Noise-Induced Tinnitus: Nightclubs Are Too Loud!

Hi everyone!

I got my noise-induced T from a nightclub on 2nd October. I'm in my 3rd year at university. I was in the club for about an hour and a half, and I've never been somewhere where the music was SO LOUD. Maybe 110Db or more (of course at the time I had no real idea of 'safe' sound levels and decibel levels, let alone tinnitus). The music treble was piercing, and the bass was so loud it literally shook my whole body in a way I've not experienced before from previous clubs/concerts I've been to. The T appeared the next day and was pretty loud and intrusive for the first couple of weeks, but after 4 weeks it slowly died down to a faint ring I could only hear at night or in a very quiet room.

I avoided all loud noise, including nights out with my friends, during that time to make sure my ears had space to heal. However, Halloween (a week ago) was a night that I didn't want to miss out on, considering it's my last year at university and almost all my friends were going as well. So figuring that my T had almost gone, I went to the club for 2 hours, wearing earplugs I'd bought that reduce sound by about -15Db. Whilst I knew the music in this club was seriously loud, I figured my ear plugs would do enough, and I had expected my T to get louder for a couple of days post-club. I was seriously wrong in my judgement! The T is now SERIOUSLY intrusive. It's very easy to say with hindsight that I shouldn't have gone to the club, but I also didn't want the T to dictate my social life - it had already stopped me going clubbing for a month with my university friends, as I wanted to let my ears heal during that time.

So it's been a week since this second club visit, and I can almost definitely say that was my last time in a club - this current level of T I'm experiencing is horrible, and was certainly not worth those 2 hours. Luckily I'm in my last year of university, so I've had 2 great years of clubbing. That's something I can live without now.
Now I feel like I need to let people know that if they have relatively mild T that's noise-induced, they should never take it for granted. I learnt the hard way.

I'm just looking for some sort of hope to cling on to that my T will get better. The ringing that I had before this second club visit felt like it was coming from both my ears, whereas this louder T feels like it's coming from deep inside the centre of my head and it's way more distressing. I haven't been able to fall asleep easily, and it constantly feels as if someone has thrown a car alarm inside my head and just left it there. I also have had mild hyperacusis, though that seems to be improving by itself. Do you reckon this is just a severe tinnitus spike, or just the new norm? I don't know if I can go on when the T is just so intrusive. It's only been one week and I'm seriously struggling to endure through this.

 

Hey Krish230,

Hand in there bro, i feel you.

I have moderate case of T (no detectible hearing loss) win like 5 or 6/10 high pitched hissing in my head. its constant but i got used to it (literally wanted to put bullet in my head first 4 months). i went to club after about 3 months of having T with very weak but fancy earplugs (earasers musician earplugs -arent worth sh*t in my oppinion though) and my ears freaking rang like hell for a few days with increased intencity/loudness but subsidited a bit. That being said - better to double up! i should of worn foam earplugs but did not want to look silly...now i dont care. i wear my shure e225 noise isolating earbuds while i am in subway (its loud), or put in my -26db musician alpine earplugs. always have pair of heroes -33db foam earplugs in all my clothings in case i go to place where do feel -25db wont be enough. Dont let T dictate your life for sure. Go out - but be smart and safe.

P.S.

Now they came out with new earplugs that are mostly made of titannium and have about -70db noise reduction, lol! and they also look super cool!

I am going to order these and wear these instear of foam ones if i will be/get worried.

 

Hi Krish230,

Welcome aboard!

I understand you are a young guy and just want to have fun while you're still young, because you get to be chronologically young only once in life. I agree with that sentiment, but I think you need to be very careful about exposure to loud events in the future.

Since getting tinnitus back in March through noise trauma (I was at the wrong place at the wrong time), I have not listened to headphones at all nor exposed myself to loud noise.

In your case, I hope your loud ringing subsides to the previous level it was at (or even goes away completely - now that would be nice, right?). Best thing I can tell you is to rest your ears, rest your body, and avoid making the same mistakes.

 

Thanks @lolkas for your help. I've looked into the Hearos -33Db plugs and they seem like they'll be a much better alternative to the current ones I have, and which I used for the clubbing night, which are these:

https://www.amazon.com/EarPeace-Ear-Plugs-Protection-Professionals/dp/B00FQSDN96/

Although they were ok, I don't think they do the job of protecting your hearing when sound goes past the 100Db mark.

The -70Db earplugs that you mention sound good, have you got a link to where I can find out more about them? Also, I'm still extremely concerned that if I were to go to a concert/clubbing again, the T would come back even worse. I've read elsewhere on the forum that even with -30Db earplugs their T was still made worse, possibly due to the intensity of the bass that these places have. I'm certainly going to keep away for a few months at the minimum. What's your personal experience of going to loud events with your -30Db plugs? Did you experience a spike, or any worsening? It seems like in these situations it completely varies person to person.

 

@MikeL1972 Thank you for your kind words. Yes I am certainly going to be way more careful now. I'm going to a party this weekend where there will probably be loud music in the 80-90Db level, and I intend to wear my plugs and take breaks from the music every few minutes or so, given that this noise exposure was so recent.

Do you feel like you've benefitted a lot from resting your ears from loud noise and headphones? Being at university, I'm even worried about going to bars now too, as the music there can get pretty loud.

 

@krish 230

Hey these titanium earplugs are called ISOLATE and yiu can just google them up. theu are sold off kickstarter for now but they seemd to be very siccessfull (even havenreview fron musician on youtube whichbsays (thisbis too much protection, lol).

Interrestingly there is big difference in wearing -33 db and -30 db. This is because of the way sound wave penetrates objects and "flatterns out".

 

Well, I think I have not further damaged my hearing in any event. In my case, I got tinnitus from loud noise exposure when a very loud car with a souped up engine roared by me unexpectedly while I was stuck in traffic. Prior to that, I used to listen to headphones, but at a very low volume. Since March, I have not listened to headphones.

Right now, my tinnitus is kind of loud but that's due to not getting adequate sleep because I was watching Trump shock the world in the late hours of the night!

 

I don't know why the damn hell clubs and concert venues are allowed to turn up the music so loud. It should be a crime to go past 100db because people have absolutely no idea what can happen. At the very least, they should provide earplugs at the door.

 

It's absolutely insane to allow these levels of noise exposure. It's proven to cause permanent acoustic trauma. If it was the eyes and not the ears there would be mass public outcry. It's *child abuse.* They need to be sued - Bigtime. Mass class-action. Get all the kids whos ears were fucked by these concerts and clubs to join in on it. Send a message and make them pay.

 

agreee 100 %, happened to me it is madness. People don't know what they are letting themselves in for.

 

I would argue even 100db is too loud. I work in a data center where the noise levels are constant and fluctuate between 85 and 95 db depending on the equipment you are near and I have tinnitus and sine I developed it I have found out at least a half dozen of my co-workers or vendors who I have talked to have been developing tinnitus. They still aren't wearing hearing protection. The company called in an OSHA inspector and the pronounced the room as not a hazard. I think the standards are wrong wrong wrong and am convinced in time they will be lowered. Too late for me.

 

The standards ARE wrong, I'm sorry to say.

Adding Insult to Injury: Cochlear Nerve Degeneration after “Temporary” Noise-Induced Hearing Loss

J Neurosci. 2009 Nov 11; 29(45): 14077–14085.

"It is sobering to consider that normal threshold sensitivity can mask ongoing and dramatic neural degeneration in noise-exposed ears, yet threshold sensitivity represents the gold standard for quantifying noise damage in humans. Federal exposure guidelines (OSHA, 1974; NIOSH, 1998)aim to protect against permanent threshold shifts, an approach that assumes that reversible threshold shifts are associated with benign levels of exposure. Moreover, lack of delayed threshold shifts after noise has been taken as evidence that delayed effects of noise do not occur (Humes et al., 2005). The present results contradict these fundamental assumptions by showing that reversibility of noise-induced threshold shifts masks progressive underlying neuropathology that likely has profound long-term consequences on auditory processing. The clear conclusion is that noise exposure is more dangerous than has been assumed."

 

How are you doing?

 

Not great, to be quite honest. My T keeps getting louder! When I posted this almost a year ago, I had no idea what loud tinnitus really meant because right now my sound is far, far louder.

Because the T has reached levels that are close to debilitating at times, I'm now taking proper steps to look for treatment. I'm seeing an audiologist in London soon who specialises in T, and will be seeing what treatment I can get. Some form of Tinnitus Training Therapy or Acoustic Neuromodulation Therapy would be great. Not sure what else to try.

Overall, then, not in a great place. But hoping these treatments will reduce my anxiety about it, and help me live more happily and peacefully.

*Forgot to add - I went to get a hearing test last week and it turns out my ears are full of wax. So blocked that the lady couldn't even see my eardrum! I'm having the wax removed next week, really hoping it'll reduce the volume a bit. I'm currently using sodium bicarbonate eardrops to loosen the wax before it's removed but it's actually blocking my ear canal so I can't hear as well. That could explain why the T has been so loud over the past few days!

 

Hey @Krish230 could you do me a big favour and let me know when you get your ear wax removed? I'll need to get my ears done soon too, and also what method will be used? Suction or water irrigation?

 

Will do! I’m actually going to go for manual removal. I had it done before and it was a bit painful, but I don’t trust microsuction or water irrigation due to their associated risks. Microsuction can damage hearing, and irrigation has been known to cause tinnitus

 

You need to avoid clubs, concerts, movie theaters, etc..also need to wear ear plugs when outside in the public. Give your ears a chance to heal. Keep us updated...

 

Thank you i really appreciate that! I got my ears done with microsuction about 7 months ago (that was before my T started) i believed it was safer than water irrigation..Now though that i have T I'm unsure about the suction

 

Hey @Krish230 did you get yours ears done?

 

Yeah I got them done! My ears feel much better now and the ringing has reduced a bit. In the end I went with water irrigation, which was done in a safe way by someone who had tinnitus herself. She knew what she was doing!

 

That's great to hear! There is a place in a city i seen that do manual removal for people with tinnitus.. so i might try that.. i can hear the wax moving when i sleep on one side it's starting to get annoying

 

Yes definitely do that, you'll feel much better for it