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If you’ve been subjected to loud noise and now have tinnitus, you’ll be wondering if and when it will go away — but the answer is not always clear.
Exposure to many kinds of loud noises can damage the delicate parts of the ear responsible for hearing and cause hearing loss that’s temporary or even permanent. It can also lead to tinnitus, that ringing or buzzing sound in one or both ears that many people are unfortunately familiar with; it’s not actually a sound from the outside world at all, but it is frequently annoying if not infuriating.
People have different ideas about what noise induced tinnitus sounds like. Some say it’s like the typical ringing sound or similar to the buzzing of bees, while others may describe the condition as a kind of hissing or whooshing noise. Those with severe cases of tinnitus may experience louder and more disturbing noises, making them harder to cope with, including the harsh sounds of grinding metal and blaring sirens.
Whatever the cause and what tinnitus sounds like, it may last two days or up to two weeks or more and can flare up at any time. There’s no cure for it, so if you’re seeking tinnitus treatment, you have to look at the root cause and deal with that. It could be an ear infection or a buildup of earwax that needs syringing, or it might be due to loud noises you’re frequently exposed to. So can tinnitus from loud noise go away? Let’s take a look.
What Kinds of Loud Noise Can Cause Tinnitus?
We encounter many kinds of sounds and noises during the day, and not all of them are kind to our ears and hearing. Even the apparently simple and relatively sedate act of cutting the grass with a petrol lawnmower and the loud noise it produces can be too much for the delicate hairs in the ear that are part of the hearing process.
Petrol lawnmowers, along with other common household power tools and equipment, including chainsaws, are around the 90-100 decibel (dB) level, meaning you can only use them for around 15 minutes before damage to your hearing starts to occur unless you use some form of hearing protection. Contrast this with the dB of an ordinary conversation, which is around 60, or a whisper, measured at just 15 dB.
And then compare that to the noise of an aeroplane on takeoff, which ranges from 120 to 140 dB and is more or less the same as you’d experience at a rock concert or if you were attending a football match and listening to the literally deafening roar of the crowd. So it’s not hard to see the noise dangers that we’re exposed to almost daily, and that can cause tinnitus and disrupt our lives.
So Can Tinnitus from Loud Noise Go Away or Not?
As with all kinds of hearing loss, the extent of the damage will determine if it’s short-lived or something more permanent. If, for instance, the hair cells in the ear are flattened by too much loud noise or sound energy, you may hear muffled sounds and some level of tinnitus for a few days. They may then straighten back up and work properly again in helping to transfer soundwaves to the inner ear.
But if the sound is too harsh and continues for extended and repeated periods, these tiny hair cells might die, and once they do, they don’t grow back. This can mean a degree of permanent hearing loss that may be accompanied by tinnitus that just will not go away and plays havoc with your concentration at work and elsewhere.
There is some good news for tinnitus sufferers amid all this thundering noise, however. For instance, here at Regain Hearing, we’ve developed pioneering tinnitus treatment that we’ve been working on for years and can reduce the sounds of tinnitus or get rid of them altogether. So you don’t have to “learn to live with tinnitus”, as doctors can often say to patients, as one of our patients who we successfully treated for the condition says:
If you’re struggling with tinnitus and don’t know where to turn to get relief, you can book a tinnitus treatment consultation with the experts at Regain Hearing today and soon the problem could be gone for good.