Doctors can be wrong !

I have a similar story, albeit less serious and dramatic. A couple of years ago, I started noticing a dip in high frequency perception on my left ear. Also, I had a ringing (tinnitus), but only on that ear. My general practitioner couldn’t figure it out and I went to see a specialist. It turned out it was just excess cerumen (ear wax) that had lodged deep into the ear canal (I know, ewwww…) A 2-hour operation with a very scary-looking tool tipped with a micro-camera was needed (kinda similar to what goes into your butt when you have a colonoscopy, but smaller), but as soon as the “plug” was removed, my hearing was back to perfect. I feel like I dodged a bullet.

Great news there G!- string up that Doctor! :angry:

Once or twice a year, usually Nov.-Jan. my hearing gets severally compromised by the same thing as papi61, and it takes days or even weeks of peroxide to clear them out to where I can hear normal again instead of less than half of what’s normal.

Had them flushed 3 different times throughout my life, but I’m told that’s not always the best idea.

Thanks for sharing the story & tip - will keep it handy for next time.


Reminds me of that old joke:

  • Doctor gave a man 6 months to live.
  • When the man said he couldn’t pay his Doctor bill, the Doctor gave him 6 more months. :laughing:

Doctor gave a man 6 months to live.

  • When the man said he couldn’t pay his Doctor bill, the Doctor gave him 6 more months. > :laughing:

:laughing: :laughing: a good one

Brings to mind one more:

I rushed in and asked, “Doctor Doctor, what’s wrong with me?”

He answered, “Well…you’re obviously an idiot!”

I paused for a moment and then suggested, “Hmmm…Perhaps I should get a second opinion.”

He replied, "Very well then.

You’re f.u.c.k.i.n’ ugly too!!" :laughing:

mmmmwwwahahHAHA! I like that one! I wonder what’s wrong with me?

:open_mouth:

That’s good news, G-string! :smiley:


… and sad news Ted… :cry:

Very sad news Surfer indeed , the fella upstairs certainly deals an evil hand at times and when something like that happens it makes you take stock of what you have and makes you realise just how short life is .

Just being able to hear those tiny little birds again brings a big smile to my face :wink:
The only reason I never tried cleaning my ear was because of the advice of the doctor saying they were clear , I feel like pinning him down and filling his ears with poxy resin :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: no im not bitter and twisted about it :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: YET :wink:

Don’t forget to put the video of it on Youtube! :laughing:

This is confiscated. Small niggle of mine. Musicians advising everyone to get earplugs. My view is that why cripple your ears while they are working as they should. Let them cripple normally. If you’re going to go deaf you will and if not, you’re not. There’s exceptions like factories with constant 112dbs for 10 hours a day but music? You take breaks, there’s quiet bits, you talk to each other a bit in rehearsal. Real life. Let life put the earplugs in LATER. Wax, cilia damage whatever. The only musician of note who went deaf was Beethoven and they keep shoving him in your face whenever they want to sell earplugs. Who else…? I ask. Answer “DUH!”

Pete Townsend.

G-string, great news…was your original diagnosis neurological in nature or did your doctor fail to identify plugged ear canals? Regardless, glad to know your better off now. “…you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone”

Funny… :laughing:

uhh … replace musicians advise with doctors advise and you’ll be more accurate. My take is I’ll listen to hearing specialists over random forum poster on an audio forum. It’s a medical fact that even short duration, high volume noise can have long term affect on hearing. Like everything biological, your genetics will determine how much and to what level it will affect you, but it will affect you.

I’ll bet Pete Townshend wishes he wore some earplugs…

Congrats G-String, hope it lasts. I have diminishing hearing, its going slowly currently but my sister and mother both wear hearing aids, that makes me nervous…

Unfortunately that’s much more likely to be genetic.

Yep Pete Townsend, John Entwhistle and erm… well some more. But those guys did play on festival stages where, at back of the PA speakers it did recommend BIG ear defenders. I played one festival where the first note blew my HAIR forwards and rendered me effectively deaf for the gig (drum monitor in effect a sizeable full PA good enough for large clubs). For the people I work with generally we work nowhere near that length of exposure or that volume loudness. Madness in those days. BUT for all of us the levels of deafness are pretty much in line with all our mates and families in any other industry.
I’m certainly not sure about this but I suspect that a large amount of ear damage is/can be done by infections from dirty ear defenders. Doctors change their minds every ten years about what’s good for us (cigarettes used to be recommended for asthma!). They’re pretty good but real life is often much more reliable as a guide.

There is nothing better that pulling out the earplugs after a concert or rehearsal! :sunglasses:
The sonic rainbow of reality is back and your ears are not hurting and hissing.
You can buy those expensive little bastards from the pharmacy connected with a string.
You plug them in and pull them out a little until you have the perfect blend of protection and loud music.
It’s possible to have a complete hi-fi experience if you do it right.
Try it and there is no turning back!

The aging process alone will rob us of a percentage of our hearing by genetics alone. Trauma to the mechanical processes of the middle ear or sensory-neural components of the inner ear can accelerate the event. Documented studies have repeatedly shown clear evidence of this. In an audiogram, a precipitous drop around 4kHz is text book classic sign of noise exposure. It’s higher frequencies that help provide clues to speech discrimination

The temporary threshold shift that occurs a few hours after exposure may gradually return to normal but again can elicit periods of tinnitus. Ever put your head on a pillow at night and you just hear tones or white noise? Repeated shifts can cause further damage and bring about speech discrimination issues. " I can hear it, but I can’t understand what was said"…unlike frequency adjustment in gain, nothing really improves those conditions. Mix this in with some mild background noise from a restaurant or bar and you have some very frustrating situations for this person. Even digital hearing aids are only that. AIDS and Not your own ears. If you do need this route, consider the fact that your hearing is binaural…one hearing aid cannot do that, you’ll need one for each ear for the all important speech discrimination

It just sucks getting old…told to me by my dr. Also about my age

It may look odd but I wear earplugs or sound muffs in anything above ambient noise levels

Yes - I openly & honestly admit that I am not the original one who made up this joke.

[Kind of why I said that these 2 jokes came to mind.]

The first time I heard it was on the TV show M.A.S.H 4077th by Hawkeye.

And the other one I believe was by Henny Young [or Youngman].

An older man known for lot’s of one-liners who held a violin, although I’m not sure he ever played it at all - at least not that I ever heard or saw.

I’m willing to bet that most jokes are recycled over & over again.

Most common example I can think of is Jay Leno using the ‘not being able to find 3 wise men & a virgin’ in L. A.’ every single year at Christmas time.

Good stuff g-string hope your hearing stays improved