Right ear mild SNHL at 4KHZ - Help !

[Hany Hayek]

This is Mandolin related
I did not want to post this till I knew what I was suffering of.
Last Wednesday I suffered (a text book case) of sudden sensorineural hearing loss in my right ear. I was hearing the voices on the phone different from my left ear, like far or not clear. Visited the otorhinolaryngo who described sound and ear pressure test, done today. And the test came with subject Right ear mild SNHL at 4KHZ.
Now before I visit the doc again I wanted to know whether this can be related to the instrument in any way. Has anyone here suffered of something like it before.
Any suggestions, help would be appreciated.

[Blombie]

Hi
this past winter i suffered sudden onset hearing loss in my right ear. everything looked fine it was in my inner ear.
my hearing loss was much greater than 4 kHz. i have regained some hearing from steroid injections in the ear directly.
two possible causes were a sodium imbalance, too much salt in the diet and neck tension pushing on a nerve. they are really not sure. do you have tinnitus ( ringing or noise) I don't think a mandolin is loud enough to effect hearing but i'm no doctor. find the best ENT doctor you can find. also sometimes these things just go away on there own. good Luck.

[Hany Hayek]

Thanks. I don't have tinnitus. I do feel that I recovered some of the hearing since last Wednesday, but I am still not comfortable.
The reason I was asking whether it is mandolin related is that the doctors are asking if the instrument is loud. I know it's not loud. I can't do without it :(

[mmcraig]

Do you play in a band? If you do, are you stage left, so everyone else is to your right? A lot of musicians get SNHL in one ear if they are far stage left(right ear) & far stage right(left ear). Drummers get it in both. Violinists get in in their left ear. A good pair of molded IEMs helps prevent this. This is mostly with amplified music.

Also, what is your volume on your cellphone? Not the ringer, but when you are talking. I keep mine at about 35%

[Hany Hayek]

I don't play in a band. I'll check the cellphone volume. I keep it high.

[Bertram Henze]

4 kHz is a special frequency for physiological reasons - it corresponds to a position in the inner ear (cochlea) where a blood vessel runs past (so I was told in acoustics seminar during my physics studies). As hearing loss comes with age, the frequency range around 4 kHz is the first to go.

Your mandolin can't do this, unless it's connected to a Marshall stack.

Typical victims of hearing loss are rock musicians and workers in loud industrial environments. But hearing loss can also result from nervous overload (aka Stress).

[High Lonesome Valley]

If you studio mix, you'll have to start using headphones, switching ears frequently. Also, you'll have to switch from stereo to mono on entire mix to make sure that, for example, the guitar volume in the left speaker matches the mandolin volume in the right.

I have moderate hearing loss in left ear and appreciable in the right, the left due to my brother blowing a firecracker up in a can and holding it to my ear when we were kids. The right, which used to be my good ear, went south after a bout with Lyme disease.

The positive thing about hearing loss and being a musician, both live and recording, is that I've been required to simplify my approach and almost lampoon the simplicity and style of both my singing and playing, which has resulted in a much more basic stage and studio production approach than I used to have. I think that most of the listening audience are not musicians and appreciate a more simple, rather than a technical, approach.

[GDAE]

I lost 40-50 dB in my right ear 8 years ago. In the last 2 weeks I'm very muffled in my left. I hadn't started playing mandolin until after the first ear went. Believe me, I understand how terrifying this is, I'm pretty freaked out right now...but you will get through it, and you must keep that in mind.