How Loud Is 'It'? (Movie Theatre)

Hi all,

I really want to go and see the new It movie this weekend at the movie theatre, but worried about the sound levels. I'm planning to wear 15 dB in-ear plugs to cut out some of the sound, but not too much so I can still hear the dialogue.

Considering it's a horror film and not action I don't expect many big explosions or fighting sequences that might have heavy bass.

Also planning to skip the trailers and only sit in the theatre for the film itself, as the trailers tend to be louder than the actual movie.

Has anyone else seen the movie - would the sound levels be ok?

 

You seem to be overestimating the protection one gets from those plugs. When I wear 30 dB earplugs and 30 dB Peltor X5A muffs (total noise reduction is approximately 35 dB), voice still sound pretty loud, I would need more noise reduction before I would not be able to hear them.

Keep in mind that you Might regret this for the rest of your life. Normally, when someone says "I have been regretting my decision for the past 50 years", what they mean is that they have been reminded of their bad decision a couple of times a day, every day, for the past 50 years. In case of tinnitus, when it is loud enough, one would be reminded of one's decision several times every minute, and it might last for the rest of one's life. For this risk, the downside is Huge. As for the upside, surely you can wait 3-6 months and watch it safely at home, where you are in control of the volume level...

 

@Bill Bauer, I so agree with you. You gotta be very very safe because there is a huge down side by exposing your ears to loud noise.
2-3 hours for fun versus may be life time of torture... if not life time then a few months spike? Is it worth it?

 

It never ceases to amaze me the negativity on this board.

Don't let tinnitus ruin your life. Wear ear plugs and enjoy the movie!!! Movie cinemas in my country are within safe DB levels.

 

See, you can ignore reality but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. If you pretend and act as if you are healthy, you risk getting screaming, debilitating tinnitus for the rest of your life that would totally RUIN YOUR LIFE. So I agree - don't let tinnitus ruin your life - protect your ears for the rest of your life and then there is a chance that your T will fade and STAY quiet.

 

One thing that I learned by reading posts on this forum is that what is safe for people with healthy ears can cause Huge (and possibly permanent) spike for a tinnitus sufferer whose ears have been compromised.

 

My sister said it was loud, but I do think it’ll be ok with ear plugs, I want to see “IT” as well. Lol
Enjoy life....don’t let it consume you.

 

It's not negativity...I have been to cinemas, concerts etc and paid heavy price because my tinnitus would spike.
After realizing that it's irritating or may be further damaging my ears then I stopped.

You can read many many posts here who regretted going to cinema, bars etc. People can choose what ever they want to do but I feel it's my obligation to warn fellow sufferers.

 

Hi Bill, sorry for the late reply, my T has been manageable recently so haven’t returned to the site. When things are better, I feel like this website is too much of a reminder. I didn’t go in the end because I was worried about my T, but we did something more exciting instead which was quieter.

All your points are certainly valid. What example do you have though of someone regretting one loud moment 50 years later?

 

I saw a number of posters on this site saying that they got a permanent spike after loud moments that took place several years ago. As we all know, some people's T never fades. Assuming the spike (that hasn't changed in years) is permanent, eventually many of those people will end up dealing with that spike for over 50 years...

 

The volume in a movie theater can vary greatly between cinemas and whoever is running the sound. Some places can be super quiet, other places can jack up the volume to an uncomfortable level. Most of the time the volume in most cinemas will be fine.

Small independent cinemas will most likely be more responsible with their volume in my experience.

Going to the movies is not going to ruin your hearing or make you tinnitus worse. Just take some ear plugs with you and have them handy in case whichever cinema you go to is too loud for you. 15db is suitable, musicians plugs are even better if you can afford them because they offer greater attenuation across the frequency spectrum without muffling the sound.

In my own case, I used to avoid the cinemas when I had severe hyperacusis - but at that point in my life I couldn't handle any sort of moderately loud noise. Since recovering I've been going to the cinemas for the last 2 years and have yet the need to use my ear plugs surprisingly. I bring them along in case the cinema is irresponsible with their volume, but haven't needed to use them yet.

I understand the fear some members have on here but unless you have a very noticeable sensitivity to loud noise, or a condition like hyperacusis. Then having ear plugs on you at the cinemas should be more than enough to ensure you will have a good time.

 

You have your own personal IT constantly whispering into your ears.

 

Agree - I've found a few smaller ones and not only is it often a more fun experience, the volume is low.

I'm sorry to hear you got spikes but coffee also gives some people spikes as does MSG and there is so many thousand things to even list depending on the individual. You can't let Tinnitus rule your life based upon what make give you a "spike" as otherwise you will not leave the house. I like drinking coffee and I'm not going to stop because it makes my hiss louder. Do you want to get to the end of your life knowing you didn't try to live a rich and fulfilling life because you're afraid of temporary spikes? It's also interesting how many of these posters disappear too....

There is a difference between a spike and having auditory damage caused. The chance of having auditory damage causes from the DB levels in Cinemas (Most) especially if wearing plugs is very very low. This is not the same as concerts, loud bars and clubs - which mathematically may cause damage if over exposure. Often concerts and some night clubs are over 110DB, so yes avoid and run away...very far away

Part of having Tinnitus is that we are more sensitive to sounds (often up to 10-15DB more so than non T suffers according to the latest research) so what sounds loud may not actually be loud enough to be causing auditory damage. I also use a quality DB monitoring app to use as a "guide" to add some logic to the situation; they are not 100% accurate but can assist when your emotional response to a situation does not allow for reason. If you're freaking out about a 50DB environment, stop.

People post a lot of things on TT - we often don't know any of the background situation as well (eg. did they start taking a new med, did they eat a food that gives them a spike for dinner before the movie cinema?). Using a few antidotal stories from random people on the internet is not how science is conducted.

 

Using the results of the poll on
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...the-onset-of-tinnitus-and-regretted-it.23061/
I was able to create an interval estimate for the fraction of the people who attend a loud event who end up with a Permanent spike:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...go-rave-at-music-festivals.19229/#post-269380

To make a long story short,

 

Been lurking for a little bit. A trend I've noticed is that Bill posts tend to bring his anxiety and pessimism into a thread in a way that makes it sound objective rather than subjective. There seems to be a lot of variance in how to cope, live, and/or treat T. Perhaps T is complicated and what works for someone else in regards to coping with it won't work for another. Everyone's body is different and I feel it is wise to listen to what it has to say.

I personally plan on skipping out on movies this year until I can understand how my body reacts to sounds. Overall I agree with the viewpoint of 'don't let T run your life but be cautious and protective.' The experience of T so far is very comparable to my chronic pain.

In the beginning, I would obsess over it. Always think of the pain. I would always lie down and do nothing but watch TV because of the pain. Those days are still there but if I waited around for my pain to go away completely, I wouldn't have much of a life. Don't undersell the effects of stress and nocebo, speaking as a very anxious person myself, it sucks!

I'm not happy, it's still an uphill battle. I imagine that will be the same with T. Everyone should know their limits but also understand where they can "cheat" a little bit to keep up their happiness and manage themselves long term.

 

How is a statistical confidence interval not objective?

If the probability of a Permanent spike is above 8.5% (with probability of at least 90%), then who in their right mind would choose to take that risk?

 

I appreciate the effort. But what is a "loud" event in this context? The issue I have with this is our hearing sensitivity is all different so unless all these events have been individually monitors by DB meters its people's own opinion. If you have bad hyperacousis, 50db will be unbearable but there will certainly be no auditory damage.

I'm going to stick to my previous statement that if the event is within safe hearing limits it won't cause permanent auditory damage. If you have a spike its mostly going to be temporary or its casual nature is linked to another circumstance. Trying to understand tinnitus is knowing you can't understand tinnitus.

 

Keep in mind that the degree of damage done to our ears that had resulted in tinnitus is also very different from person to person.

When we look at health outcomes of cancer patients, we know that different patients have different genes, environment, etc. Statistics tells us that if we average enough observations, all of the outliers will cancel each other out (i.e., the outcomes for patients with unusually good genes will be offset by the outcomes for patients with unusually bad genes).

In that poll, 11 people said that they had attended a loud event and it caused a permanent increase in their tinnitus. This is evidence contradicting your statement above.

 

I agree completely. You have two ways of going: accept tinnitus and attempt to live a rich and fulfilling life as possible (within reason and wearing protection where possible) or have a pitty party feeling sorry for yourself because a cure has not come yet. It's very difficult to "always" sit in the first camp because of the emotional effect of tinnitus, but what choice do we have?! We all have tinnitus, it's horrible but I can tell you sitting in the second camp only makes tinnitus worse as you hit a spiral of depression.

 

I think it all depends on one's T's pitch, volume, and reactivity. If one's T is likely to go into a huge spike as a result of noise one is likely to encounter when trying to live life as if one doesn't have T, the second camp is a better place to be.

 

What is the loud event? What other circumstances are related to the individuals who voted? We are in agreement people who attend a loud event that is outside of safe hearing thresholds could cause issues; we are not in agreement regarding what is considered a loud event.

This exercise is about as pointless as trying to track down the exact cause of people's tinnitus. Often it's almost impossible as to many factors are in play.

 

In the instructions for that poll the definition is given as "Loud events are events like weddings, concerts, pubs where loud music is playing, movie theater, etc."
And as I pointed out in post #18 above, some people who answered had attended unusually loud events, others had attended unusually quiet loud events (i.e., wedding where music was playing) - it all averages out and the width of the confidence interval already reflects all of that uncertainty.

 

I wasn't commenting on that specifically. It was a general observation. But on that subject, I may not be the most educated woman, and I definitely don't know anything about statistics, but skepticism has suited me just fine so far in my life. For example, how do I know that the poll size has a suitable sample size or that there aren't other factors negatively impacting the accuracy of the poll?

Being in the first camp doesn't mean living life exactly as if you weren't scarred. There are changes that have to be made which is why it is important for society to better provide acknowledgment and development of accessibility options. The unfortunate reality is that many conditions do not have cures. Facing these various disabling conditions...there is a grieving process. It can take years. Years plural. Enjoying life again is hard but is something I think we should try to learn. We all make mistakes, we all take risks. Blaming oneself for a permanent spike is unhealthy. Blame the illness. It is probably wise not to live recklessly but we should sip the wine once in a while, even if we have to through a straw.

That is if you can. That's why what works for one person doesn't work for another.

 

I answered the question above in one of the posts in that other thread:

As you can see, that statistics paper provides the width of the confidence interval for the case with 20 observations. Increasing the number of observations results in the interval (for the true value of the proportion that we are trying to estimate) to get narrower.

Earlier someone complained that the respondents might not represent the population of tinnitus sufferers, as people who are on this site are likely more bothered by their T than other sufferers. However, all of us are here, so that poll is relevant for people like us.

We should take those values "between 8.5% and 58%" with a grain of salt. But my point all along was that if that poll seems to imply that the probability is above 8.5%, the actual probability is unlikely to be below a low number like 1%. To me, a risk of getting a permanent spike with probability higher than 1% is Enormous.

Makes sense. I agree.