s happening either I’m only 21...

 

I am sorry you are going through this. This is extremely similar to my hearing. Is it both ears? Did you have exposure to antibiotics or other drugs?

My hearing loss wasn't evident until I had an extended audiogram (over 8500hz).

Music has not improved for me and it's been a year. I remain hopeful for regenerative medicine, however. It might not be too late for you to get steroids.

I have never met another person who also heard the slowing down of music as i have. Feel free to message me.

 

@FGG My apologies if you have covered this.

If you listened strictly to a metronome, the tempo would actually slow down? Likewise if you played a constant tone would the pitch change, since if it was a constant tone there would be no meter or beat.

When you listen to music and it slows down, does the pitch change? What happens on your music player if you are listening to music and it slows down, and you move the playback slider to speed up?

It seems odd that if this is a brain perception thing going on, that it would only be music. Does speech slow down and/or change pitch?

 

With something with a constant tone, the tempo does not change. Speech is not slowed down at all.

The pitch is so off with music it would be harder for me to say for sure, but I do believe it might change when it's slowed down.

When I try to artificially increase speed slightly, everything sounds worse.

I don't think it's a brain thing per se. It's either a rare cochlear problem (but severe macrolide ototoxicity is extremely rare) or my kv3.1 ion channels in the brainstem are also affected from the toxin damage. Those are needed for super dynamic sound but not every day noises or speech. There is some evidence antibiotics damage those, too.

 

Definitely interesting.

Ok have you experimented with a keyboard, gradually filling out a chord, for example. Start with the root, and gradually add in the 3rd, the 5th, etc? Is there a point where the sound suddenly becomes warped?