Singleguyinoz, it sounds like you're struggling with your hearing loss and tinnitus.
It can be exhausting, baffling and isolating trying to negotiate the hearing world, I appreciate that.
I see from your profile you like music. I've not had to cope with that loss, but it does sadden me that I can't hear and mimick accents like I used to. That was a great source of joy to me and I would like to have a broader repertoire for my grandchildren's story times than memory alone allows.
I haven't forgotten Track - I'm just waiting for the opportunity and an audience likely to be amused by eccentricity.
I like a bit of Beethoven - apparently it's his later works I gravitate towards when he was a deaf git like me and composed in deeper registers.
Our conversation on the other thread was the starting point of my conversation with my friend which lead to this thread. See? You have influence in other parts of the world.
Yes Track, I mentioned in an earlier post that I was plagued with tonsillitis and ear infections as a child. I also think this was the beginning of my hearing deterioration.
As for perforated ear drums, the last time I had a cold, everytime I (really gently and slowly) blew my nose, I could feel a hurricane in my ear.
Daniella, I'm so going to ask my friend if he can hear dog whistles. If he can, I think I will train him.
If you have some nerve damage in the frequency of light bulbs, but not at the frequency of dog whistles, it would explain why you can hear one, but not the other.
I can hear strip lights, but I think that some of that is feeling the vibrations in my face, rather than hearing them with my ears.
Life, when I had my hearing aid fitted the medic asked me which ear I had the tinnitus in.
I said, how can you tell?!
It's not like you can stick your finger in your ear and block out the noise in one ear if the noise is internal.
Since seeing my hearing graphs and having the hearing aid, I'm a lot less confused. I can now identify that my loudest tinnitus eeeee (good description, Pat) is in my left (most deaf) ear.
I still have difficulty in identifying all the tinnitus sounds and where they are situated, but seeing their shape and colour (hello, Innocentia!) helps.
I have never had any hearing therapy, but I'm interested. The more I learn about my hearing experience, the less stressful it becomes.
Unfortunately, I have difficulty understanding anything to do with sound and I'm a bit overwhelmed by your technical posts. I will revisit them and I will talk them over with my friend - I often don't understand what he's going on about and I think he often has to work quite hard to explain things in a way I can grasp like a drowning man to a life bouy.
Thankyou for the new information and avenues to explore. That sounds like fun to me.
Pat, your hearing experience sounds very similar to mine, except I never did the loud music thing.
My friend mentioned in the op helped me make a major breakthrough in my understanding of my hearing - he pointed out the frequencies where I have nerve damage are the ones which make speech intelligible.
I struggle to hear consonants, particularly sss and tuh sounds, especially when there's background noise. When people speak, I hear something like blib blib blob blib and have to lip read to fill in the missing bits.
It's lead to some rather eccentric and hilarious conversations, like the day I mistook the word kettle for cat.
I really like the handful, or two of auditory hallucinations I've had.
I've heard my daughter calling my name when she's been in another country, my childhood phone ringing and waking me up in the middle of the night, that sort of thing.
I put them down to accute recollections and because they come from a time when my hearing was better, I'm usually rather thrilled to hear something so well.
To hear someone singing who is no longer here physically must be lovely, assuming you were rather fond of them in life. An afterlife of sorts, perhaps.
Track, I have considerably less hearing in my left ear and it sounds like I'm underwater. I also have a perforated ear drum which heals over, but is forever popping back open again.
It means I'm unable to work out the direction a sound is coming from, much to the amusement of people yelling my name from behind me.
It also gets confusing trying to identify noises - I might hear something to my right and think the noise must be wind blowing through trees, when in fact it's a river to my left.
Once I worked this out, life became a little less confusing. I now know to look all around me when I'm flummoxed.
I need to go out soon, but please keep 'fessing up to your superhuman powers, or discussing your lack of hearing experience in my absence.
I look forward to catching up with you later and replying to posts, some already here. It seems my friend is not alone in hearing light bulbs and I am not alone in being a deaf old git.
Understanding my hearing has helped me a lot with negotiating the sound-oriented world and I hope this can be a productive and interesting thread for others, too.
I confess I don't know what you're talking about, Cachuchi.
Pitch, both note and tone...? What are these mysteries?
It's interesting to note, however, your family history of accomplished musicians who can hear light bulbs.
I had to look up otitis media (middle ear infection) as well. I was plagued with tonsillitis and ear infections as a child, but I have no more detail than that. When I first had my hearing aid, I kept getting flash backs to the age of about 7 and I wonder if that age was the peak of my hearing ability.
I was chatting with a my friend yesterday, and as often is the case, our conversation turned to hearing.
He's a musician and sound engineer and about a year ago joyously waggled a hearing test graph in front of me (a lovely straight line it was, unlike mine which looks like a badly cut out pumpkin mouth). It was qualified with the statement that he had the hearing of an 18 year old man.
"Y'know," he said to me, "I'm not sure of the validity of that test. I'm aware that my hearing has deteriorated over the last five years."
I suggested it would depend on his starting point: If he had hearing like superman before, it's quite possible it's now deteriorated to a level commensurate with an average 18 year old's.
He poo-pooed my theory, scorning the preposterous idea that he might ever have had super-human hearing.
He went on to describe the high frequencies he could still hear. "You know those irritating sound light bulbs make..."
Apparently, energy saving light bulbs emit a high frequency buzz. I've used them for 20 years and have never once heard them. In fact, I went home and reassured myself that I can still hear light switches clicking on and off.
There's some big stuff brewing with the death penalty.
I'd like that to become a hot topic in 2018, but I suspect it'll take longer.
Unfortunately, it's more likely that children, people with disabilities, political prisoners, innocent people and mentally ill people will be executed, despite the contravention of international laws this would entail.
I'm not very good at music and I'm a bit envious of the pleasure others appear to get out of it.
Some of it I simply can't hear - a friend once played me some throat singing and all I could hear was a low rumble. Kinda defeats the object.
Other times, I either hear a cacophony of noise, sometimes reminiscent of white noise, but often I can pick out one sound at a time.
I'm wondering if I, say, pick out violins and put them on the 3D grid, then pick out something else and do the same, I might be able to see how the different sounds interact. I can do it for a second or two with 2 sounds, but as yet have been unable to achieve more.
You know those mind maps where you write a central theme in the centre of a page and then offshoot ideas and links around it?
I've never gone a bundle on them, but inside my head, I get 3D images of them, like my cranial space contains a 3D grid where I can position thoughts and ideas.
I love it when someone else can provide something knew to add, shuffle it all around, or collapse the whole bleedin' lot.
You've done your fair share of shuffling and adding with mine at times, although I do try to leave your male chicken jokes out of my imagery.
online today!jac_the_gripper Forum Posts (5,363)
What Can You Hear...
Singleguyinoz, it sounds like you're struggling with your hearing loss and tinnitus.It can be exhausting, baffling and isolating trying to negotiate the hearing world, I appreciate that.
I see from your profile you like music. I've not had to cope with that loss, but it does sadden me that I can't hear and mimick accents like I used to. That was a great source of joy to me and I would like to have a broader repertoire for my grandchildren's story times than memory alone allows.