Comment by llanowarelves | Hacker News Reader

Comment by llanowarelves | Hacker News Reader

Hearing loss is very serious. You know your body better than anyone else so don't be afraid to be its biggest advocate and protector. Nobody else will.

I once had tinnitus for a week after a concert and it was one of the worst weeks of my life, it felt like it would last forever (and for some people, it does). I had pristine, "golden ears" for audio engineering and was afraid about how much I'd be able to recover. I missed even the boring high pitched squeaks of doorknobs, faucets, etc. Everything was muffled. Since then, I've been wearing Etymotic earplugs at concerts (the few I went to).

There is research on proper restoration of the cilia (ear hair that allows us to hear), but we don't know if it's a "hardware" problem (these hairs), "software" problem (brain), or both, in what amounts. So it's far away (EDIT: if it's even possible at all...). Hearing aids are not something you want to fall back on. It's not like eyes with glasses and contacts. Be careful.

There is no cure for hearing damage. Your body can recover from slight damage after a few weeks but generally trauma to hair cells, synapses and auditory nerve is accumulative and overtime they loose their ability to recover.

There's currently no way to regenerate these. There was a promising company attempting to do this and they recently announced discontinuation of phase 3 trials as their drug showed no significant change against placebo.

The drug was in development for almost 9 years before it reached phase 3 and failed.

Thanks for that update, I heard about it only once years ago. Yeah safest thing is to assume it can't come back, and be aware of the accumulation, as you said.

> There is no cure for hearing damage.

There's no silver-bullet cure for hearing damage, but there are cures and effective treatment for the underlying causes, which can result in a cure for hearing damage.

The treatment and prognosis is highly dependent on the underlying cause. Cilia damage probably won't be curable until after a lot more stem cell research. Neurological damage is hard to impossible to cure depending on the age and neuroplasticity of the patient. TMJ or Eustachian tube dysfunction can lead to hearing damage that goes away once the underlying issue is treated.

This misinformation has killed people. Texas Roadhouse CEO Kent Taylor committed suicide after being diagnosed with tinnitus and being told it was untreatable, even though his tinnitus was caused by a COVID-19 infection causing inflammation. The treatment for that, which is highly effective, is two weeks of prednisone, with intratympanic steroid injections in severe cases.

In my experience and according to literature, there are cures for hearing damage. N-acetylcysteine, for one.

I had been taking N-acetylcysteine (NAC) regularly for a while for reasons completely unrelated to hearing. I unmistakably noticed my hearing to improve. High frequency hearing once lost came back.

I didn’t believe it. Looked on Google Scholar. The effect is known.

The literature supports it; here’s just one paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcell.2021.6594...

Antioxidant properties seem to be what’s helping, and I’d guess it’s the mucolytic aspect of NAC as well.

There may be cures in future (ways to regenerate all the areas that are involved in hearing - Auditory nerve, synapse and OHC, IHC) but there currently is no way to regenerate HC after apoptosis in Humans. Recovery of damaged/stressed HC, auditory is shown to happen naturally to a degree and -might- be helped through supplements.

I take NAC myself and a few other supplements, the idea is to help support and lessen the effects of oxidative stress. I wouldn't promote any of my protocol since the literature is too weak and from various hearing related forums I read, efficacy highly subjective.

If you're wondering - 7,8 Dihydroxyflavone (DHF) shows promise and there's some literature on frontiersin on this but delivery was done intratympanic injection to the RWM and on animals. Taking the it as a oral supplement may raise risks of some cancers.

Thanks! Yes, it’s important to distinguish between cure-some-types-somewhat-sometimes and cure-almost-any-type-consistently.

I’ve been very surprised in recent years to learn just how much actionable information is in the scientific literature. More is known than is known, sort of.

Sounds like you've looked into this. Understand you wouldn't promote your protocol but I'd like to learn about it. How can I reach you?

Yeah it can’t be stressed enough, if you go to live events, get concert earplugs and wear them religiously. You hear the music better anyway.

It’s been sad to see friends fail to heed this advice. You don’t want to be that person who needs hearing aids at age 50 due to something you could have prevented with a little forethought.

Etymotic are great and were my standby for years. Recently upgraded to Earasers on the recommendation of a musician friend and I am very happy with them, frequently forget they are even there.

+1 for etymotic also. Really great stuff. I had customs when I worked in PA but now ER-15s suffice just fine.

I recently got earasers, mainly to make it easier to hear people over music (I have auditory processing disorder), however I have found them just to muffle everything, making the music a good level, but speech unbearable.

Is this your experience?

Wondering because maybe I'm doing something wrong or maybe I chose the wrong level of them (I think I chose the regular EU level).

Somewhat similar experience but I think carrying on a conversation over the music is always going to be iffy, just take it outside.

Hah hah. Good for you being able to recover. Got permanent tinnnitus from one mistake on not wearing hearing protection once when cutting stone table and i was hoovering the dust. Good thing is, you get used to it. Whatever you thought total silence was, it is gone now. Just have to work your brains towards not givin an f and you should be fine living with hearing damage. Just dont make it worse. You'll remember then the initial anxiety of losing it in the first place.

> I once had tinnitus for a week after a concert

This is impossible for me. As a self proclaimed hypersensitive person with hyperacusis and misophonia, I would rather fight and claw my way out of any kind of concert or disco rather than suffering from the loud noises. Any kind of concert or disco noise means intense pain to me. Like getting stabbed in the ears.

I found a solution and peace in ear plugs, with them I can enjoy discos and anything else like normal people.

Now one question for you: I do realize the majority of humans can stand those levels of noise without earplugs and without any apparent discomfort. Do all you normies and neurotypicals simply do not have this intense pain reaction to loud noise? How the hell could you suffer through a concert so loud it gave you tinnitus without passing out from pain?

> Now one question for you: I do realize the majority of humans can stand those levels of noise without earplugs and without any apparent discomfort. Do all you normies and neurotypicals simply do not have this intense pain reaction to loud noise? How the hell could you suffer through a concert so loud it gave you tinnitus without passing out from pain?

Most venues have terrible sound. This can be the result of bad acoustics, a poor quality/poorly tuned sound system, or performers who don’t know what they are doing and think loud = good sound. When I’m in one of those I have your reaction.

In venues with a well-tuned, high quality soundsystem being used properly, your ears shouldn’t hurt much.

But why run the risk of damaging your hearing? Everyone should be wearing earplugs at live events anyway.

I'm the exact same way. I assume our brain translates loud noises into physical side effects while normal brains just don't. Same way anxiety, or an anxiety disorder, can cause physical effects like sweating or increased heart rates when having symptoms.

Personally, I like it because I worry about hearing loss and it's a kind of protective measure, while other people don't seem to care when they're damaging their ears. I also hate it because I can look like a lunatic getting physically uncomfortable when everyone else is fine.

Yes, yes, I prefer having this warning mechanism over not having it. I keep ear plugs in all my pockets, you never know when you end up in clearly harmfully loud environments even if it‘s just walking past a jackhammer.

I can not even imagine what normal people experience and feel at that point where noise and loudness turn into PURE PAIN for me. The accoustic equivalent of looking into the sun or lasers!

I also use airpod pros as alternative to earplugs and I do feel the ANC pressure and weirdness, but it doesn‘t feel painful in any way.

Most people don't feel pain at the concert and they only notice the tinnitus the following day.

I used to go to thrash punk gigs years ago - but not many so didn't do noticeable damage before I learned about the risk and started wearing ear plugs.

Musical noise rarely gives me any issues, though some of the weirder electronic/noise/artsy punk shows have been problematic. Usually it is in short bursts though, I can't think of a show I actually left due to the noise. I enjoy music I can feel but I am very diligent about earplug usage to the point that I bring extras to share just in case. I typically pull each earplug out for a few seconds on each side to see if I'm missing much. There is something very different about listening to Earth for example at show volume. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiCIW04PF3I

Unfortunately my tinnitus stemmed from lightning. I'm fortunate that it doesn't seem noticeable all the time.

I got tinnitus at 15 from an airplane ride maxxing out my headphones. So 15 years ago. Its fine, you get used to it after 2-3 weeks. Yes it never went away. Buckle up butter cup.

t. not american.

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