So I may have just found out that I've been almost deaf

[eflat]

Wow. So I went to the ENT (Ear Nose Throat Doctor) complaining of this persistent pressure in my ear that has gotten worse and worse over the years. He says even though it doesn't look too bad my eaustachian tube is prob a little clogged from allergies.

He gives me a spray and says try it. A day later I am driving home and all of a sudden I am hell of tripping out because all of a sudden I started hearing this low and incredibly loud rumbling sound like there is a stampede of elephants headed towards me.

Then I noticed that all that gibberish that singers sing on the radio was not in fact gibberish but in fact words.

I spoke and said "what the hell" to myself and was startled by how incredibly loud my voice was even though I was mumbling. There were sounds in the words that I had never heard before.

So unless I am just completely tripping out and someone has laced all my food with LSD for the past week it would seem that I have somehow gone at least seven-ten years being almost deaf.

Over the past seven years I have gone from being a enthusiastic straight a student to avoiding social situations and coming within inches of flunking out of school dispite studying for hours and hour every night. And I think I understand why now.

My hearing is now coming and going. One minute I will be able to hear and the next I am almost totally deaf. The only difference is that now when I am deaf I actually realize I am deaf and at least I understand why it is I'm not following conversations.

For those of you that are saying how is that possible you would know if you are deaf, deafness is apparently not what I and most people thought it was. You can still hear, and even still make out words, but you have to strain so incredibly hard to string the words together that by the time you actually comprehend what someone has said to you they have already left the room.

It's so surreal. Man I almost hope I am losing it and becoming psychotic and that this is not really happening because it is a scary thought to think that I spent ten years of my life being deaf without knowing while there was a simple fix there all along.

I'll be getting hearing tests in a week or so to confirm whether or not I am in fact almost deaf.

 

[Sheepathon]

Wow.

 

[Ryan]

Wow - I'm glad you found out about it, that's crazy! Best of luck with making it permanent - I don't know what I'd do without music, now get out and enjoy some of it

 

[TheLonelyPhoenix]

Originally posted by: Ryan
Wow - I'm glad you found out about it, that's crazy! Best of luck with making it permanent - I don't know what I'd do without music, now get out and enjoy some of it

OMGWTFRYAN!?

 

[AznAnarchy99]

so is this why i keep falling asleep in class?

 

[Goosemaster]

woah.

 

[Mrvile]

Huh.

 

[eflat]

Man the weird thing is that my mom is a pretty decent musican and I've always kind of known I was a good musician even though I would spend hour after hour and years trying to learn to play piano and guitar with the end result being that most 5 years olds were better.

Now I can just pick up a guitar or piano, keep a beat, and play by ear. I bought a tape recorder so I can record myself playing as proof in case I go deaf again so people don't think I am crazy when I tell them what happened to me.

 

[dighn]

Wow... Did you at least know that you had bad hearing? I mean it's kind of hard for me to imagine going on for so long without realizing you had sub-standard hearing.

 

[RichUK]

woah that is deep

 

[eflat]

Originally posted by: dighn
Wow... Did you at least know that you had bad hearing? I mean it's kind of hard for me to imagine going on for so long without realizing you had sub-standard hearing.

I knew that it always sounded like poeple were mumbling and that I always had to tell someone what my name was a few times before they understood me. But I think my speech was relitavely normal because I could obviously hear when I was younger in the development stage since said things clearly without being able to hear them.

Interestingly though I did have to take speech therapy when I was in elementary school because I did not pronounce words correctly.

Man if some idiot doctor like blotched the hearing test or something ten years ago I swear I might just kill him. :|

 

[dighn]

Originally posted by: CitizenDoug

Originally posted by: dighn
Wow... Did you at least know that you had bad hearing? I mean it's kind of hard for me to imagine going on for so long without realizing you had sub-standard hearing.

I knew that it always sounded like poeple were mumbling and that I always had to tell someone what my name was a few times before they understood me. But I think my speech was relitavely normal because I could obviously hear when I was younger in the development stage since said things clearly without being able to hear them.

Interestingly though I did have to take speech therapy when I was in elementary school because I did not pronounce words correctly.

Man if some idiot doctor like blotched the hearing test or something ten years ago I swear I might just kill him. :|

Crazy :Q I guess you were young then so you didn't notice it too much.

Hope your hearing comes back for good

 

[eflat]

What is weird is that I did take the occasional very basic hearing test where there were like ten beeps and I they never told me I failed it or anything.

I wonder if maybe I could kind of hear stuff but it was so incredibly muffled that I could make out a beep but not a word.

But you woudl think they would account for that. So I really don't understand what happened at all.

I do know that I have never been like other people and never understood how people just talk so freely and can express the ideas in their mind so easily. I can actually understand why people act the way they do.

Like laughing out loud upon hearing something funny. I have never laughed at something someone told me. Not once. It's not that I didn't find it funny it's just that it took me several seconds to realize it was funny and by then everyone had left..

Like laughing at stand up comedy. I didn't understand how poeple could just laugh out loud like that. I knew how to say something funny that would make people laugh, but the only thing that has ever made me laugh are my own thoughts. I never understood that people could process speech instantly. I thought speech was a thing that you heard the words and then you thought about what the meant. Apparently people hear words and instantly know what they mean without that intermediary stage of having to think about it.

 

[thirtythree]

Must be quite an experience...

 

[eflat]

I understand now why people get so frustrated when they try to explain something to me. I couldn't really comprehend what they were saying.

I've always had to basically teach everything to myself. My greatest strength has always been that I am incredibly good at improvising and teaching myself things. I guess I had to do it by necessity.

Like in class, during lectures, I could never answer a question the teacher asked me. They would always accuse me of not paying attention even though I was probably trying harder to pay attention than anyone in the class.

If I was lucky the teacher would write stuff out on the board and I could write that down and then read it when I came home to understand it. If they didn't I knew I was doomed in that class and I would just do my best to write down what the teacher was saying so I could read it later and try to make sense of it.

I wonder if maybe my skill of improvising allowed me to cover up a learning disability that in most other people would have been very very obvious and aparent.

My parents are really smart. My dad is like way up there in IQ. My brother will probably be validictorian of his class and even though he did better in school than me I always somehow knew I was much much smarter than he was. And I think he understood that too.

 

[eflat]

Like I have all these weird health problems too. My blood pressure is so higher than most senior citizens (170/100) untreated and I have been to three cardiologists and nobody can figure out why.

I'm in excellent shape yet am tired and confused all the time. I think what was happening is that the world was such a scary and confusing place for me that I was under an incredible amount of anxiety and it raised my blood pressure up.

Like you know that feeling you get when someone lunges at you with a knife? That tight huuuh feeling in your chest. I felt like that 24/7 and never really knew like not feeling like that. I thought that is just how people were but yet I never understood why they always seemed so content with life and life was so difficult and scary for me. I was still able to get by in school with good grades and pretend to understand what was going on in conversations and I just thought other people did that too.

Basically I can just understand how life can be an overall enjoyable experience. I've never been depressed in the chemical imbalance sense (I tried antidepressents and they just made me more confused) but yet life seemed like such a cruel joke.

 

[MagicConch]

This happens to me also, b/c of sinus problems. I really didn't grasp I was that hard of hearing until one day it felt like my ears just popped open thanks to some meds my doctor gave me. The really noticeable stuff is high tones for me. Music sounds totally different. Then they clog up again and it's so disheartening. Actually when I bought the car I had now they were unclogged and the sound system kicked ass but when I got it home they were clogged again but I thought my car speakers were blown. Essentially I got confirmation from the dealer that indeed it's not the speakers but me. One thing I did do was buy a subwoofer for my home theater that can easily shake the whole room. At least I feel I'm never missing too much when watching DVDs. I hope you are getting better mileage from your drugs than I am.

 

[eflat]

The weirdest thing is that it that the hearing comes back it seems to come back a little better every time.

Like the first time was actually before the ent appointment - it was when I took antibiotics for a sinus infection. It made me feel so much better and I told me doctor no way in hell am I going to stop taking these antibiotics because they make me feel like a whole different person.

He said that is impossible because your sinus infection is gone so this is all in your head.

But what was happening I think is that the antibiotics were clearing up my hearing even though I didn't realize it was my hearing that was improving. Like I realized that things were a little less confusing and that I could think a little more clear but it very subtle.

And it was weird because when I would feel better it would always happen almost instantly - like something opening up inside me. I did think it was the eaustachian tube opening but I thought it was just a relief from the pain that was making me feel better.

But apparently it was making me almost totally deaf and unstead. Like I would always walk with this gait and the gait just went away. Like i said.. really surreal.

 

[tk149]

Originally posted by: CitizenDoug
Wow. So I went to the ENT (Ear Nose Throat Doctor) complaining of this persistent pressure in my ear that has gotten worse and worse over the years. He says even though it doesn't look too bad my eaustachian tube is prob a little clogged from allergies.

He gives me a spray and says try it. A day later I am driving home and all of a sudden I am hell of tripping out because all of a sudden I started hearing this low and incredibly loud rumbling sound like there is a stampede of elephants headed towards me.

Then I noticed that all that gibberish that singers sing on the radio was not in fact gibberish but in fact words.

I spoke and said "what the hell" to myself and was startled by how incredibly loud my voice was even though I was mumbling. There were sounds in the words that I had never heard before.

So unless I am just completely tripping out and someone has laced all my food with LSD for the past week it would seem that I have somehow gone at least seven-ten years being almost deaf.

Over the past seven years I have gone from being a enthusiastic straight a student to avoiding social situations and coming within inches of flunking out of school dispite studying for hours and hour every night. And I think I understand why now.

My hearing is now coming and going. One minute I will be able to hear and the next I am almost totally deaf. The only difference is that now when I am deaf I actually realize I am deaf and at least I understand why it is I'm not following conversations.

For those of you that are saying how is that possible you would know if you are deaf, deafness is apparently not what I and most people thought it was. You can still hear, and even still make out words, but you have to strain so incredibly hard to string the words together that by the time you actually comprehend what someone has said to you they have already left the room.

It's so surreal. Man I almost hope I am losing it and becoming psychotic and that this is not really happening because it is a scary thought to think that I spent ten years of my life being deaf without knowing while there was a simple fix there all along.

I'll be getting hearing tests in a week or so to confirm whether or not I am in fact almost deaf.

Uh oh...I think I have your symptoms too...and I haven't had a hearing test in probably over 20 years....

 

[shot]

I had the same problem a couple of years ago. Went to an ENT, he tubed my ears, no problems since. The procedure is simple and relatively painless. With adults there is no need for general anesthesia as long as you hold still.

 

[dabuddha]

Reminds me of when ear wax completely took over my ear. At the time, I had a heavy build up and one day, BAM. I couldn't hear anymore. It was like listening to people at the end of a tunnel. I went to an ear specialist and he put these drops in my ear and after a few minutes, got this tiny vacuum hose and literally sucked the wax out. OH MY GOD it was unbelievable. I felt like Superman with the way my hearing was now. I could hear my mom rubbing her hands together from across the room! :shocked:

 

[Vegitto]

Dude, that sucks. I have something with my ears, too, but not as bad as you. Sometimes, out of nowhere, I hear a loud, high-pitched tone that drives me insane. I can't cope with it.

 

[tm37]

I would bring this up with the ENT because you may have done damage to your ears if you have been constantly "clogged"

How old are You?

Also the thing to remember is that after not hearing your hearing will seem better when it gets restored. This is because the brain does a very good job of filtering out noise and such. If you can hear the brain can't filter and then when you get sounds the brain does not filter. Think of how bright a room is after sitting in the dark for a little bit.


People fail to realize how closely your sinus and respitory systems are tied to your ears but if you have constant plugged sinuses then you ears will not function as they should because the tympanic membrain can't move. So you get muffled or no hearing.

Good luck and hopefully your doc puts you on something to stay decongested.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

What you say?

 

[loic2003]

Originally posted by: Vegitto
Dude, that sucks. I have something with my ears, too, but not as bad as you. Sometimes, out of nowhere, I hear a loud, high-pitched tone that drives me insane. I can't cope with it.

It's called tinnitus. Some people have it permanently, must suck more than Paris Hilton, in both senses.