A WARNING TO ALL GUITAR PLAYERS !!!

I have been playing guitar since I was in highschool. I'm going to be 31 in a couple of weeks. Recently I went to the doctors because I have noticed that I experience what I can only describe as "constant distortion sensation" in my ears which appears when I get around noisy situations, such as going to clubs or being around a noisy crowd of people. I have also experienced an intermittent high pitched squeal in my ears from time to time as well, which also seems to happen more frequently after being exposed to a large noisy situation. To make a long story short, I was recently diagnosed with beginning stages of tinitis. I can only imagine that this problem originates back to the days when I would go to really loud concerts or clubs. The problem is one that I can control and I can prevent further damage, but nonetheless, it was pretty sobering to hear that I have damaged my hearing to a certain extent. To all of you musicians out there: Protect your hearing!!! Wear ear plugs in unreasonably noisy concert situations.

Good advice dude. I know I've had some hearing loss over the years (for a while I thought it was from my ex wife bitching at me so much! LOL). I shoot, so I'm used to wearing ear plugs, but I never think about putting them in when I play in a club or go to a concert. You can save your hearing, but you're on your own when it comes to cancer for second hand smoke! LOL (I'm a smoker..so I'm not bashing smokers).

Good advice. I have been experiencing the same things you mentioned the past year or so myself. In loud situations, the sound isn't clear, almost sounds muffled to an extent. And occasionally I will get that high-pitched sound you were talking about, sometimes for no reason at all.

I can probably attibute it to quite a few concerts and wearing headphones a LOT. Headphones are really bad for your ears as well, you don't realize how loud it really is but its pretty bad. Be careful out there.

The funny thing is that I rarely wear ear plugs when I play on stage, but I almost always wear them when I'm sitting in the audience. Ususally when I'm on stage, the sound is projecting away from me and the monitor speakers usually don't get loud enough to cause that distortion sensation. But if I'm sitting anywhere near the club's PA speakers, that sound just drives my ears crazy and I have to wear ear plugs; otherwise, I'll hear that distorted sound several days afterward. The sound is similar to the sound a speaker makes when it is overdriven. It's extremely annoying and something I wish I would have taken measures to prevent when I was young and stupid.

msula, I get that high pitched sound for no reason at all as well. It's like getting feedback in your ears. It has become more infrequent now that I take steps to protect my ears in noisy situations.

GUITARISTS:

Protect the following:

Ears
Fingers

Sometimes I get teased for taking good care of my hands...it's worth it though.

Same goes for ears.

You're only BEGINNING to get tinitus? You're ahead of the game! I've been playing for about 2-3 years and I have been diagnosed with it. Fortunately the audiologist said "take a break and it will go away", so I was scrupulous about my ears for a couple months and it cleared up... mostly. I still get ringing every now and again but I can deal with it.

I definately agree with wearing ear-plugs

I had it real bad about 10yrs ago, the sound of a cymbal crash or a high pitched trumpet would leave me in dire pain, not to mention the constant ringing in the ears at night when all is silent! Take care of it and it will eventually go away.

sometimes i get ringing in my ears, but it isnt too loud, and it doesnt last very long ( 15 seconds at the most ) but im pretty sure i dont have that, i havent gone to any concerts, and i dont listen to music that loud.

I used to spend quite a bit of my stage time crouching in front of my speaaker cabs, trying to hear what I was playing, because we didn't have monitors. Then I'd spend a half-hour or so with my foot braced against the drummer's kick-drum, to keep his kit from walking across the floor during his solo.

That was 30 years ago. I hear better than most people, but I sometimes get that sound like those bugs that make such a buzzing whine during the summer. I wonder why? :D

speaking of taking care of your fingers as well....

Working on doing some cutting of cardboard and other objects with a razor blade it was getting late and I was getting careless with what I was doing. But I was using a box-cutter while kneeling down on the floor and cutting against a metal ruler. Being stupid, I went too fast and too hard and the knife slipped off the ruler and continued right down, across, and through my thumb :eek:

At first I didn't know what happened, until I saw the blood squirting up about 3 inches from my thumb, so I ran to the bathroom to trty and stop the bleeding, and it didn't stop for close to an hour. Upon further inspection I had went all the way to the bone and it was pretty nasty. Worst part, it was on my left hand, and you know how important that hand is!

Anyway, having the cut where it was I couldn't play for weeks, the pain was too great. Then.. when it did heal I noticed I must have cut several nerves in my thumb because I have lost most of the feeling to the base of my thumb. Now, I couldn't even immagine if that was my index finger, cut bad, lost the feeling... you know how hard it would be to place your fingers on strings w/o being able to feel the string under your finger?

Anyway, I consider myself lucky it was only my thumb, and do my best to take better care of my hand.

msula.. I sympathise.. when i was a teenager i was cutting something with a razor blade and damn nearly took the top of the first finger off - it was close they saved it and eventually i got some feeling back, I also did something to the 2nd finger in which lost it's feeling at the top (can't remember was probably drunk at the time) it didn't help much learning to play the guitar. BTW I think Tony Iommi cut the tops off (the same two fingers) i don't know how he recovered.

The up side is that i recovered an amount of feeling in those fingers and i hope your thumb recovers as well as my fingers did..can take a long while,but if you get it checked from time to time maybe the doctors can help you out. Hope you recover well.