Wow....maybe not a metal drummer I'm guessing? Haha, what an anomaly, I feel like there should have been some normal but significant loss over time for any human playing drums frequently.

I'm blessed to have the marching band days behind me; lining up in front of the drumline and marching through closed corridors of echoing architecture- every snare a deeper pain than the last!

He plays hard and loud, actually. That's why I think there's a genetics component to it.
I'm not advocating what he does though (play without any hearing protection).

Just for anyone who's curious. TInnutus is psychosomatic after all and doesn't necessarily have t o have anything to do with your inner ear, drum or bone connected to it and may have more to do with your brain and various chemical imbalances.

Tinnitus can worsen with stress and may be connected to a chemical called Gamma Aminobyuteric Acid. They are actively doing research on this and there are drugs on the market to alleviate tinnitus.
I personally have bought a generic drug from amazon in Europe called GABA and IT HAS LESSENED MY TINNITUS AFTER TEN YEARS of sadness depression and dismay. Spread the word if you know anyone who is dismayed by their tinnitus.

I'm going to second this - it seems to be related to nervous disorders/conditions - anxiety, migraines ... conditions that have to do with brain chemistry.

I disagree! I believe Tinnitus is not psychosomatic - it is neurological, related to nerve damage, not mental function, as far as I know. You speak as though an authority, but no scientific reference quoted. I am not quoting references either, but I think you have the wrong terminology - neuro- not psycho-.

Nonetheless the GABA sounds interesting and bears research. Got any material to support that?

nervous issues are not psychosomatic!

anxiety and migraines are very different animals.

So I looked up GABA and found this:
https://www.verywellhealth.com/gaba-5095143
and from a cursory reading, it seems that using GABA as a supplement might be inhibiting nerve transmission, which I can see might lessen the phantom sounds of tinnitus. I wonder if it also inhibits your hearing? Have you had a hearing test from an audiologist? Having just gotten hearing aids, I have had recent tests and it would be interesting to compare.

Actually there may be some overlap there. People prone to psychosomatic conditions might have mild brain chemistry imbalances that make them prone to it and also make them more sensitive to pain or triggers.

I'll give an example in my case. Tension in my neck and muscles makes me more prone to negative thoughts about my job, social life, etc. When the tension is alleviated with ibuprofen, the negative thoughts go away and I emotionally feel better. The tension itself might not be entirely muscular, it might involve hormones or proteins or whatever myriad things are involved. Maybe these things cause muscle tension, and *also* cause a negative emotional state.

True! Overlap is definitely possible and probably common. I was reacting to Dazzler's blunt statement implying they were only "in your head" ignoring possible neuro causes, even physical causes...

The ear wax thing. In my fifties I was bothered by flakes of old skin cells and dried wax rattling around in there.
So I started fluffing up the ends of Q-tips and twizzling the things around the ear hole after bathing (letting hot water in the ear canal). Pretty good.
Then my long-eared hound started regularly yowling while scratching his ears bloody, from a brown and darker wax build up. The vet recommended a special $35 doggie shampoo with salicylic acid and proper wiping and sopping up after his monthly bath. It cleared up nicely.
The CVS/Boot's has a human form of this for $5, so I tried it and it's hell on my hair but great for cleaning out the ears.
WT

some member of The Who mentioned NOT getting the ears flushed of wax

the volume they played at probably impacted wax into ears



helped protect hearing?

Urban legend?


never too late to save what's left of hearing
wear muffs whilst operating lawn mower,weed whacker, hedge hog trimmer,
spend a few $ put a pair of earplugs in your pocket
there if needed

concerts , rehearsal, gig, etc.

When I was 21 (74 now) I worked 6 nights a week in a rock club. At some point about six months into it, I had my ears cleaned and they got almost 3/4 inch of wax out! Suddenly i could hear my feet hit the ground and the birdies chirping. Big lesson - wear protection!

sounded like what Ozzy described as Randy's frying chip boards ie the noise those days when i had my ears cleaned high frequencies !



i let some stay these days, use drops to remove some, works for me

Always have a bottle of steroids (prednisone/prednisolone) on hand everywhere you go. Because with some medical conditions (I have one called Menieres and nothing, absolutely NOTHING will protect your hearing - you can only salvage your hearing, if you are lucky) because you won't know where and you won't know when you'll need it, so always have it on you. Don't forget the bottle of water.

I get ears cleaned every few months. And have "earing aids" that I can turn down so they block outside sounds if needed... :-)

Seems as though no matter what I ever do, nothing is really going to protect my hearing. Since my last post on this thread, I've suffered two episodes, one literally the day after I made that post where my left ear started a low tone ringing and I noticed some loss of low tone hearing, and one last Friday in the very early hours (around midnight) when I was sudden awoken to my left ear screaming like a banshee. Both were immediately treated to as best extent as I could hope with some steroids. If it were not for that compassionate doctor I know I would already be dead by now. This has just happened far too many times. 12 episodes as of now, and I don't believe this will stop...until I make it stop and we all know what that would entail.

Recently I've though of simply ceasing to exist because the unbelievable amount of distress and anxiety that this is causing is likely to kill me from another health event like a heart attack or a stroke or cancer. So I'm tossing up either exiting or suffering another serious health crisis, one that could potentially turn me into a vegetable. My mother was a registered nurse and she's seen plenty of vegetables and quadriplegics who've suffered strokes where she was working. Back then (this was in the 90s) she would tell me that suddenly one day a patient would simply collapse whilst working or running an errand, or at home, and that would be the end of their life as they know it. Blind, paralysed, brain damaged, best case scenario - dead. If they survived they would invariably be confined to a wheelchair or end up with half their brain missing because of a blood clot that blocked a critical artery in their brain and destroyed it. Most of these were caused by stress from what I can gather - either work-related or marriage-related stress, which seems to be relatively mild compared to what I'm dealing with, which I feel is extremely severe stress and to me is much worse than any relationship or work related stress that I have ever experienced (though I would never downplay anyone else's work or relationship related stress as I realise that everyone has a unique breaking point).

As I said, I feel my options are running very thin, and I have not much hope for the future. This just keeps happening.

I give myself 2 years to live. If I am still here in another 2 years, then I guess that's cause for celebration...or not...as the case may be.

Followup: I am not very happy with $5,000 hearing aids. They help but are not true tone sounding, even with fine tuning from my doctor. But I Just got a pair of Apple Airpod Pro 2 with the new hearing aid option. That optin is not out yet, but they have remarkable qualities for silencing outside sound and also amplifying when needed. I am still exploring their possibilities. TBC.

Which hearing aids did you get? I had a discussion with my audiologist about my needs as a musician and they prescribed Widex Evokes. That was over 10 (15?) years ago and I'm still using them. I've since switched to an audiologist who specializes in working with musicians, and when I asked if I should get something newer or different brand, she said what I have is typically the most natural sounding for musicians, and there haven't really been significant advances to justify the cost.

I don't use them for loud gigs, but for quiet jazz or acoustic performances they work fine. One of the presets I have programmed in them is "music" which disables a lot of the speech enhancement features you'd want for daily use. (There's a bit of "intelligent" dsp for distinguishing voice from background noise.) For loud performances, I switch to IEMs with eq and a limiter.

Attached below is my audiogram from 10-15 years ago. I don't believe it's improved since. 😏

Followup to followup: Having used the AirPods Pro 2 for a couple of weeks now I'm pretty happy with them. Really looking forward to the hearing aid function! Interesting, they have "background sounds" like stream, rain, fan, etc that might help mask Tinnitus... and Nunio, the hearing loss will not improve, only get worse with time...

Yeah, I was being sarcastic. I'm taking extra care of my ears nowadays to not accelerate the decline.