Surprised by the Loudness of a Wedding — My Tinnitus Seems Worse Now

[Matt Edwards]

I've had tinnitus since 2017. But it was somewhat manageable. I could hear it in places where there weren't any other people. I could hear it at night in my room and in my car when I was completely still and the engine was off. It was annoying but not terrible. It was a high pitched noise that was mostly in my right ear.

Then I went to a wedding this weekend. I haven't been to very many weddings before. I didn't know what to expect. The bride and groom are fairly conservative people, and I thought it would be a more relaxing kind of event. It was my uncle's wedding and I went with my parents, so I didn't expect it to turn out to be like a nightclub. But it was. Four to five hours of blasting Drake, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, all at extremely high volumes. I could feel my chest vibrating when the music got loud. I didn't have earplugs because I didn't think I would need them at an event like this.

I downloaded a decibel app for my iPhone at the event, but I'm not sure how accurate it was. The sound seemed to fluctuate over the entire four to five hour span between the values of 120 and 125 dB. I'd say the most common number that would pop up was 124 dB. Is that enough to make my tinnitus worse? I've been hearing it a lot more lately. I can even hear it over my tv when I watch shows. It's faint but always there. Will it get better over time? Thanks!

 

[Digital Doc]

Sounds over 80-85 dB can be loud enough to cause tinnitus, and if that app is remotely adequate, those sound levels you describe are dangerous, and can worsen tinnitus for sure. Ridiculous how loud these types of events are.

Be aware that the tinnitus may worsen over the next few days, in what is known as a delayed spike. Especially as you had tinnitus before, you at high risk to get it again, even from less significant noise exposures.

 

[Earing]

Prednisone can help.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Will it get better over time?

It might get back to your original level. However, if you continue to expose your ears to noise, the chance of it improving will likely be lower.

Check out

I didn't read all the above comments, but did peruse a fair amount of it, and ran across many good points on both sides of the argument. What strikes me is there seems to be an underlying assumption (of course I may be wrong on this) that all brains and neurological systems are created equal. The way I see it, that's simply not the case, so everybody's way of dealing with tinnitus and/or hyperacusis is going to have to be highly individualized.

I read a book many years ago called "Adrenal Syndrome". A lot of the book touched on the residual resiliency of people's adrenal glands as they respond to life's stresses. Very low resiliency often resulted in months/years of chronic debilitating exhaustion following a stressful event(s) in their lives. Very high resiliency indicated essentially the opposite. The author broke this down into some rough numbers:

25% of people have low resiliency, meaning normal life stressors will often send them into some degree of a tailspin.
25% of people have high resiliency, meaning that no matter how severe a stressor comes into their lives, they will be able to cope without becoming debilitated to any degree.
50% of people fall somewhere inbetween.

I believe there are some kind of corresponding numbers for a person's brain and neurological resiliency as well, which can greatly affect the ability to cope with tinnitus. (I believe adrenal resiliency also plays a major role in our ability to cope). -- Based on these assumptions, it's pretty easy for me to conclude that what may be overprotection for one person will be underprotection for another, and vice versa.

I think the main point to understand for someone new to tinnitus is that their path forward is going to be a lot of "testing the waters". Generally, IMHO, it's going to take a few weeks or months to get important insights that will help us achieve a healthy balance. In all likelihood, most people are going to learn from experience when their over-protecting or under-protecting.

I've come to believe however, that in those early months, if one is going to err in either direction, it should be toward overprotection. It just seems to me the consequences of underprotection (which could result in permanent injury) in those early times are much more dire than the consequences of overprotection--which as I understand, generally results in temporary setbacks.

Doing a number of things to better support the brain and neurological system and the body's stress response (adrenal glands) is quite high on my list of recommendations I would make to anybody with tinnitus. Doing so might even prevent phonophobia or OCD, etc., as we go through our learning curves -- Just my 2 cents worth.

Relative newbies to tinnitus are likely to find all the information/opinions above quite confusing. So here are a few common-sense rules to follow:

1. The best protection of all is avoidance. Even the best earplugs can't guarantee complete hearing protection so those relatively new to tinnitus are best advised to avoid prolonged loud noise exposure - especially amplified sound at for example live concerts and sports events. This may involve lifestyle changes.

2. When in doubt, use hearing protection. In the many tasks we all do through the week, some will inevitably involve exposure to noise - which may be at higher levels than we at first realise - so using hearing protection for many of these is only sensible.

3. Build quiet into your day. It's not a good idea to be wearing hearing protection all the time - so you need to give your ears a break by ensuring that there will be quieter times during your day when hearing protection isn't necessary.This may involve changing your routine. Use soft masking noise and light music (not using headphones) to avoid "silence" where tinnitus is most noticeable.

4. Don't stress about stress. Tinnitus newbies are forever being told that the thing which makes tinnitus worse is stress. But while it's true that how you are feeling at a particular moment can make tinnitus temporarily louder, it won't have a lasting effect. But prolonged loud noise exposure can make tinnitus permanently louder. So don't stress about stress - but do be concerned about noise.

Also check out
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...eone-else-who-has-tinnitus.26850/#post-307822

It would appear that for many of us, our ears have been compromised, and now it will be a lot easier to cause damage. The noise might not be enough to cause hearing loss (unless we are talking about the hidden hearing loss), but (as many of the people here found out the hard way) it might be enough to make one's tinnitus louder/more high pitch/harder to ignore. So if you aren't careful, it might continue getting worse.

When I began to avoid moderate noises (e.g., vacuum cleaner, hair dryer), I began to see improvement. When I accidentally pressed a loud phone to my ear and the person on the other end of the line had raised her voice, I was back at square one.

 

[MattS]

Sounds over 80-85 dB can be loud enough to cause tinnitus, and if that app is remotely adequate, those sound levels you describe are dangerous, and can worsen tinnitus for sure. Ridiculous how loud these types of events are.

Be aware that the tinnitus may worsen over the next few days, in what is known as a delayed spike. Especially as you had tinnitus before, you at high risk to get it again, even from less significant noise exposures.

I'm really curious about this delayed spike phenomena. How do you know that this exists Doc? Is it just personal experience? Life on the board? Or is there actually documented evidence of this delay? (Not questioning your statements; just trying to get to the bottom of them).

 

[Matt Edwards]

@Digital Doc, are you a real doctor? Are delayed spikes reported in medical journals? That's concerning.

 

[Digital Doc]

I'm really curious about this delayed spike phenomena. How do you know that this exists Doc? Is it just personal experience? Life on the board? Or is there actually documented evidence of this delay? (Not questioning your statements; just trying to get to the bottom of them).

I have personally experienced the delayed spike phenomena as my acoustic trauma was on a Tuesday, and my T increased to a max on Saturday and Sunday. If you look around these boards, many others have experienced this delayed spike as well, occurring even more days out with a max of about 10 to 14 days. The medical literature does not discuss this, as I just confirmed with a search on the National Library of Medicine.

@Matt Edwards

Yes, I am a practicing physician.

 

[Allan1967]

Question is do these spikes ever fade.

If so, how long. If not, when do I think this us fucking it now.

 

[Ruse]

Question is do these spikes ever fade.

If so, how long. If not, when do I think this us fucking it now.

I went to a nightclub about 2 months ago (with hearing protection).

I honestly didn't think it was loud enough to cause permanent damage but I still spiked pretty noticeably and only gone back to normal in the past week or so.