What's Wrong with Me? Audiogram Was Normal, Otoacoustic Emissions Wrong, I Have Trouble Hearing

Hello. I'm new here. I had no issues hearing through my childhood until my adolescence. I began to have issues listening specially in groups of people. I went to an ENT when I was 16 years old (I'm now 29), who realized an audiogram and otoacoustic emissions. The audiogram was fine, but the otoacosutic emissions results were wrong. So she basically told me that I was screwed up, and I would be at an "disadvantage" in music school. Then I went to another ENT who made me do the same tests and said that what actually matters is the audiogram, which was fine, and it could be an "attention issue".
So I basically didn't have an answer. Allegedly the audiogram was O.K. so I should have been listening fine, except I didn't. I ended up believing this was some kind of psychological problem all these years.
I'm the guy who asks "what?" a lot of times. It really doesn't matter if they're women or men. It seems to be worse with certain people though. Being in a group of people with someone standing at certain distance, add background noise and I give up trying to listen what he/she is saying. I don't just miss consonants, I confuse vowels as well. Sometimes I miss a word and a lot of times I understand what someone is saying by some kind of compensation system which allows me to deduce what he just said, but I didn't hear it clearly.
So I grow up tired of this issue and after 13 years I went to an ENT again. Guess what. Audiogram was "normal". In this case, there seems to be some NIHL which is supposed to be minimal and shouldn't affect my social life. My doc says I should be listening fine. She sent me an MRI just in case. But yet again, I have trouble hearing and it really makes me feel insecure and damaged. I'm a psychology student and I'm afraid I will start missing words with a patient, asking "what?" when he/she is saying something important, and it drives me crazy. I would happily use aids if I knew they would help me, but I'm not sure what my issue really is.
As for tinnitus, I hear what it sounds like if my brain was "creaking". It's a very low noise I hear frequently but it's a slight annoyance. Hearing loss is what troubles me the most
Any suggestions? Please help



These are my audiogram results:

125 L:0 R:5
250 L:0 R:5
500 L:0 R:5
1000 L:0 R:5
2000 L:10 R:10
4000 L:15 R:15
8000 L:5 R:20

 

Rinaldo, I am not an expert, but I will agree that the audiogram looks fine. Obviously the problem must be on the brain side not processing the information fast enough. I believe that there are software programs to sharpen the hearing skills going through sound recognition scenarios.

 

You probably have ''hidden'' hearing loss. In other words, the acoustic information transmitted to from the inner ear to the brain is altered. Audiograms do not detect this. Otoacoustic emission can detect this to a degree if the nerve damage affects outer hair cell function.

 

Acoustic nerve damage could be diagnosed by BERA (bear) test, or finaly head MRI. All other ways are not reliable.

 

@rinaldo It sounds like a processing issue that could be causing these problems. There's a good chance that you somehow could of damaged your auditory nerve fibers which help with sending information from the hair cells to the brain. The nerve fibers play a very big role in how well your hair cells pick up sound. I'm having the same issue that you have been unfortunately given in your life. My hearing was perfect to the highest degree up until 4 months ago. I still have a normal audiogram but I feel like I'm missing sounds and not picking up everything around me. It could most likely be from the damage to the nerves in the ears. Just keep searching for answers because you'll find them one day. I'm on the quest right now.

Check out these two articles:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120605175256.htm

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news...y_new_contributor_to_age_related_hearing_loss