
Ask HN: Anyone with headphone induced tinnitus? - l33tbro
Curious if you guys have had much experience with it?<p>Was blasting a 500 hz pure turn way to loud to get into flow state yesterday.  Fearing I may have done permanent damage.  Got myself to a doctor and to immediately get some steroids prescribed (seriously, do this if it ever happens to you.  You&#x27;ve got a really short window to potentially reverse damage).  But even still, does anyone have any stories or tips?
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anigbrowl
No, but why the fuck would you blast a sine wave into your ears using
headphones of all things? Please go and read up on your cochleae, this is the
sonic equivalent of trying to blind yourself with a laser pointer. If your
finding a flow state that elusive then try drugs, which are likely to be
significantly safer in small quantities.

Sine tones don't exist in nature any more than lasers do. Your anatomy is
_not_ equipped to safeguard you from such foolishness.

~~~
l33tbro
Appreciate the calm and measured response. Well, given that this is becoming a
pretty common cultural practice for study and programming flow, you may wish
to chose a slightly less clumsy analogy than your laser pointer example.

In fact, the very practice of using pure tones is actually recommended by
medical researchers [1] and therapists [2] as relief for tinnitus.

As for your sine wave argument, it seems likely to be fallacious. Sure,
perfect sine waves are computationally generated and do not exist in nature
(similar to the way geological straight lines also cannot). But close
variations of sine waves do exist. Things like infrasound [3] generated from
ocean waves and natural airflows, as well as tones like "The Hum" [4] pop to
mind.

In that case, please explain to me how a pure tone (highly compressed and full
of AAC audio artifacts, mixed with surrounding natural walla at work) is a
perfect sine wave?

Secondly, please explain to me how this perfect (sic) sine wave would
traumatise the cochlea?

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3634972/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3634972/)

[2] [http://www.tinnitusretrain.com/do-binaural-beats-cure-
tinnit...](http://www.tinnitusretrain.com/do-binaural-beats-cure-tinnitus/)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum)

~~~
anigbrowl
I do have very strong opinions on this because I despair at how little care
people take of their hearing, and this is one of the few effective tactics
I've found.

Infrasound is hardly relevant given that we're evolved _not_ to be able to
hear it. I say that pure sine tones are bad (not perfect, please don't put
words in my mouth or demand peer-review rigor from a n informal comment)
because the anatomy of the cochlea is such that it behaves like an FFT, in
that individual hair cells along it's length are keyed to specific frequences;
When you play a relatively loud pure tone the cilia are stimulated at that
individual frequency absent the sympathetic resonances that would normally
occur in any naturally resonating cavity, undermining the chemical
compensators and acoustic feedback mechanisms that normally protect to some
degree against broader-spectrum excessive loudness.

Tinnitus remedies remain highly speculative, but in any case treating the cure
as a prophylactic is rarely a good idea. Yes, I gave you a hard time about it,
but when you start out by saying you were 'blasting a 500 hz pure [tone] way
too loud' Then I want to clearly discourage other readers from engaging in
such cavalier behavior.

------
PaulHoule
I got tinnitus from an Ozzy Osborne concert 20 years ago. Did not great it,
but it got better. Today I think I hear better than my parents did at my age
because I can hear the flyback transformer from an old TV and my parents could
not.

I live on a farm and we have disposable foam earmuffs. If you are mowing the
lawn, going to a motorsports event or experiencing anything loud it is a good
idea to use them.

