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View Full Version : What is happening to me?


deafdrummer
10-27-2010, 08:38 PM
I, uhh, need some help here understanding what's going on. I will have to notify my audiologist for a referral to an ENT doctor.

I think I had braces before I signed on here, so I may not have mentioned this on this forum before. The reason I bring up braces is because I wore them for over two years until they were taken off in May 2009 and I went to retainers. During that time, I would experience itching and "moving pain" in my mouth whenever I did something aerobic, like playing on my drumset (playing fast double bass drum beats with my feet, kicking out blast beats or something like that). I would feel it more strongly during this time than at any other time during the day. It was found that my teeth were moving faster than any of her patients except for a teenage girl! I had top and bottom jaw surgery to reposition my bite, and I had swelling go down dramatically and be almost gone by the time I went home a few days later. It looks like what happened is that playing or exercising gets blood flowing faster through the body, and increased blood flow allows the mouth to accommodate the changes faster, hence more pain while I was active.

Now, transfer this experience to my deafness. First, know that I've always tried to live on a healthy dietary for the last 17 years, and I tweaked it more as I learned more over time. In the last several months, especially after the last major tweak in my dietary, my hearing cleared a little and got a bit more sensitive over time and stopped at a certain point. I experience something similar with my hearing when I'm active now. As I play on my drumset and got a little sweaty and my heart rate going, suddenly things become louder, and it comes and goes somewhat, but it stays louder. I've had a few moments in the past couple of weeks where things get quite a bit louder while playing drums, I want to say halfway thunderous! This experience is always strongest when I'm on the drumset. It seems my hearing continues to sharpen over time, becoming a bit more clear. I'm noticing that my quiet truck (Honda CRV) is not so quiet anymore.

I hear bottoms well in the right ear, and my left ear favors the high frequencies, so now I'm hearing a fullness in the lows in the right year and am just barely starting to notice more lows in the left ear, which I've not heard in a long time. I'm hearing higher sounds in the left ear, or at least the highs I've always been able to hear are coming in really clearly, and I'm starting to notice them in the right ear. Overall, music sounds more alive than at anytime in my life!

What is happening to me? Has anyone experienced this? A major tweak in my dietary includes eliminating wheat/gluten sources in my dietary.

johnvox
10-28-2010, 02:20 AM
We know a lot about hearing loss and its causes, but there is way way more that we don’t.
Audiologists and ENTs can perform tests, and poke and prod from the outside but even if they could get inside our ears we wouldn’t know it all.
Just like we hear many stories of unexplained loss, so too seemingly magic things can happen. A reversal in your condition may be plausible. Here’s hoping.
If there is a chance of you recovering hearing, then your regime of good food and exercise can only help.
Interestingly, sufferers of Otosclerosis (a form of bone overgrowth in the middle ear that causes hearing loss) often report improvement to their hearing in noisy conditions. This may not be relevant to you, Stephanie, but it goes to show that weird things can happen.
I hope your news keeps on getting better.
I’m sorry I can’t really help.
John