I have a completely off the wall thing to ask...

[Diver0001]

I sing and vocalize a lot underwater (don't know if you noticed), almost subconsciously responding to the sound. I also whistle, sing and drum along with it without noticing, which can get me some strange looks .

It never really stops but I can subdue it *almost* to the point of stopping with deep meditation.

R..

---------- Post added January 14th, 2013 at 06:33 PM ----------

Edited to add that I also share your inability to understand speech in noisy settings. I've spent a lot of dates nodding pleasantly at full stops

You probably hate dates in cafés and talking to people at receptions as much as I do then ...

R..

---------- Post added January 14th, 2013 at 06:34 PM ----------

Sometimes my right foot feels like there is a heavy bass speaker near by I have even picked up my foot to see if it was coming from the floor, weird.

LOL. That's a new one. This thread is quickly becoming "post your weird secrets that make people think you're crazy here" thread

R..

 

[carterT]

it's called Tinnitus. I have it also.

 

[agilis]

Diver0001, your description of difficulty understanding speech in noisy places, or when multiple conversations are taking place in close proximity is a classic indicator for loss of high frequency hearing. It's among the first questions an audiologist or ENT will ask: "Do you have trouble following a conversation when there is a lot of background noise or other conversations going on, as at a party, a crowded restaurant, or large family gathering?" If the answer is yes, half the diagnosis has already been made.

Loss of high frequency hearing has almost no effect on your ability to function in most situations. My HF hearing is very poor, but but below 3500 cps it is better than average. The result is tinnitus, a condition which seems to have some connection with the phantom music syndrome in that both are hallucinations. About a third of people with your symptoms have no serious hearing loss, are not elderly, and have no other conditions that are relevant.

Too late for me, but young people should protect their hearing at all costs. I can recall firing a .45 Colt on an outdoor range without ear protection back in the bad old days, running two or three 50 round ammo boxes. You know, those light brown cardboard military ammo boxes, 'BALL M1911' from Olin Corporation. Jesus, my ears rang, but I was in my early 20s and untouchable, almost immortal. Then a howitzer that was close by blew up one morning. Hello tinnitus, goodby illusions. All of them.

 

[Insta-Gator]

My tinnitus is like listening to tree frogs and crickets at night, but all the time. In noisy places with poor acoustics I can not understand human speech. The tinnitus is lessened when I dive.

It's auto-correct via Tapatalk 2, figure it out.

 

[Diver0001]

Diver0001, your description of difficulty understanding speech in noisy places, or when multiple conversations are taking place in close proximity is a classic indicator for loss of high frequency hearing. It's among the first questions an audiologist or ENT will ask: "Do you have trouble following a conversation when there is a lot of background noise or other conversations going on, as at a party, a crowded restaurant, or large family gathering?" If the answer is yes, half the diagnosis has already been made.

Loss of high frequency hearing has almost no effect on your ability to function in most situations. My HF hearing is very poor, but but below 3500 cps it is better than average. The result is tinnitus, a condition which seems to have some connection with the phantom music syndrome in that both are hallucinations. About a third of people with your symptoms have no serious hearing loss, are not elderly, and have no other conditions that are relevant.

That seems to make sense, actually. I played trumpet in a jazz band when I was younger and we never used hearing protection. I know I have a loss of high frequency hearing although I'm not sure how bad it is. But it would seem to fit the description of what you're saying.

Maybe I'm not crazy after all

R..

 

[rhwestfall]

....your description of difficulty understanding speech in noisy places, or when multiple conversations are taking place in close proximity is a classic indicator for loss of high frequency hearing. It's among the first questions an audiologist or ENT will ask: "Do you have trouble following a conversation when there is a lot of background noise or other conversations going on, as at a party, a crowded restaurant, or large family gathering?" If the answer is yes, half the diagnosis has already been made.

Interesting enough, my hearing has been tested, and found to be very intact. However, in the environment you describe, I have a terrible time hearing conversation, almost as if my system is "protecting" itself.....

 

[TSandM]

I haven't had my hearing tested since I was a kid, but my problem with understanding speech in high background noise situations started in my teens. And although I did go to the odd rock concert, I don't THINK I blew my ears out

 

[Jax]

Interesting enough, my hearing has been tested, and found to be very intact. However, in the environment you describe, I have a terrible time hearing conversation, almost as if my system is "protecting" itself.....

As it was explained to me, your hearing gets 'old' like your eyesight does. You may have eyesight corrected to 20/20, but your peripheral vision, your night vision, your contrast vision, and the ability to lock on and recognize things quickly fades.

In the same way, while you can have good hearing, the ears slowly lose the ability to differentiate sounds so your brain can recognize them. The best test - turn on the water in the sink, and slowly turn down the TV . . . at some point, everything becomes white noise. My .02psi.

 

[DocVikingo]

....have no diagnosable mental illness.

Frontiers | The role of the primary auditory cortex in the neural mechanism of auditory verbal hallucinations | Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

Regards,

DocVikingo

 

[agilis]

Thank you, DocV. I have an insatiable appetite for information regarding phantom, hallucinatory audiological experiences, almost all of which are totally subjective, unable to be heard by anyone else. My tinnitus is rather bad at times (up to 70 decibles) but at least it's simply noise. Some of my fellow sufferers hear music and speech, and are sometimes convinced that there is some sort of psychiatric issue when there is none. Articles like the one you provided are an enormous help. One problem, though, is that, in my experience, most physicians never read them.

I very recently went through an extremely thorough diagnostic study at a neuroscience institute and was given a pair of space age hearing aids that do all sorts of selective amplification and deaplification, and multiple linear octave transpositions. So far, they have made the tinnitus almost completely disappear, but only when the hearing aids are on, and for a few hours afterward. I awake with mild tinnitus, which instead or ramping up as in the past, disappears within a hour of putting them back on. Because my tinnitus is (finally!) considered a service connected disability, I was fortunate in getting (I also have been friends with our senior NJ Senator going way back to when he Finance VP at ADP) to participate in this government sponsored project. I had the honor of meeting many many young men who owe their problem to IEDs that exploded in their immediate vicinity while visiting Iraq.

We share a bond. Two, actually. We all agree that if you don't suffer from the problem there is no way you can really understand how horrible it is. We also share attitudes that, were we to speak freely and openly, might complicate our ability to fly on commercial aircraft. Thanks again, Doc.