Deaf as a very deaf thing

[M Holmes]

ANDREW GARIBALDI writes:

> From: "Tim Gadd"

> > Incidentally, the medical problem is a sudden, dramatic worsening of my
> > tinnitus. I'm not mentioning this to fish for sympathy, but as a real
> > warning. I've had over 20 years.......
>
> This is a serious thing - out of concern for the health of my ears I get
> them looked at by a doctor every couple of years as it's easy to let things
> go to the dogs where yuor ears are concerned. Recently what I thought was
> tinnitus proved to be a wax build-up (the sign of a healthy ear believe it
> or not) but I confess that it was not pleasant, and this comes from a guy
> who uses headphones to review CD's every day. I find it's a question of
> balance in the sense that if you do experience anything loud, you really do
> have to let your ears adjust to normal before doing it again, but it's true
> that, for many people, constsnt exposure to overly loud stuff will have
> adetrimental effect - Tim, you have my sympathies and I wish you some sign
> of improvement.

Seconded. I've had the wax thang to the point it's made me damn near
deaf - which is a shock until it turns out that's all it is. I also had
a sort of kid equivalent, glue ear, which takes an operation in which
they cut through the eardrum to fix. I had that done three times, so my
eardrums are somewhat scarred. Apart from my early 20's, I'd developed
the habit of just stuffing tissue paper into my ears if I judge a
concert too loud. Sure, it does cut down a little on the more subtle
noises at a gig, but has the benefit of ensuring you'll enjoy 'em on a
hifi until the age that your ears wouldn't be able to hear 'em any more
anyway. One of the more irritating things about getting (a little more)
older is that what's called hearing discrimination starts to go. So I
can still literally hear a pin drop - in a quiet room. What gives me a
lot of trouble is listening to just one conversation in a room where
there's a lot of them going on and where there are other noises as well.
Since I'm quite fond of the pub, it's annoying that quite often I can't
hear a bloody thing of what someone talking to me is actually saying,
and I don't frequent pubs with loud jukeboxes. I find myself just
smiling and nodding - or just nodding off.

Tinnitus is obviously a hell of a lot worse than that, and can more than
aggravate that problem.  Both are a hell of a lot more likely to happen
at an earlier age if you don't protect your ears when they need it.
That amounts to very noisy workplaces and to most rock gigs, and
certainly the louder bands.  Headphones are also a nono except at
surprisingly low volumes.  A reasonable rule is that if your ears are
ringing after a gig, it was bad for you, and if someone else can hear
what's on your headphones if they're sitting next to you, they're too
loud for you.

I started to lose discrimination at 35, which I don't regard as really
very old at all - certainly it didn't seem a whole long time after
finishing university, and as I said, I did take some care. They're your
ears, and you're perfectly entitled to be deaf at 40 if you prefer, but
trust me, your 40 year old self will often curse the youth that was you
if you go that route.

I know just how appealing being sensible and considering consequences is
for someone in their 20's but without very good luck, those really are
the choices available. They lied about hair on the palm of your hands
and going blind, but they're not lying about the walkmen being deaf by 40.

And if anyone assumed that my nodding in the pub meant that I agreed
with them, I'm sorry, but when you know me better, you'll realise that I
rarely agree with anyone :-)

FoFP