Ooo eee, Baby, open the door…
Baby Boomers and a lot of others never know the Sounds Of Silence. We have tinnitus. Tin-eye-tus, or Tin-it-tus, the organization can’t even agree on how it should be pronounced.

But before we go any further, please play this audio file at the lowest possible volume you can and still be able to be aware of it. This is a mix I did of what my tinnitus sounds like – almost. It’s about 90 seconds long.
Start playing the file and then read on please.

That’s 24/7 in my head. But others hear a whoosing, or a buzzing/clicking, screeching, tea kettle and many others. Short sound files are here.

I hate a silent room. It’s never silent. I always have the Bells of St. Mary or Tone Loc with me. I’m so lucky that Nancy likes to fall asleep to the noise of the Tee Vee. My tinnitus starts out quiet in the morning and when my head hits the pillow it is raging.

I’m not whining just to whine.

If you know a Baby Boomer that plays the Tee Vee louder than you prefer, or cranks up the audio player in the car for every song, then you might want to take advantage of a free hearing test the next time the hearing aid place offers it.

Oh, he will HATE it, but if you can convince him to go (and it will always be a him, because we Men Boomers are a stubborn bunch) to take the test to prove to you that he doesn’t have a hearing problem that’s good enough. It may be tinnitus or it might be just a hearing lost because those little hairs have migrated from inside ears to the outside.

we gradually lose the hair cells and the nerve cells that lie within the cochlea. The cochlea is the part of the ear associated with hearing sounds of high frequencies. This loss over time might damage the inner ear and the acoustic nerve, causing sensorineural hearing loss.

(Has the sound stopped playing? restart it.)

If you know someone younger that plays their mp3 player so loud you can hear it, suggest they might want to tone it down because it will kill their hearing.

The risk of permanent hearing loss, Portnuff says, can increase with just five minutes of exposure a day to music at full volume. Over time, the noise can damage the delicate hair cells in the inner ear that transform sound waves to the electrical signals that the brain understands as sound.

Wouldn’t you think Apple and other mp3 player makers would recognize that they are killing their long term business by allowing players to destroy the hearing of their target audience? The iPod default setting for maximum volume is 100 decibels, the equivalent of standing next to a pneumatic hammer! Some iPods have been tested as loud as 115 decibels – the same as holding a chainsaw at full throttle.

Here’s a great PSA from the U.K.

And while I’m on the subject? If you know someone who has a hearing loss, don’t assume that just talking LOUDER WILL HELP. Often the person hears the volume, the words aren’t clear. Repeating what you just said is a pain in the butt, we know that, but we want to know what you said. If you aren’t clear if you should speak louder or just slower or more clearly or look at us (for lip-reading) please ask. (I wear hearing aids, but they have done little to mask the tinnitus or improve my hearing.)

We now return you to a medley of old favs:

• The Bells are Ringing
• The Sound Of Music
• Whistle a Happy Tune
• Whistle Down the Wind
• The Theme From Andy of Mayberry
• I’m a Little Tea Kettle

Crank Up The Volume!

UPDATE:
duh…

Created by Train Horns