Should I Avoid the Staff Canteen?

Im trying to give myself the best chance of recovery from T caused by a loud speaker and so far I have noticed a slight reduction in the T intensity but nothing to give me hope it is on the way out though

After eating lunch in the staff canteen I noticed it can get quite loud with people having to raise voices to get heard at times. I presume this is 85 decibels or so based on scales. Is this safe for me for about 1/2 hour per day or should I avoid the canteen totally? This seems a bit overkill to me and would mean me eating the sambo at the desk but would put out a co-worker who I go to lunch with who may be left on their own. I would do it if I thought it might help me long term. I do notice my T is a bit more prominent in the afternoons and this may be down to the canteen, or not.

Im trying to protect my ears by avoiding loud noise (bars, loud TV, music etc) but never thought about the canteen

Yes or no, would avoiding the canteen help in the recovery or am I being a bit too careful? Anyone got an opinion?

 

Yes.

stephen nagler

 

Is there any particular reason why say 85 decibels of conversation for a short period of time is safe for someone with recent T from noise damage other than that being definitely safe for normal ears? If i understand correctly the above sound shouldnt cause any damage to ears but im also thinking along the lines of making sure my recovery is not affected by noise, even the above level of noise. So in your opinion could the above level of noise in any way affect recovery in that situation and why not? I hope my thinking is clear

 

No.

Your thinking is clear. So tell us very precisely what exactly it is that you are trying to recover from.

stephen nagler

 

I guess what I am saying is that I read all the time on the boards about the "healing process" - but once a hair cell is dead, it is dead. So even if that takes a week to ten days after severe acoustic trauma to happen (which I doubt), beyond that I don't know what it is that folks are healing from. That's why I used the threshold for auditory damage in a normal ear as my guide in responding to your question. And you can normally listen to 85dB all day long without damage.

stephen nagler

 

Thanks for your responses Dr Nagler. I got my T when i was setting up a home theatre system and stupidly thought the subwoofer (quite large 12inch woofer) wasn't working correctly so bent over it to see what was going on and suddenly a loud part of the blu ray kicked in with cannons etc and hey presto, i have ringing in both ears since last november. Oh dear

Yes i understand your reasoning on the sound level. I was sitting in the canteen today and monitoring the noise level, its more of a constant hum of conversation, quite loud at times but i agree, ears should be able to handle that since there are no loud spikes at all really. I still haven't given up hope of my t going away somehow. There are cases of so called spontaneous resolution (or is this a myth that docs tell us to give us some hope ). No i have seen some cases online where t does go away after noise trauma, a few in the success stories of this forum. Not sure how if hair cells and nerves dont heal so well or at all.

Unfortunately, i also noticed my right ear reacting to my computer hum a few times with its own tones. I had no clue what was going on and thought i had done something myself during the day. But no, its seems i have a touch of hyperacusis too. In my head this is another reason not to be too optimistic of a spontaneous resolution. As time goes by im more resigned to the situation but i did feel my t spiked after the canteen a few times and now actually i hear it throughout the day but am getting a bit better at ignoring it.

I cant see how avoiding conversation at 85 decibels is going to improve my situation but i just wanted a few opinions

 

Sure, there are cases of spontaneous resolution. More often within the first year, but I've seen it even after five or ten years. I doubt that it has anything to do with some sort of miraculous resurrection of dead hair cells, though.

stephen nagler

 

Basically i dont really like the idea of avoiding such environments as canteens etc in the hope it may help with a spontaneous resolution in the future, i just dont see how it can. But on the other hand the canteen did seem to spike my t so it got me wondering. Too much thinking about t can drive you nuts, if i avoid canteens then what next? Its not the way i want to live really.

 

Speaking as someone who has been on the same boat as you for about the same period of time--you don't have to live that way. I thought the same things that I couldn't go to noisier restaurants because my T would bother me too much to enjoy it, but once I started just doing it again and finding that the T, if it is noticeable, doesn't have to bother me, I became a lot happier. It's not easy but I have had a lot of success pushing myself into uncomfortable situations--which in turn has made those uncomfortable situations a lot more comfortable again.