Scary out of tune hearing

[Julia123]

On Monday night in the middle of the night I started to hear my pulse in my left ear, a very quiet whooshing sound. I've had random whooshing before but this was steady with my pulse. On Tuesday I took a strong decongestant and although the pulsing stayed about the same, the sensation of having a glass slightly over my ear started up. On Wed. morning I went to the Dr. and there was no infection to be seen and everything looked fine. I have had no drainage or congestion in weeks but I did 'feel' funny Sunday evening but felt fine the next day. The sensation has gotten steadily stronger and on Thursday I started noticing certain string parts sounding out of tune. I honest to God thought I was listening to out of tune parts, but realized shortly after they weren't. Now for example, certain Rhoades type keyboards parts in songs I hear in public, the Star Trek theme strings on my son's TV etc. are all sounding out of phase or out of tune. If I move a glass slowly towards and away from my ear, it is a similar effect. The first ENT appt. I could get is this coming Tuesday morning but this is very unsettling waiting for that. It makes me feel spacey as well. Has anyone experienced this? I did the hum test, to test for serious hearing loss, but I would say I hear my hum about the same in both ears. Has anyone heard of this or experienced this? There is absolutely no pain.

[Julia123]

Wow, my son is playing my Ukulele and it sounds like I am hearing it slightly delayed and outside my ear on my left side!?!? I really am mentally sound,(as far as I know;-)

[Shooshie]

Julia, this is serious. There's about a fifty/fifty chance that it could end end permanent damage, or it could get better.

When my daughter was in 5th grade, this happened to her after she got out of the shower one night. I had just read stories to her and her friend, who was spending the night with her. After the shower she reported a crackling sound, and things sounded far away and strange in one ear. By morning, she was deaf in that ear. We took her to the best audiologists and ENT docs in Dallas, and they did all kinds of tests, including exploratory surgery. In the end, they told us that there are a certain percentage of these cases that end up in deafness or partial deafness, and they have no explanation for why. They think it may be an autoimmune thing, where the auditory nerve gets attacked by the immune system.

My daughter has been deaf in one ear ever since. On the plus side, she grew up and became a fine musician, graduated from Yale, has lived in Brazil and France, and learned Brazilian music on guitar and voice. She has a singing career, and recently released her first album. So... it's not the end of the world, but it can sure change the world for whoever it strikes. Oh... and she has excellent pitch. But she has to ignore that ear, which she learned to do long ago. It makes a roaring noise, kind of like listening to a conch shell.

I hope your doctor visit(s) yield better news. But I wanted to tell you the story about my daughter, because despite her loss, she gained strength and focus, and she is a fine musician.

Shooshie

[stubbsonic]

I remember a loud whooshing noise when I had a painful ear infection as a kid.

Please keep us posted about what you learn. Good luck!!!!

[Julia123]

Thanks. I just tried again to get them to take me today and no go-- I would say my hearing is staying about the same, not worse, but the left ear is clearly out of whack. I will let you know what I find out tomorrow, hopefully it is a good Doctor.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I assume your blood pressure was checked? That can affect hearing the way you described. I had a ruptured ear drum in the 8th grade when a "friend" crashed a piatti in my ear. Sometimes when I have a cold, my left ear hears pitches 1/4 step lower than the right. It's been tested several times and I'm told that is impossible, yet it exists and takes a few weeks to clear. Weird! If I plug one ear or the other, I definitely hear the pitch difference quite clearly. Voices, SFX, music, all pitched lower on one side.

When both ears are "open" the overall effect is more of a rumble than the usual sound.

[Julia123]

Wow, thanks, that gives me hope that somehow there is fluid involved even though I don't feel fluid. My blood pressure was fine. I am finding the tuning thing is worse at around A 440 down an octave from there and up an octave from there, getting slightly better as it moves away either direction from the four or five notes around A.

[mikehalloran]

Without going into detail, having had a massive stroke and taking the drugs that my doctors think keep me alive has a definite effect on my hearing including pitch. I have learned to compensate the best I can and "hear through" the noises and anomalies presented by my ears and brain.

I hope this works out for you.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I would take a nasal decongestant... seriously. Then give them a few days to work. Yeah, the specialist didn't find water in your ear, but if it was there and created a slight inflammation (1/4 tone in my case) then the swelling has to go down, at least that is how I manage it in my case. I also take a couple of Advil to reduce swelling. I imagine the swelling to be very slight, but in a place where the muscles are quite delicate.

Ears! Who needs them? Ask Beethoven... LOL

[cuttime]

This is the last place I would give medical advice, but yes, drugs, especially aspirin, can have an effect on your hearing. My wife had a similar condition and was prescribed a high dose of niacin (enough to produce a "flush"). As always, please consult your physician first. (where's that label warning icon?).

I did run across this:
http://hearinglosshelp.com/blog/when-yo ... wrong-key/
Please let us know how it's going.

[Julia123]

Without going into detail, having had a massive stroke and taking the drugs that my doctors think keep me alive has a definite effect on my hearing including pitch. I have learned to compensate the best I can and "hear through" the noises and anomalies presented by my ears and brain.

I hope this works out for you.

Wow, that had to be tough to go through! Thank God for modern medicine and that you are OK. I just read the link below and see how drugs can affect pitch. That is wild. I am just playing my piano today to so I can get a good handle on what to tell the Dr. tomorrow and I am finding I can ignore the off pitch and 'force' it in tune as I play since the 'true' notes (I hope) are so much louder than the added pitch - I hope this isn't something I will have to continue to do.

I would take a nasal decongestant... seriously. Then give them a few days to work. Yeah, the specialist didn't find water in your ear, but if it was there and created a slight inflammation (1/4 tone in my case) then the swelling has to go down, at least that is how I manage it in my case. I also take a couple of Advil to reduce swelling. I imagine the swelling to be very slight, but in a place where the muscles are quite delicate.

Ears! Who needs them? Ask Beethoven... LOL

OK, that makes sense, I will try it all. I did try a couple of sprays but let it slide since the 12 hour stuff didn't help, but it was just one day. (That stuff really makes my heart race.)

This is the last place I would give medical advice, but yes, drugs, especially aspirin, can have an effect on your hearing. My wife had a similar condition and was prescribed a high dose of niacin (enough to produce a "flush"). As always, please consult your physician first. (where's that label warning icon?).

I did run across this:
http://hearinglosshelp.com/blog/when-yo ... wrong-key/
Please let us know how it's going.

Wow, lots of people have issues, the fact these people are having it long term isn't very comforting--- About the Niacin--- I was prescribed niacin about two years ago by a holistic DR. and told to take mega doses, (which did cause me to flush). It was prescribed because of some indicator in my cholesterol that regular doctors don't treat. When I ran out I only replaced it with a much lower dose non flush and rarely take it now. This is interesting, I still have a bottle and I really should take it anyway so I will have at it--- I will bring up the high dose with the Dr. tomorrow if she ends up unsure of what is going on --- I hope she is good----- Did your wife recover OK?

[cuttime]

Did your wife recover OK?

Yes she did, but it was not instantaneous. It nagged her for may weeks, which led me to believe it may have been a viral infection.

[leigh]

I have a very fine bass player friend who hears 1/2-step higher in one ear than the other. He's learned to live with it and still has exquisitely fine musical hearing. As an example, he could tell from a recording that the bass section of the Berlin Phil was using two different bowings and later had this confirmed by a Berlin Phil bassist that they sometimes simultaneously use a "color" bowing and a "power" bowing.

I hope you get good news from your doctor.

**Leigh

[bayswater]

I have out of tune hearing. After years of flying with rapid changes in air pressure, I started getting plugged up collapsed ear canals that lasted for days. I can relieve it temporarily by increasing internal pressure. I good sneeze usually does it. The problem may or may not go away, but it's been with me for a few years now.

The effect: when a guitar string is slightly out of tune, it sounds to me like it is too high when it's really too low. I've learned to adjust to this. When the strings are properly tuned, they sound right to me, so I've probably adjusted or learned to compensate.

[Shooshie]

In addition to my daughter, I've known several musicians who are completely deaf in one ear. I think most of them got that way playing in bands. It never bothered me much until my daughter's mysterious, instantaneous loss of hearing in her left ear. Until then, one of my favorite parts of mixing music was creating stereo fields with instrument placement, depth, and space. Stereo itself was a thing of beauty. Suddenly my daughter could not hear it. Gone. 100% monaural, everything she hears. She can no longer locate the source of sound. People call her "over here!" but "here" to her is anywhere and everywhere. Meaningless. It was a painful, helpless period of our lives, trying everything we could to restore her full hearing. I live as much with my ears as my eyes, and have often walked around in the dark just using my ears to tell where I am. To think she could not do that made me tremendously sad, yet I could not let on, because I didn't want HER to feel sad, and she didn't. She took it as a challenge to relearn how to do everything with one ear: crossing a street, locating an alarm clock, finding a trapped animal, just enjoying the crickets at night. Then there was music. It was all like listening to an old radio. Just one speaker.

Now, when I'm mixing, I first mix for equal channels, centered sound. Not the same as mono, but not much different, either. Then I try to see how much stereo space I can impose on that without losing any of the main audio in either ear. Sometimes I have to abandon that approach and just go ahead and mix as I always did. I created a mixer headphone for her that combined all sound in one ear, and gave her the ability to flip phase in one channel. It was complicated with lots of wires, and she never really used it much. She figured she had to learn to compensate, anyway, so why try to avoid it? But I can't help but try first to mix for my little girl, now a dynamic woman who has surpassed me in almost everything. Still, when I reach for the pan knob, it feels like the pain knob. I have to pause a second and remember that there's still a world of folks with both their ears, and that it's right to do that. Then I'm ok, and can create my sound fields. But I still make a version for her, even though she'll never hear most of them.

Shooshie