In the past, this was called “ringing” in the ears. Today, the buzzword is “tinnitus”. Better suited to the generation of the deaf than walkmans, deafening nightclubs and mega-concerts promise us. In summer, our ears are in danger.
Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, The Who guitarist, Barbra Streisand are famous victims, but the brave soldiers hit in the orchestra pit number in the tens of thousands.
Not so long ago that the loudest noise one could occasionally encounter was a plane taking off. This record is now largely beaten by many groups during mega-concerts, but also poorly controlled discos or many techno parties. With the bonus, at the exit, an unpleasant whistle which, fortunately, only lasts a few hours.
Tinnitus, when the noise comes from within
If the hissing persists, it is an emergency that requires the intervention of a specialist. Beyond a week, we are faced with tinnitus. Buzzing, ringing, whistling or hissing ruin the lives of more than 3 million French people, 600,000 of whom find this tinnitus aggressive and unbearable. Figures are constantly increasing because the noise level, increasingly high in our society, generates 200,000 new cases each year. Most of these pains could be avoided, simply by warning the children. For example against walkmans: since 1996, the law imposes a limit of 100 decibels. An already insufficient level. A school cafeteria or a busy road junction represents 95 decibels. No one would stay there for hours. However, it is not uncommon to see adolescents using their walkmans for hours, which they unleash at 120 decibels or more, that is to say very close to the pain threshold, and therefore of destruction, because the he ear is an organ that knows how to resist by deteriorating without causing pain.
Insupportable
The tinnitus is quickly unbearable; because one cannot “not hear”: impossible, unlike the eyes, to close one’s ears. The one who suffers does not feel the origin of the noise and cannot accept it: the clicking of the neighbour’s pen, in a meeting, never bothers the one who generates it. Finally, tolerance decreases over time: you can tolerate less and less the noise of a drill. Little is known about the origin of this symptom, the mechanisms of which are unknown. Most of the time, despite numerous additional examinations, nothing is found. To relieve these often exhausted patients, the bad habit of most doctors consists in proposing, according to the principle of the noise that one ends up no longer hearing by habit, like automobile traffic outside an apartment, to support a embarrassment, yet defined most of the time as unbearable. Your doctor does not have any specific medication. He will do with what he has, without any guarantee of effectiveness, because most of them have more undesirable effects than positive ones… Recourse to the psychiatrist, badly perceived, is often useless.
There remains a method which may seem a little barbaric: fight noise with noise: music in the evening when falling asleep or, more modern solution, the tinnitus “masker”. It is a prosthesis that is put in the ear and which produces a noise more pleasant for the ear than that of tinnitus. A form of Coué method… No solution is completely effective, but the possibilities of relief are numerous enough not to resign.
Prevention is easy but essential
We must repeat these simple tips: more than an hour of listening to an unbridled walkman per day exceeds the threshold limit. In disco, you have to go out to air your ears every 30 minutes. If it becomes impossible to understand what is being said at 1 meter, it is because the level exceeds 105 decibels; an important warning sign: you must therefore move away, put on discreet protection – on sale in all pharmacies – or at worst, a piece of cotton. Better to be nerdy than traumatized…
