Distorted Hearing in One Ear

Hearing Loss
1

Hi all,

Just wondering if any of you have had distorted hearing on one side - sometimes, I can feel a pulsing feeling in my right, worse ear if Im in the presence of loudish music.

Also, if in a noisy environment, and someone was speaking or shouting loudly in my right ear, it would sound like a blown speaker or an old time badly tuned in radio station.

I’m hoping this isn’t because this ear is past aiding, or that my brain doesn’t recognise certain frequencies on that side anymore.

Question i have is, is this fixable by a hearing aid, and does my brain have the ability to relearn the sounds it may have forgotten over the past few years?

2

My advice is stay away from loud music and aholes who shout in your ear.

3

Well, I have a similar situation with some distortion from certain speaking voices. It seems to be part of one’s particular failure with the appropriate sound/level being distorted by what is left of the hearing. I also have poor word recognition in that ear.

It helps to have an app that allows lowering volume temporarily in such situation. It seems the best the fitter can come up with is to reduce the amplification in the target area described. I prefer to do it with an app in the instances it is causing the problem on a repeating basis and living with the occasional times.

The alternative would be to set a second program with the audi that reduces the range that is distorting. You could then switch to that program when thing get rough.

This really isn’t a great answer but it is what I’ve come up with.

4

Aiden,

Last summer, before I had any hearing aids, I experienced the same distorted, rattling sounds that you describe. The effect did not go away, so I went to an ENT. He said there was nothing seriously wrong, but there was a small amount of impacted wax, and perhaps some sign of an infection. He performed a roto-rooter job and prescribed some antibiotic drops. Within a few days the distortion was completely gone and has not returned.

I have since bought hearing aids, but in my case the distortion appeared to be unrelated to the aids.

6

Thanks all.

It seems that the distortion won’t be fixable then, thats what I was worrying about. I’ll see what the audi can cook up on the aid when I visit on Friday.

I don’t think I have any wax though, they have taken a good look in there on more than one occasion.

— Updated —

Thanks all.

It seems that the distortion won’t be fixable then, thats what I was worrying about. I’ll see what the audi can cook up on the aid when I visit on Friday.

I don’t think I have any wax though, they have taken a good look in there on more than one occasion.

7

I had something similar when I was in my teens. As far as I know, my hearing was normal then. When I heard pots and pans rattling, it set off a cacophony in my ear. Like you, I compared it to a bad stereo speaker (only then, most speakers were hi-fi). When I whistled, something inside my ear vibrated in an interval of a perfect third. I had been swimming and diving for endless hours daily for months before it started, and my theory was that I’d forced some water or junk into the middle ear through the eustacian tube. Is that possible/likely? I’ve never come up with a better theory. It went away after several months.

Now I have some distortion in my left ear if I’m listening to music through ear buds (without my hearing aids). But this distortion is just a muffling or slight garbling of the sounds – not like a bad stereo speaker, and not disturbing.

8

It goes along with the hearing loss. If I am in a very loud environment, like a stadium, and the crowd gets whipped up, it can sound distorted to me, like a blown speaker, and even makes me dizzy.

A good hearing aid fitting can get your hearing boosted without too much distortion, for 90% of situations (which is much better than nothing).

9

fluid trapped behind your ear drum will often cause this kind of distortion. In the spring, if you have allergies, it can happen that your esutachian tubes will become blocked and result in fluid build up. It doesn’t require an infection to happen. don’t lose all hope just yet! Try unblocking your eustachian tubes with antihistimines. this could take a good long while however–a surprisingly long time. Google this.

10

Just resurrecting my own old thread.

Anyone else have distortion in one ear, and been able to correct it with a hearing aid?

I feel my hearing in that ear has gotten a little worse, I haven’t tried hearing aids since I last posted.

11

I just started wearing HA for mild hearing loss, but the amplification causes my ears to close up, and sounds become muffled and distorted. After a few hours I feel dizzy and nauseous. I became sound sensitive when I had sudden hearing loss 3 years ago (I recovered that lost hearing). I go back to the aud Tuesday, but am discouraged about being able to wear the HA.

12

I have distorted sounds, especially noticeable when I stream anything since it is louder I guess. But also, with headphones it’s there and for tests I hear only vibration in lowest three frequencies, pure tone starts at 1000hz only.

My guess is damaged hearing nerve.
Couldn’t confirm or deny it bc I still can’t get proper tests done on me.

Yes, my wrs isn’t shit but it isn’t great either, and just because I can decipher what’s being said it does not mean I like how it sounds.
I noticed that despite being astonished how much I can hear when streaming and how easier I comprehend with streaming as compared to HA only (withour HAs on that ear I’m useless), I still get tired of all that noise and I prefer to pull out aids completely and enjoy one sided silence.
I think I’d do that even if both my ears were bad in the same way.
Distortion is really intensive noise all the time where aids cannot help it.

If I figure out something, I’ll share.

One thing maybe worth mentioning, few heara ago I’d be on the verge of panic attacks or total irritation if I left my windows open more than just a few minutes. I live by fast busy road (think highway).

Due to other life stuff I started with antidepressants, sertraline (think that’s under name zoloft in usa), and automagically, my tension about loud noise went away.
It still makes me tired but at least I’m not becoming angry badger or starting shaking in despair.

I guess I’m more tolerable to this distortion as well, since now I’m wearing aids 4-8h a day, whereas previously I wouldn’t put them in my ear for days.
But I still prefer silence the most. And I’m not even 40 yet :joy:

13

For about 15 years I had sensory neural mild to moderate hearing loss that was well treated with hearing aids. Three years ago a curtain airbag exploded into my left ear. (I wasn’t even in an accident). The first ENT I went to after 5 days for my diminished hearing mentioned steroid treatment but felt it would not be necessary and everything would gradually get better. I will forever hate him. The second ENT, a month later said it was too late for steroids and thought there may be a problem on the round window and he did surgery which was of no use. I tried many brands and types of hearing aids including bicros. My audiograms did not create an accurate picture of how distortion in one ear impaired the other. Trying to aid the left ear made overall speech recognition in noise worse. Almost any of the aids in my right ear are helpful if I am in a quiet room talking with only one person. I noticed that it was best if I turned my left aided ear away from the speaker. As soon as there is any background noise or more than one conversation going on in my environment my word recognition drops severely. On the left side I cannot understand a person speaking. On the right I can get by OK if a person was speaking towards my right ear. It gradually became clear to me that the distorted sound in my left ear was interfering with the ability of my right ear to maintain good recognition with a hearing aid. Putting a hearing aid into the left ear would increase the loudness of sound coming in but now it was distortion at a higher intensity of volume interfering more significantly with my brains ability to make use of the good sound in the right aided ear.I hear best when the left canal is plugged up as tightly as possible with silicone or a mold that my Audi made. Unfortunately I have learned that no matter how tightly I try to plug it a small amount of sound either gets through the plug or through the bones into my shattered cochlea bringing on a low level of that distortion. At present I am trying again a
bi-cros . However, given what I have learned the past two years I asked my audiologist to put the cross transmitter cable into the ear mold to try to keep sound from getting in. This is much better than the first time I tried the bicros and found it to be a disaster.
Several questions emerge from my situation. none of the 5 audiologists I have seen understood my problem. I felt that the first 4 did not believe me (one refused to work with me) The 5th, a wonderful and caring audiologist has been willing to hang in there and work towards finding the best possible solution. Before the bicros+left ear plug the roger pens were somewhat helpful. He is learning with me and tells me he never saw this condition before. Does it have a name ?

The hardest question to ask ( it would seem crazy to many) is if I would be better off to completely cut or paralyze the left acustic nerve?? Being 75 years old it is not likely that there will be a medical treatment to fix a damaged cochlear in my lifetime. Anyone ever know of that being done for severe distortion.?

Would appreciate hearing of any similar cases and what the outcome was.

Thanks
Jon

14

If your distortion is only from dead regions in cochlea - cochlear implants could solve that easily. However, you usually aren’t eliglbe for them unless your WRS is poor (40 or below).

If your distortion is from damaged nerve, there are brain stem implants, but from what I’ve gathered, they provide sounds but not comprehension like HA or CI do.

I started with wearing open dome for my bad ear which was hearing a ton of distortion especially when I increase volume. And I started wearing aid on my normal hearing ear to have symmetry (especially for streaming). I can’t recall the exact dates when I started with two aids, 9 months ago or so? Anyhow, my brain adapted, and recently I went to molds with smallest vent for both ears and my brain is doing much better with such setup. But when I tried acrylic mold at the beginning, it was a total disaster, I’ve heard better if I plugged my bad ear completely.

So my point - give yourself time, train your brain with podcasts and audiobooks and such - with intentional listening, you can even repeat what you’ve heard or ideally - read and repeat (so use regular book + audiobook at the same time).

Maybe your brain can work out with it.

Also, I use roger mics to stream sound from people around the table directly to both ears. Yes my good ear is primary for listening, however, I’ve noticed that I hear/comprehend better now when I use 1.5 ears than if I’d plug my bad ear in the same situation.

If you haven’t do that already, I strongly encourage doing CI evaluation - mainly because their tests are extensive and you’ll have facts how bad your hearing is, which part is wrong, are you a candidate and so on.

15

Does a Cl really provide comprehension of spoken language? I had often been told that it will help with the localization of where sound is coming from but not much with the comprehension. I’d appreciate clarity on that question and if it is correct, is there a type or brand of Cl that is most effective for good word discrimination?l

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16

This terminology is not the way we describe hearing loss. We would say word or sentence understanding. But I believe you are asking if CI helps people understand words better. The answer is yes, CI helps a great deal for most people.
My word understanding was 4% and 8% before implants. It is in the 90% range now.

Sharing your audiogram would help us help you.
You will notice most of us have the little hearing aid dome on our avatar. That means our audiogram is available to look at.

1 Like
17

yes, it’s called ‘your brain which you trained A LOT’

To add on Raudrive’s explanation:

Some folks can train their brain with hearing aids, however, that works only if your cochlea is alive and kicking without dead regions (or better said - if amplification of sound works).

For those who have dead regions (I suspect that for myself, but couldn’t get test to confirm it, not available wherever I asked for it), no amount of amplification can give us sounds we litteraly don’t hear anymore.
That’s where CI implant steps in - it effectively skips the original hair cells and stimulates the nerve.

Depending on how long ago was the last time that your nerve actually received some comphrensible information, your CI implant success will be greater (ideally you didn’t wait with CI implants for decades and left nerve unused).

That being said, what everyone with difficult hearing losses struggle is comprehension in noise. That again can be helped by training, however, additional help is godsend (like tech gadgets that have better noise suppresion). But those current gadgets might not be good enough for what your brain needs.

Not all brains are made equal, some people have better filtering capabilites than others, so even same hearing aid on same audiogram and same setup might end with one people doing just fine and another struggling a lot.

But rehabilitation for both aids, HA and CI is really really important, and often people aren’t aware of how useful it is.
Granted, for many cases rehab with HAs happens naturally - you start listening and that’s enough on its own.
However, if you have more tricky situation, then you really need to intentionally train. Train isn’t complicated - it’s about intentionally listening, focusing, even repeating out loud, then varying degrees of difficulties (like adding noise, lowering volume etc).
Same with CI, except it might start even further back, when you need some time for brain to redjust for recognising some noises since it didn’t hear it for so long.

Also, about sound awareness only that helps with orientation and lip reading, that’s brain stem implant - for those whose auditory nerve isn’t working at all.
CI implant definitely enables speech comprehension :slight_smile: In quiet.
In noise, current tech still struggles.
Same with brain stem - it’s status of current tech, maybe in a decade it’ll give also speech comprehension.