Worries again!

[Fulltimemuso]

Ok, so if anybody saw my last post I'm trying a new approach with my live music gig as a singer.

Most gigs are fairly quiet as they are in care homes. Sometimes just an acoustic guitar and voice (no amplification).

I was concerned that I was overprotecting my ears, with all my various sets of moulded pro-filtered earplugs, and just being super careful around anything remotely loud.

I was still getting the tinnitus spikes, so decided to ditch the earplugs for situation where sound was below 85db. I got a sound meter, and got started.

Initially I felt pretty good about it, and my ears seemed to calm down a bit - at least not get worse.

But I do believe now that over the course of a few weeks trying this, my T as started to come up again. Obviously it's hard to judge - but I'm super aware of it right now.

I'm not sure if I'm just used to worrying or if it actually HAS got worse. Would it have got worse anyway?

Why not wear earplugs more often? Occlusion! As a singer it makes my voice boom in my head, and by a significant margin. My voice feels loud. Much louder than if I took the plugs out. So as you can see I'm stuck in the middle here.

Also, this is what I do for a living - so there is that added element of unhelpful stress.

Not really sure what to try next. I expect I'll just carry on and try to find that nice balance where I do some of the gig without, and some with. Also, I'm not looking into an in-ear monitor rig rather than just passive plugs, and this might encourage me to wear them a bit more. It's a lot of faff though.

Anyway just wanted to give an update. All the best guys

[Tal-r789T]

It is interesting what seems to change things. I coach and often find after a session of raising my voice this elevates my T, but mostly temporarily.

[Fulltimemuso in reply to Tal-r789T]

Yes, agreed. And it make it really hard to judge if things are getting worse on just a short/medium/long term basis.

I feel like since trying to do more gigs without the ear plugs my general background level of tinnitus has definitely increased.

My next plan, is to really just go without plugs if I'm on acoustic guitar/acoustic voice only.

Then I'm going to try some in-ear monitoring. See how that goes.

[Tal-r789T in reply to Fulltimemuso]

I have often wondered if it's to do somehow with shouting and tension as I'm coaching - perhaps stretching the jaw and causing some tmj type issues. However I've not found a way of looking into this. I was going to find a physio too see if they could help but few and far between who knows much about tmj.

I have worked out that my T is elevated when I'm tired and stressed. I had a bad week last week with work and other things and the weekend I was very tired, but my T was really high.

[Fulltimemuso in reply to Tal-r789T]

Ok thanks, and I'd not thought of the TMJ issues. I think stress definitely impacts how much you perceive the sound. When you're stressed you just worry about life in general and maybe how the T will affect you long term etc. I get this too

[Glynis-ringingears]

Hi ,I'm not a singer as such but work in care and sing alot for the residents.

Your brain gets on overdrive from singing and your BP can increase also .

Try get into some meditation routine after a gig for total relaxation and just see if it helps bring your tinnitus down as could help your tinnitus or just a good unwinding down time for you.

Hope this helps.

Keep on singing it's great keep your mental health up from our silence been replaced with tinnitus.

Glynis

[Fulltimemuso in reply to Glynis-ringingears]

Hi Glynis, and thanks for this - I'll give it some thought.