Hi Guys, Just wanted to share some positivity, yesterday the new edition to Men's Health fell on my mat. On the cover is Laidback Luke, a famous Dutch DJ who has Tinnitus for over 15 years. He seems in great shape physically and mentally!
I know he uses in ear monitors to protect his hearing. I don't recall him saying how loud his tinnitus is. I'm assuming it's mild but I don't know?
Ean Golden also has tinnitus, he rarely performs because of it. He is into DJ product development with Native Instruments and his teaching with DJ tech tools. he has some good blogs on tinnitus and how to avoid hearing loss.
Thankfully, it turns out that his early adoption of ear protection had a huge impact, and the results were completely normal. Even the constant ringing and beeping that panicked him early in his career has subsided. My own ringing isn't nearly as bad as it was a year ago, but it sure seems loud in the complete silence of the soundproof booth in the downtown Toronto clinic where my hearing is being assessed. I struggle to hear the tones, but feel optimistic that I'm able to notice some of the very high-pitched signals they're feeding me. However, I'm also noticing that there are long pauses during where I probably should be hearing something. Laidback Luke
continued..... "Do you work with heavy machinery?" the doctor asks me as he looks at my results, which makes my heart skip a beat. When I explain that I'm around loud music constantly, he tells me that explains what the chart is telling him, and why the highest frequency range of my hearing is still decent. "It's not actually too bad. Your left ear has a dip at 1K, but it's still within the normal range. Your right ear has a much larger dip though, at 4K. You should really get yourself a pair of custom musician earplugs." I leave his office feeling relief that my hearing isn't worse, but embarrassed that it's taken me this long to take it seriously. Thankfully, it's not too late for me to stop things from getting worse.
On his own forum he stated that he has ''two old television sets constantly buzzing in his ears'' and that the sound was ''pretty loud and gets worse when he is tired'' ... Other than that no real comments on it except for a tweet he put out in 2015 replying to someone with tinnitus saying ''Well I messed up my ears pretty badly as well 15 years ago so that is why I don't play any sounds higher than room level'' referring to the level he plays his in-ear monitors on.
