Headphone-Related Injury

Damn, that sucks. I’ve done the same thing a few times before myself. Scares the shit out of you.

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Just had my 6 week follow-up today. Hearing is mostly back to normal in my left ear, still some high frequency hearing loss. The ringing has mostly gone away, just some intermittent ringing in loud environments. It’s been a huge improvement over the initial hearing loss, ringing, and general noise sensitivity.

My hearing health advisory is pay attention to your hearing. If you notice sudden change in one ear see a doctor (audiologist, ENT) right away. If it’s a virus like what I had you only have 1-2 months to take action before the loss is permanent.

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Mine is better now, too. I was having weird spells of finding loud noises hard to tolerate, and - most horrifying of all - I wasn’t enjoying listening to headphones much. I went to two different Audiologists, both of whom basically shrugged and told me my only real option was to go to a specialist.

Having given it a bit more time, my ear actually feels mostly back to normal. I can hear up to about 13 - 13.5 khz in both ears and I’ve been able to listen to music again and actually enjoy it, though my preference skews more towards the warm-sounding gear. I’m finding I have a bit less tolerance for bright stuff than I did.

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I’ve recently found out that I have some hearing loss on my right ear at around 1200hz. I thought it was the IEMs but it’s actually my ear. I checked it with different headphones, iems and sources.

Should I see a doctor?

It’s been a couple of years since I went to check my hearing, but recently I’ve been having a lot of issues with my ears. It all started with a serious ear infection from an IEM that didn’t fit my ear too well (I think I jammed it to hard in my ear). That was my left ear. Some time later the same happened to my right ear. And some time later I got another infection in my right ear, but this time it wasn’t nearly as painful as it was the first two times.

Well, the infection passed, but I continued to get irritations in my right ear, and it would be itchy quite often.

I couldn’t take it anymore, went to my local doctor, told them what was up. As it turns out, my ear was clogged.

Then I went to a proper ear doctor who cleaned my ears with this giant syringe (it flushes out the icky stuff). At that very moment, it was the biggest relief ever. I’ve been having “hearing” issues for years, but it was mainly just not being able to make out what people are saying. It turns out it was just blocked ears. Oh yeah, and it turned out that both of my ears were clogged.

However, I still get some itchiness in my right ear, but I’ll give it some time — it has not even been a month since I went to get my ears cleaned.

I also made a decision to step away from IEMs. I am simply not willing to take the rick of any more ear damage.

I recommend everyone who uses IEMs to take a visit to the doctor and see if their ears are clogged!