Thanks for the comments about tinnitus. I have had it my entire life,
together with somewhat reduced hearing ability. I read once long ago that
some yoga teachers suggest a form of meditation whereby you listen to the
sounds inside your ears (i.e., tinnitus in my case). Since it is not a
simple sound (i.e., not a single sine wave), it can get pretty interesting.
It has not reduced my interest in music, though.
----Original Message Follows----
From: wgviney@watarts.uwaterloo.ca
Reply-To: Shakuhachi@communication.ucsd.edu
To: shakuhachi@communication.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: Ear Problems??
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 17:58:08 -0500
Tinnitus can sometimes be a serious matter, causing distress even to the
point
of despair. (Consider what it would be like to hear a sound like that of a
jetliner taking off immediately over your head for every waking moment of
the
rest of your life.) It is also sometimes accompanied by hyperacusis, or pain
on
the ears' being exposed to even moderately loud sounds.
Tinnitus can be caused by lots of things: exposure to loud sounds (either
continuing or sudden, like the report of a gun), of course, but also trauma
to
the head, ingestion of certain drugs (especially the aminoglycoside
antibiotics, but even aspirin can do it in large quantities), muscular
tension.
Depending on its pitch and other characteristics, it can also by a symptom
of
serious conditions in their own right, such as Meniere's Disease or Multiple
Sclerosis.
The latest theories are inclined toward supposing that tinnitus is caused by
some sort of damage either to the cochlea (in the ear) or to the auditory
cortex itself: the perceived sound may sometimes be the result of the
brain "turning up the gain on its amplifier" in an effort to hear the sounds
in
the pitch range of the ringing/hissing in which the acuity of the hearing
has
been reduced.
I've done a lot of research on this, and am subscribed to the on-line
Tinnitus
Newsletter; as far as anyone of whom I am aware knows, there is no cure for
tinnitus (repair of the cochlear or neural damage is still far in medicine's
future), though some people get some relief in various directions: herbals,
drugs, acupuncture, Tinnitus Retraining Therapy. Some people spend a lot of
money in a vain search for a cure or amelioration, while for some lucky
others,
the tinnitus spotaneously vanishes, even after months or years.
First order of business: protect your hearing. Glad to learn you are already
doing that.
Second order of business: get your hearing assessed by either an audiologist
or
an oto-rhino-laryngologist (usually now called ear, nose and throat
specialist,
or ENT). You may not get much sympathy: even hearing specialists are likely
to
say, "Get used to it" or "Mask it with noise." I think this is both because
we
are primates and thus visual animals, so usually -- musicians are often an
exception! -- care less about our hearing than vision (and this despite the
fact that deafness is much more isolating than blindness: the suicide rate
among the hearing-impaired is far higher than that among the visually
impaired), and because there may not be a lot the healing arts can yet do
for
people with tinnitus.
Good luck.
Windsor Viney
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
> Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:08:35 EST
> From: Dcammaro@aol.com
> To: shakuhachi@communication.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Ear Problems??
> Message-ID: <7d.33fa1d77.2b5d7903@aol.com>
>
> I've noticed that I've developed ringing in my ears.
[etc.]
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