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Perforation of ear, distortion, sensitivity to loud sounds, please help me.
Hello all, my name is Cory and I am 18. I am male and for some time now (past few years maybe) I have been experienceing some form of distortion and fuzziness in my left ear. When I hear a sound, it sounds fine up to a certain point, when my left ear just seems to distort (the way a speaker with too much volume distorts) and everything gets really fuzzy and sounds like it's buzzing. It's difficult to describe, and it has been irritating me for some time. I am purchasing a nice car audio sound system soon, and if there is a problem with my hearing, I would like it sorted out before so I can fully enjoy my stereo.
When I was younger, I understand I had quite a few ear infections. Does anyone have any ideas on what might be wrong with my left ear? I would greatly appreciate any help on the matter. I take my hearing very very seriously, and I listen to music at very low volumes, and wear earplugs the entire time I am at work. (Construction/ job-site) Thank you all so very much.
When I was younger, I understand I had quite a few ear infections. Does anyone have any ideas on what might be wrong with my left ear? I would greatly appreciate any help on the matter. I take my hearing very very seriously, and I listen to music at very low volumes, and wear earplugs the entire time I am at work. (Construction/ job-site) Thank you all so very much.
Anyone find any solutions to this problem? I've had this same issue, and strangly as other posters, in my left ear only, I never notice the distortion or crackling noises unless in high decibel or extremely crowded loud environments, also, seemingly strange, I notice it when listening to headphones at a certain higher volume, but when I remove the headphone from my right ear the distortion leaves my left, as it the distortion is almost my ears tryin to equalize the noise that it's hearing to the other ears level, and causing distortion. Strange. Also, as other sufferers, I'm 21 and have been experiencing this for the last year or two. Have been told my hearing is fine by doctors, or that it's maybe just a temporary build up of trapped inner ear fluid. No solutions. Very annoying, please help!
Hi, im dean from uk. 29 and a semi professional rock singer of 10yrs (solo+bands). I started noticing hearing 'dirrerences' about 5 years ago now. I had two seperate hearing tests done at the time with both confirming i have apparently lost what you would expect average joe to have lost at 60yrs old. I was mortified! Took it on the chin as best i could and shot out of there.
Since i started having these problems i have increasingly been able to 'feel' my ears with something clearly not right with them, not just high end loss. A trip or three to the doctor over the years have come back with no physical problems. The last trip to the doc came back saying i had fluid behind the drum preventing things to work efficiently. This sounded more promising as to finding a possible half-cure at least to my problems. Unfortunately i was still not referred to an ENT specialist, instead was sent away and told to use the head over boiling water thing to work it loose and flush it all out. Needless to say i wasn't convinced and can still feel my ears as if theres something going on inside.
My latest problems include, mild tinnitus / unable to equalise both ears properly especially noticeable travelling to and from gigs when climbing the mountains in the car / when my car alarm goes off sometimes both ears distort which is super-uncomfortable! / unable to hold a decent conversation with anything in the background / anxiety / unable to stick to routines / lack of concentration / raging ******* mad that they, as yet, don't seem to give a ****!
Surely theres some sort of proceedure which can help with fluid trapped behind the ear which i am convinced has been the problem all along!
I am going to book myself in again this week and demand a meeting with the ENT at least. I'll let you know what happens.
For people interested, currently i use those high fidelity ear-plugs things (er20 i believe) as much as i can when im not gigging. I find some form of comfort in doing this. Believe it or not it actually helps filter out some annoying background noise and in most cases you hear the things closest to you much clearer, in my case anyhow. Being the singer tho, i simply cant use them live, as soon as my jaw moves it just confuses everything lol.
Since i started having these problems i have increasingly been able to 'feel' my ears with something clearly not right with them, not just high end loss. A trip or three to the doctor over the years have come back with no physical problems. The last trip to the doc came back saying i had fluid behind the drum preventing things to work efficiently. This sounded more promising as to finding a possible half-cure at least to my problems. Unfortunately i was still not referred to an ENT specialist, instead was sent away and told to use the head over boiling water thing to work it loose and flush it all out. Needless to say i wasn't convinced and can still feel my ears as if theres something going on inside.
My latest problems include, mild tinnitus / unable to equalise both ears properly especially noticeable travelling to and from gigs when climbing the mountains in the car / when my car alarm goes off sometimes both ears distort which is super-uncomfortable! / unable to hold a decent conversation with anything in the background / anxiety / unable to stick to routines / lack of concentration / raging ******* mad that they, as yet, don't seem to give a ****!
Surely theres some sort of proceedure which can help with fluid trapped behind the ear which i am convinced has been the problem all along!
I am going to book myself in again this week and demand a meeting with the ENT at least. I'll let you know what happens.
For people interested, currently i use those high fidelity ear-plugs things (er20 i believe) as much as i can when im not gigging. I find some form of comfort in doing this. Believe it or not it actually helps filter out some annoying background noise and in most cases you hear the things closest to you much clearer, in my case anyhow. Being the singer tho, i simply cant use them live, as soon as my jaw moves it just confuses everything lol.
I'm 30 years old and I've been suffering from the same issue with my left ear for around 6 or 7 years. In college, I had a really bad ear infection in my left ear. I was in school for sound engineering at the time and decided to go see a doctor who told me my eardrum would most likely rupture as a result of the ear infection. My infection eventually subsided and my eardrum never did rupture, but, in the next few months, especially when wearing in-ear headphones, I started to notice my left ear would distort like a blown speaker when exposed to mid- and high-range frequency content at a certain sound level. I immediately went to an audiologist who could find nothing wrong and offered little in the way of a reasonable explanation.
My story is very much like the hundreds posted here and elsewhere. I suffered from an ear infection and now my eardrum distorts like a blown speaker when exposed to loud and harsh sounds. However, my training in audio and acoustics leads me believe that I know what happened and, unfortunately, there is no cure.
I believe that we literally have blown our eardrum just like you blow a speaker. Consider that within your speaker driver, a cone is mounted to a flexible surround that pushes in and out to create the compression and rarefaction waves that make up sound. When a speaker cone is pushed too hard and is forced out beyond it's limits, called over-excursion, you blow your speaker. At this point, although the driver itself isn't damaged and still produces sound at low levels, there is a noticeable distortion that occurs as the speaker is pushed to a certain sound level and as it tries to reproduce a certain frequency range. It is at this point that the driver is removed from the speaker cabinet and gets re-coned, meaning the damaged surround and cone are cut out and replaced.
As I mentioned, I've suffered from this problem for 6 or 7 years and, as a working sound engineer, I've noticed a few things about having a, "blown eardrum."
Mid-range sound, more specifically frequency content from about 1kHz to 6kHz, at a certain level tends to trigger the distortion. HOWEVER, I don't seem to notice the distortion all the time. It seems to come and go with variable severity based on a couple factors. My ear will distort earlier and more severely when I'm extremely tired (running on 3 or 4 hours of sleep) and, often, when I'm exposed to the cold for long periods of time (10-25 degrees).
I don't know if this helps anyone out there, but I wanted to at least tell my story. Good luck.
My story is very much like the hundreds posted here and elsewhere. I suffered from an ear infection and now my eardrum distorts like a blown speaker when exposed to loud and harsh sounds. However, my training in audio and acoustics leads me believe that I know what happened and, unfortunately, there is no cure.
I believe that we literally have blown our eardrum just like you blow a speaker. Consider that within your speaker driver, a cone is mounted to a flexible surround that pushes in and out to create the compression and rarefaction waves that make up sound. When a speaker cone is pushed too hard and is forced out beyond it's limits, called over-excursion, you blow your speaker. At this point, although the driver itself isn't damaged and still produces sound at low levels, there is a noticeable distortion that occurs as the speaker is pushed to a certain sound level and as it tries to reproduce a certain frequency range. It is at this point that the driver is removed from the speaker cabinet and gets re-coned, meaning the damaged surround and cone are cut out and replaced.
As I mentioned, I've suffered from this problem for 6 or 7 years and, as a working sound engineer, I've noticed a few things about having a, "blown eardrum."
Mid-range sound, more specifically frequency content from about 1kHz to 6kHz, at a certain level tends to trigger the distortion. HOWEVER, I don't seem to notice the distortion all the time. It seems to come and go with variable severity based on a couple factors. My ear will distort earlier and more severely when I'm extremely tired (running on 3 or 4 hours of sleep) and, often, when I'm exposed to the cold for long periods of time (10-25 degrees).
I don't know if this helps anyone out there, but I wanted to at least tell my story. Good luck.
I've suffered progressive hearing loss due to a several sinus infections and several loud rock concerts. My last "big" sinus infection left me with tinitus in the left ear, but also made me really notice the distortion as well. I'm a guitar player and have a home studio, so I have been able to isolate the frequencies that cause the most trouble. Like many of you, I have gone to an audiologist and all they did was want to sell me a hearing aid for $3000.00.
An interesting thing I have discovered is that if I push on the little "nub" that is at the outside of my ear while I hear distortion, the distortion is lessened. I also notice if I over-extend my jaw, I can make my left ear pop, which also helps reduce distortion. This is just temporary though and it will come right back after a short amount of time. I'm curious to know if ANYONE has been to an audiologist that is prescribing anything other than a hearing aid... there definitely seems to be more going on here than meets the ear.
An interesting thing I have discovered is that if I push on the little "nub" that is at the outside of my ear while I hear distortion, the distortion is lessened. I also notice if I over-extend my jaw, I can make my left ear pop, which also helps reduce distortion. This is just temporary though and it will come right back after a short amount of time. I'm curious to know if ANYONE has been to an audiologist that is prescribing anything other than a hearing aid... there definitely seems to be more going on here than meets the ear.
Hi - I have just stumbled on this list after 15 years of suffering tinnitus and hyperacusis. I am also a drummer and guitarist and it was all set off by one loud gig when I was 42. I have managed to live with the tinnitus and get to sleep at night, I have musician's ear plugs at 25db and wear them anytime I am playing music, or going to gigs or even sometimes just walking down the street...I cannot bear to play drums without them as it hurts...just like when in a cafe and someone crashes the cups and saucers together! But in the past few years I have also experienced the crackling in my right ear at certain frequencies. It started at band practice but I also agree with many others on this list that someone laughing or clapping next to me can set it off...I just was playing guitar and noticed the G note on the top E string was the frequency that set it off...not sure what HZ that is....but I'm amazed that other people also describe it as like a broken speaker as that is exactly how I have tried to describe it to my ENT, who like all the others was not really interested and said it could be a 'floppy eardrum' but offered no solutiuons....also sometimes, like now, if I just scratch the right side of my head, it creates an echo crackle in my ear a split second later...weird....and finally like most others, my hearing is fine according to the audiologist!
I've got the same problem here. It's unfortunate that no one has seemed to find a cure, or fix.
I am almost 21 and I've been experiencing this problem for about 2 or 3 years now. I am a pianist (and singer) and I can hardly play the piano by itself anymore, let alone sing along, without experiencing this distortion. It's getting quite and simply makes my practice time unbearable. Also, at a concert, the huge crowd cheering and clapping almost ALWAYS triggers it (not sure what frequency that noise can average out to) but surprisingly, the loud music doesn't trigger it as much.
I can try to describe it best as more of a physical problem in my left ear. It's like the hairs in my ear are loose, and vibrating together when certain frequencies enter my ear, causing a sound *like* distortion or fuzz. I feel like the sound itself isn't distorted, but rather an extra distortion-like noise is generated on top. I can physically feel a very light vibration as well sometimes. It only seems to happen when I play in the mid-high range of the piano, but I can play as loud as I want in the low range.
I read a post elsewhere that someone experiencing the problem grew out of it and has not experienced it for years, which brings some light to the situation, but in the meantime, it seems that mine is getting worse. Maybe someday these hairs will break or something and the distortion will stop.
(Of course, I am simply trying to physically represent the situation. I really don't know if it has to do with hairs, it could really be anything).
I am almost 21 and I've been experiencing this problem for about 2 or 3 years now. I am a pianist (and singer) and I can hardly play the piano by itself anymore, let alone sing along, without experiencing this distortion. It's getting quite and simply makes my practice time unbearable. Also, at a concert, the huge crowd cheering and clapping almost ALWAYS triggers it (not sure what frequency that noise can average out to) but surprisingly, the loud music doesn't trigger it as much.
I can try to describe it best as more of a physical problem in my left ear. It's like the hairs in my ear are loose, and vibrating together when certain frequencies enter my ear, causing a sound *like* distortion or fuzz. I feel like the sound itself isn't distorted, but rather an extra distortion-like noise is generated on top. I can physically feel a very light vibration as well sometimes. It only seems to happen when I play in the mid-high range of the piano, but I can play as loud as I want in the low range.
I read a post elsewhere that someone experiencing the problem grew out of it and has not experienced it for years, which brings some light to the situation, but in the meantime, it seems that mine is getting worse. Maybe someday these hairs will break or something and the distortion will stop.
(Of course, I am simply trying to physically represent the situation. I really don't know if it has to do with hairs, it could really be anything).
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