Tinnitus...who has it?

[Quadcam79]

a ringing, swishing, or other type of noise that seems to originate in the ear or head.Some of the most common include a sound of crickets or roaring, buzzing, hissing, whistling, and high-pitched ringing.



I know I do, between playing drums, blaring car audio, working at the airport most of my life, loud motocross bikes.

[PHROGGE]

does this ringing in my ears bother you?

[crazymanwithaplunger]

no - i dont' think i have it.

[Mr. Tama]

I have it, every so often I get a ringing in my ears that won't go away, but I don't think its from volume damage.

[Quadcam79]

be glad you dont and protect your ears. I have it and it's constant. Right now I've got the pc fans, all 5 of them running plus the tv on in the background and I still hear the high pitched ringing in my ears over all of that.

I never wore any ear protection when playing. I had a 600 watt system in my car with some sweet polk audio speakers and 2, 12" kicker subs.

raced around on motocross bikes for years, worked around jets without wearing ear plugs and now i'm paying the price.

[bassist learning drums]

does this ringing in my ears bother you?

I can't tell if it is your ears ringing or mine!!!

Seriously,

wearing ear protection is the most important piece of gear for the drum set.

[defcon235]

Mine comes and goes....If you don't have it, PROTECT YOUR EARS!!!! I'ts not fun.

-Honey, can you get the phone?

[CycleDude]

Mine comes and goes....If you don't have it, PROTECT YOUR EARS!!!!

Same here.

[Larrysperf]

Ring around the what you say
I cant hear you, stop your ringing But yes always wear ear protection your ears will love you for it. I have selective hearing lol

[itchie]

nope

[Fades Away]

Yeah this is such a difficult thing for me. Being in a rock band it's so exciting to play loud and have the monitor blaring, but i started to hear the ringing also, and the next day i went and bought a mixer and in-ears. It's still very difficult for me to keep it quite but it's much better. I actually determined the note of my ring it was B flat, yup thee concert chord ha ha. But yeah i can't stress protecting your ears enough!

[LagerHead]

Gotta protect the ears. I wear hearing protection when I play the drums, when I do yard work, and when I ride my motorcycle. I don't wanna be deaf, or, even worse in my opinion, develop severe tinnitus. No thanks.

Oh, and I don't have straight pipes on my bike either. Stock exhausts, but the engine and road noise can still be damaging.

[pastor_bob]

A couple of times, I played the music loud without the benefit of ear protection, and really enjoyed myself . . . but when I couldn't hear as well for a while afterward, I got the message. Protect those ears!

[drummer]

I have it and it's bad. I hear a constant ringing. It's there now. I try not to pay attention to it because it can drive you crazy. I wish I could go back and do it over again.

[gonefishin]

I do hear the ringing like some of you have said but its not all the time and doesnt last long or hinder any thing I do .

[MetalMan1992]

i dont have tinitus as such. My ears have been damaged by my druming and repeated heavy metal concerts but i dont have any ringing etc. just sometimes my hearing becomes really insensitive and everything sounds realy quite.

But i do have a story about tinitus. My dads best friend got tinitus from a pub band who had thier amps tyrned up way to loud and a year later the ringing was still present and he had a nervouse breakdown about it and committed suicide. So remember have ur amps and other shizz at a sensible volume. Music is there to be heard, not create a hard of hearing

[funkyruss]

Yes indeed I have it ALL THE TIME, and I'm trying everything in my power to stop it from getting worse. I would guess I have worn ear protection 40% of the time throughout my 30yrs drumming. It has gotten worse over the last year, when I should have been wearing protection ALL the time during practice and at the gigs, but didn't. Now I'm at paranoid levels of concern over noise. Went to an audiologist this week to inquire about custom earplugs, which will run around $200. They will attenuate over the whole sound spectrum equally, unlike the typical foam plugs.
I also have an in ear monitor system which I'm gonna use ALL the time now, even at small gigs. I now use the in ear system in 2 ways- for larger gigs where everything is miced, I'll pick up my mix from a free bus on the mixer (monitor 2 if you will) and that way the other guys can still have their floor wedges at their own levels(mixed for them on monitor 1).
For smaller gigs and practice, I place a condenser mic somewhere in the room, connect it to a phantom power supply, then put that into a compressor/limiter, then put that into my headphone amp, and voila, there is 26db of isolation from my bandmates, and a very comfortable volume for me! I put the compressor/limiter in the chain to again protect my ears from accidents like massive feedback or somebody knocking over a mic.
I'm also the lead singer in this band, so by not having a floor wedge aimed at me and my mic, I can crank my vocal mic level with no hint of feedback and sing at a really comfy level.
This is not just a loud rock and roll issue either. Orchestra players are as susceptible if not more to tinnitus- my brother the trombone player (sitting in front of trumpet players) also has tinnitus, and my friend's fiance (voilin player) is loosing her hearing as well.

You young people need to do something NOW- you don't want this noise in your head for the rest of your lives........

[funkyruss]

i dont have tinitus as such. My ears have been damaged by my druming and repeated heavy metal concerts but i dont have any ringing etc. just sometimes my hearing becomes really insensitive and everything sounds realy quite.

But i do have a story about tinitus. My dads best friend got tinitus from a pub band who had thier amps tyrned up way to loud and a year later the ringing was still present and he had a nervouse breakdown about it and committed suicide. So remember have ur amps and other shizz at a sensible volume. Music is there to be heard, not create a hard of hearing

That is such a sad sad story

[CycleDude]

I have selective hearing lol

That's the only thing it's good for...

"What.... sorry honey, I didn't hear you ask me to take out the trash..... What.... when you ask me to clean the garage..... What..... I thought you said you were gonna cutthe grass......

Selective hearing OWNS!

[CycleDude]

Gotta protect the ears. I wear hearing protection when I play the drums, when I do yard work, and when I ride my motorcycle. ....... Oh, and I don't have straight pipes on my bike either. Stock exhausts, but the engine and road noise can still be damaging.

Dude, what kind of bike do you ride?

When I wear my full face helmet, I can hear MORE than in my half helmet. the wind noise in the half helmet is just deafening. It drowns out the sound of the engine, believe it or not. In the full face, the wind noise is gone, and the engine sounds awesome! Not too loud, not too quiet, it's perfect.

[quikstang2]

I'm gonna go ahead and say yes, even though I haven't asked a doctor about it or anything. I can usually ignore it, especially if there's other noise going on. I usually only notice it when it's dead silent (like when I go to sleep). If I choose to (or get reminded of it, thanks for the thread BTW) then I can hear it any time. I think it started way before I began playing drums though... so it's probably mom's fault for yelling so much (I was a good kid, so she was yelling at little brother.)

[drummer118]

i dont think i do...once in a blue moon i'll have a ring that will last for 2 sec, but everyone i've talked to says that's normal and happens to them to... and always wear ear protection when i play my drums i always put on my earphones

[matthew62593]

Nope, I wear ear protection all the time. Just don't wanna risk it.

[fiacovaz]

I guess I haven't thought about it untill this thread showed up. I have had the high pitch ringing...a consistent tone...at times. I have never worn ear protection, as such, when I rehearse or gig with the big band. I have, however, gotten in the habit of wearing headphones when I practice.

[Quadcam79]

ya know when i forst realized I had it, about 10 years ago I was at my GF's house, we're laying in bed and it's a nice mid summer Virginia night, we have the widows open, cool breeze blowing through the house and she says "ahh, this is nice, you cant hear anything but the crickets" and I said "what crickets?, I dont hear anything" she says "you cant hear em? they're loud". All I could hear was the ring in my ears and I listened and listened for the crickets and finally i caught a faint hint of them but that was all.

That really bothered me and made me realize something wasnt right

heres a link to a medical site about it, hope it's ok to post this
http://www.medicinenet.com/tinnitus/article.htm