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by magnetic·7y ago·view on hn ↗
Protect your hearing before it's too late. We often think that the worse that will happen is that you'll lose a bit of hearing and be hard of hearing when you get older. If that's all you get, consider yourself lucky.

What could happen to you is that your hearing apparatus gets damaged to the point of getting permanent severe tinnitus and hyperacusis. These are not mild conditions - they are life changing conditions that bring people to the brink of suicide.

To give you an idea of how serious it is, it is just second to Chronic Pain in terms of suicide ideation in the population, and higher than Parkinsons', Insomnia, and advanced cancer. See https://journals.lww.com/thehearingjournal/Fulltext/2016/070...

Tinnitus has no cure and no viable treatment other than mind-related techniques to help you cope: there is no way to lessen the symptoms. It is a terrible predicament to be put in, and if you are unlucky enough to suffer from a severe version of it, it can easily take away your ability to think, socialize, and sometimes perform basic tasks.

Unfortunately, protecting your hearing isn't sufficient to dodge tinnitus & hyperacusis: there are other ways that can lead to it, such as ototoxic medications, ear infections or other ear conditions such as otosclerosis, cholesteatoma, etc. Still, it's your best line of defense, as one of the biggest causes for Tinnitus is noise induced hearing loss. Please take it seriously.

2 comments
another one is sudden hearing loss. I wish google searches for sudden hearing loss would have an explicit warning to get to an ER immediately.

it seems most gps don't know about the condition, and on their advice I waited until about a week after. Now I'm permanently deaf in one ear, with severe tinnitus.

Indeed, I did forget SSNHL. Sorry that you were victim of that.

At one week after onset you were still in the treatment window, but unfortunately it doesn't always work (and obviously, the sooner the better - but my surgeon told me he's seen cases as late as 2 months recover after treatment).

I imagine you got steroids prescribed? Oral or intratympanic?

I've had tinnitus since I was a teenager (from doing stupid teenage antics). Its not loud enough to be mentally troubling except when I convince myself its getting worse. It tends to go away when I'm concentrating, which I suppose is why I like programming so much.

I really hope there is a cure one day.