I’ve had a ringing in my ears for as long as I can remember. I remember when I joined The Marines, hoping that the ringing wouldn’t keep me from joining.
Later, in The Army, I was stationed in Erlangen Germany. During one time in the field, our company was tasked with maintaining the town used for maneuvers. So we spent the week in the town. In the morning we’d unlock doors, then we’d play Spades all day until evening where we’d clean up brass and lock doors.
Among other things, there were personal and vehicle booby traps. They’d go off with a nice bang telling you that you were injured. One of the vehicle booby traps didn’t go off. The string broke about 8″ from the device. So we were trying to pull the string to make it go off. Yea, we were pretty dumb 🙂 Anyway, after he tried and kept having it slip out of his hands, I said something like “just pull it”, grabbed it and pulled it. The resulting *bang* was very very loud. Loud enough that it punctured my eardrum as I later found out.
This was in the late 70’s though.
After moving out of the house prior to the divorce, I moved in to some apartments. They were actually pretty nice. I got a bottom floor on the end and was pretty close to the pool. So I hit the pool during the summer. After a month or so, my right ear was in pain. I went to an Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat doc who said I had swimmer’s ear. He provided some anti-bacterial meds and after a bit I was good to go.
But the last actual hearing test I had was in 1974 for The Marines. I’ve been looking into getting a test for the past few years but just hadn’t made the time to do so. Rita brought an ad for a Tinnitus specialist to my attention so in addition to a test, I could get some advise on my Tinnitus.
When I arrived, I had 6 or 8 pages I needed to fill out specifically related to Tinnitus. It seems the questions were more related to folks who had Tinnitus over the past few years, not like me where I’d had it all my life. There were questions on how it made you feel, depressed or even suicidal. I answered honestly when I could, there were a few questions where I had the problem but it didn’t bother me and the answer didn’t fit the question so I had to elaborate.
We discussed it in her office for a few minutes looking for what I wanted to get from the exam, specifically I was looking for a hearing test and perhaps exposure to what new treatments if any were available for Tinnitus. She examined my ears stating that they were pretty clean. She admitted being a Q-Tip junkie 🙂 I have been in the past but I’ve tried to keep it down just a little.
Next I was put in a soundproof room with headphones. The first series of tests had me repeat words back to her. These were words that didn’t use the vocal chords. She’d lower the volume until I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Next were the tones. She started low and increased it step by step. After she was done with the right ear, she tested the left. Some of the tones were very similar to my Tinnitus. Off by enough that I could discern which was which but competing with the tones. Finally she used a different headset. This one was set on the bone behind and a little below the right ear and she did the tone tests again.
Next I was taken out and sat at her desk while we discussed her findings. Essentially my high tones were below normal but my low tones were pretty much normal. She suggested that based on my work requirements, I should get a mid-level hearing aid and she showed me a couple of really tiny ones. I asked how much they were and she said $48.95. Surprised, I said that I was interested, no problem. And I’d like a red pair 🙂
She went to get a pair of demos that I could wear while the ones I wanted were delivered. She said that they were hard to keep in the office as they were so sought after. She brought up a software program so she could set it based on my test and I tried them out. There was some tininess which she fixed with the program. She did say I would get some as my higher range wasn’t normal. She said there would be a $40 fee if I decided I didn’t need them and started filling out the loaner paperwork.
As she filled it in, I was fiddling with it there being a button on the top to change programs. At one point I saw she wrote down the cost of the hearing aids, $4,895.00. Whoops, I interrupted. There’s been a misunderstanding. I explained that when she said “4895” I thought she meant “$48.95” and that I didn’t think my current situation required such a device. She laughed and apologized for not being clear. I got a copy of the test for my files, thanked her and headed home.
All in all, it was pretty interesting though. The hearing test was a little over $200 though and none of it covered by insurance (our deductible is high enough that it wouldn’t have been covered anyway).