If this ever happens to you...

I thought I would share my recent health experience since it has halted my music making at least for now:

I had what I thought was a sinus infection with muffled hearing in my left ear in December. Turns out I had what is called a sudden hearing loss, maybe from a virus, maybe some other cause - no one really knows. I didn't realize what was happening for several days (it seemed like a bad cold), and didn't seek treatment for about 4-5 days. I am now a month in, still have lost about 20dB of lower frequencies, and have an echo and tinnitus in my left ear, and some sounds are out of tune by quite a bit. Still hoping for a total recovery, and thankful the hearing loss was not any worse.

This is a rare event, but if this ever happens to you, if you even THINK your hearing is muffled during a cold - go to the ER or an ENT specialist and get it checked out. They need to get steroids started immediately if it is a real hearing loss and not wax buildup - the earlier they treat you the better chance of recovery.

Anyway guys sorry to be an attention monger here - just feels a bit better telling fellow musicians about this. I will be adapting to making music with 1.75 ears worth of hearing and an annoying/scary echo and pitch difference in one ear. Its been frightening times, but it could be worse and I'm thankful for the hearing I still have, and I still have some chance of recovering over time depending on which doctor you ask.

D

 

Bad news, i wish you a full and speedy recovery!

Tbh, after listening to some of my mixes i think my hearing might have went years ago

 

That's scary. I hope you make a full recovery.

 

So sorry to hear about that. I've never heard of anything like this happening before. I had a pretty serious problem with ear infections when I was very young, which lead to a burst eardrum at one point, ear problems are the worst.

I hope you make a full recovery so you can get back to the music ASAP! Take care.

 

Hi mate. All my sympathy to you mate. I have had Tinnitus for years now in my left ear. No treatment available for me though I just have to live with it.

I struggle with certain Hi mid frequencies, but overall I have learned to accept it. Can be difficult mixing at low volumes.

Good luck.

 

HI , my compation to you , i got one in my right ear since ten years , i had as well to accept deepely before to start to never focus onit and now i can forget it several days , yes, forgeting it is really possible .
beside that i got some days more bad some times if i'am tired or ill .
thoses times it can get louder for a moment (ears tireness) but it didn't change since ten years not worst not less , the same .

Good luck ! avoid playing too loud too long ! abusing too much could make it worse ! that's your new chalenge !

 

I have sever tinnitus on my left ear and some in my right it is annoying but like kolta says you do get used to
It and I try to avoid loud listening

Tha hazards of DJing

 

hope you get better soon the samething happened to my cousin he was left with very very bad tinitinitus the only way he could cope with it was to get stoned the more stoned he got the less it hurt but it left him in a bad way and sadley he passed away last year

 

I'm sorry to hear that :*( that's probably the most horrible thing that could happen to me.


A side note:

I bought a TC Electronics BMC-2 for monitoring purposes.

It has this awesome reference button where you can set the volume to a certain decibel level of your choosing and when you press that button it always goes back to the same level you set previously.

I turn it on while working for a long period of time that way when I reach for the volume control it doesn't do anything. I have to make a conscious effort to turn off the button then turn the volume up. In this way I keep myself from continuously cranking the volume up throughout a session and only disengaging the button to check other levels but go back to my reference (safe) volume level after.

I think it's a good investment for that alone...

 

Really appreciate the well wishes all. As you can imagine it means a lot, especially during this scary time. I'm choosing to believe I will recover in time, and taking every step I can to do that. I've had tinnitus for years in one ear, and the new tinnitus in the other doesn't really bother me too much, but this echo/pitch thing is something else - I've heard it called "binaural diplacusis". One way or another I will still make music, even with one ear!

Airyck, great suggestion. I imagine I might be building a custom monitoring chain that lets me boost left and right channels separately and also of course my levels will be kept carefully low, especially now.

Definitely gotta protect your ears. The stronger those little cells are, the less likely that a virus can come in and mess them up.