Tinnitus after going out
A permanent ringing sound
Door Tim van de Vendel
By Tim van de Vendel
Tim van de Vendel
That noise. That endless noise. Finance student Maikel Veld still can’t get used to it. Day in, day out, he hears the same tone ringing through his head. ‘It’s just so loud.’
It started a little over two years ago, when he sustained a concussion in an accident. A few days later, as he was getting into bed, he suddenly became aware of a rushing noise in his ears. ‘It nearly gave me a panic attack. I was practically hyperventilating’, he says. ‘It was so persistent; it was all I could hear. It drowned out everything else.’
Fortunately, the ringing became less severe as time went on, but a few weeks later, the doctor confirmed Maikel’s fears. He had tinnitus. And once you have it, there isn’t much you can do about it. ‘That was a tough pill to swallow.’
Panic
Tinnitus is relatively common; more than two million people in the Netherlands suffer from the condition. The ringing can vary, ranging from a high tone to a low murmur. But in almost all cases, it’s practically impossible to ignore.
I’d focus on it, which only made it worse
‘I remember coming home from a night out with this ringing in my ears’, says physics student Sibren Wobben. His tinnitus occasionally disrupts his sleep. ‘It’s especially hard if I’ve had a long day.’
Initially, the ringing also led to mental complaints for Sibren. ‘I would often panic at night’, he says. ‘I would start to focus on it, which only made it worse.’ He’s since learnt to deal with it.
He got help from the people around him: many of his friends also suffer from tinnitus. ‘They ushered me into the club’, he jokes.
Ear plugs
These days, he always wears ear plugs when he goes out. ‘I already have this ringing in my ears’, he says. ‘I don’t want to make it any worse.’
However, students on the whole don’t seem to be too concerned about the risk of getting tinnitus. Very few of them wear ear protection when going out. ‘I think it’s their teenage rebellion’, says Sibren. ‘They don’t want someone else telling them what to do.’
Sure, everyone hears some ringing in their ears after a night out; that’s just because the music in the pubs is too loud. They know that they should be wearing ear plugs, but they’re so uncomfortable…
‘Some of them say they don’t want to wear them because they can’t hear the music’, says Maikel. But that’s nonsense. ‘They can hear it perfectly fine, even with ear plugs.’ He thinks people aren’t properly aware of the possible consequences of hearing damage. ‘They just take their hearing for granted. I don’t understand why people refuse to take care of it.’
Exposure
This kind of carelessness is more dangerous than people think, says associate professor Sonja Pyott, a neurological researcher studying tinnitus and hearing damage. ‘Obviously, loud noises are bad for your ears. But another factor is how long you’re exposed to sound’, she says. ‘Even less intense noises can become potentially damaging if you’re exposed long enough.’
Even less intense noises can become potentially damaging
Take the crowded social gatherings at your study association, for instance. Or that great pub where everyone talks really loudly. They may seem innocuous, but they can have long-term effects on your hearing.
Maikel knows all about it. ‘I always wear my ear plugs when I go out’, he says. ‘But I even wear them at busy pubs. If there are too many people talking at once it just becomes too loud for me.’
Impossible to determine
Should we actually be wearing ear plugs all the time? Pyott compares their use to that of eye glasses. ‘Not everyone needs glasses at every moment of the day’, she says. ‘In some situations, you might need them more than others, but it’s always best to err on the side of caution.’
As it turns out, it’s impossible to determine when a particular sound intensity will lead to hearing damage. ‘There are many different contributing factors’, says Pyott. ‘The sensitivity to sounds probably also varies per person.’
In other words, it’s probably best to be as careful as you can. Because once that ringing in your ears starts, it might never go away again. ‘There really isn’t a lot we can do for people with tinnitus’, says Pyott. ‘In most people, things get a little better after a year. The best thing seems to be to ignore, but that’s much easier said than done.’
Stigma
All three agree that there is a woeful lack of awareness concerning hearing damage in general. ‘You don’t realise that you’ve done something wrong until after you get tinnitus’, says Maikel. ‘I’m sure they said something about it on television once, but I can’t really remember hearing about it much’, Sibren adds. ‘I genuinely panicked when I got it.’
‘It seems as though there’s some kind of stigma associated with hearing protection’, says Pyott. However, she is hopeful that this will change in the future. ‘Now that so many people wear either earbuds or headphones, it will be much easier for them to make that switch to hearing protection than it was twenty years ago’, she says. ‘Wearing glasses used to be uncool, too.’