I honestly have no idea who this guy is

Those of you who follow my inane ramblings on Twitter and/or Facebook probably know by now that lately I’ve been concerned that I’ve permanently damaged my hearing since I’ve recently developed a persistent ringing in the ears (a medical condition called tinnitus).

I totally blame myself for this. Years of mixing using strictly headphones has taken its toll on me. Three solid nights of live music last week (Michael Franti & Spearhead in Rochester followed by a weekend at the Grassroots festival in Trumansburg, NY) probably didn’t help matters much either.

So after I became aware that the ringing wasn’t going away and I obsessed about it for a couple of weeks, I finally made an appointment with an audiologist and had my hearing tested to find out if I’d done any permanent damage to my hearing.

After having to wait a few weeks, I finally got in to see someone this week, and after a few minutes of clicking a button in response to tones it was determined that I actually have exceptional hearing for a man my age (42), or any age for that matter.

So that’s it, I guess. My ears ring. There’s no known cure, but it hasn’t limited my hearing in any way, so I guess I just have to learn to deal with it.

In the meantime, I’m noodling with alternative medicines (ginkgo & zinc), considering a hypnotherapy tape and just trying to think about it less. There are some theories suggesting that the ringing gets louder the more you focus on it. I know it totally seemed worse to me in the beginning when I was really freaking out about it, so I’m wondering if maybe Beethoven could have prevented himself from going deaf if he’d just stopped obsessing about it. Who knows?

I’m also redesigning my studio so I can minimize my time using headphones & spend as much time as I can actually mixing with speakers. It’s said to lead to better mixes that way anyway, so I’ll be reducing my noise exposure & creating better sounding music all at the same time.

If anything changes, I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, if you have any stories or advice you’d like to share, feel free to leave a comment below. Thanks.