By Amy Linden
At first I didn’t pay much attention to the slight buzzing in my ears. Like pretty much everything else that seemed to be going awry with my health; needing glasses, aches, skin stuff, I attributed the ringing to having the audacity to get older. But I soon began to realize that slight tinny sensations in both ears were maybe more than just some (almost) senior moment and so I decided to get my hearing checked, something I probably had not done since mandatory hearing exams in elementary school.
Back in my 20s my gauge for a satisfying night out was if the bass levels were so intense that my stomach hurt, not the healthiest of benchmarks.
Along with the ringing I had the sense that I wasn’t hearing everything quite clearly; friends and my son noted that I had the volume up on the TV and when I went to see music I found that after a while my ears hurt and sticking wadded up tissues didn’t do much other than make me look silly and cut out the dynamics. My first exam was about a dozen years ago at which I was informed that I had a minute issue with my left ear. I took it in stride and didn’t return to an audiologist until maybe 2017.
In hindsight that I would have tinnitus or even a hearing loss wasn’t that surprising. I’d spent the better part of my adult life listening to loud music, either via headphones or at clubs and concerts. Back in my 20s my gauge for a satisfying night out was if the bass levels were so intense that my stomach hurt, not the healthiest of benchmarks.
I was someone who constantly cranked up the bass and felt that volume (not ear splitting but certainly loud) was the optimum way to enjoy music. Add to the mix living in New York City, which is a whole other category of noisy. I never covered my ears to block out the screech of incoming trains, the wail of fire engines didn’t bother me, I just took it all in and shrugged it off to the city life. But, by my 40s all of the exposure was clearly taking a toll.
The audiologist told me that I had a very slight hearing loss in one ear. That diagnosis has pretty much stayed the same for 20 years, although I have found myself having to lean in when people are talking; I switched careers from music journalist to teacher. But I often chalked up my struggle to make out what the kids were saying to their failure to speak up or enunciate.
TV also got more difficult to make out, although in my defense there’s definitely a trend toward actors talking under their breath. But, the tinnitus got worse especially when I was alone and without ambient or distracting noise, such as during the early weeks of the lockdown. There were times when it was so quiet that all I could hear were the sound of my poor ears trying to work.
My sister began wearing hearing aids when she was 40 and so I knew there was a chance that whatever was going on might be congenital, except that my sister never fell asleep with her head in an amp or made sure her headphones had a turbo bass feature.
Finally, after a few hearing checks about five or so years apart, I decided to get fitted for hearing aids in the hopes it would help the tinnitus; I no longer cared that much about the slight loss of hearing because I’d learned how to compensate. Part of the reason it took so long to make the jump to hearing aids was financial but thanks to expanded eligibility for Medicare I qualified for free devices. The other reason was vanity; it was bad enough that I had to wear glasses—did I need to advertise yet another thing that signaled that I was getting old?
Another reason that I decided to do something constructive about my tinnitus and hearing problems stemmed from watching the film “The Sound of Metal,” which tells the story of a drummer who goes deaf. It’s a pretty good film but the depiction of the lead character going—very quickly—from what appeared to be perfectly okay hearing to profound deafness freaked me out so badly that I had to turn the TV off . That I also was watching a film about going deaf with the volume up was an irony I could have done without.
I would like to say that I use my hearing aids (which are not as dorky as I feared they would be) and everything is okay. But the ear mold somewhat hurts my ear canal (I’m one of those people who can’t wear ear buds which might be a blessing in disguise), and when I have tried to use the hearing aids they don’t seem to work. Or more likely I’m not turning them on correctly. So, I am going to make an appointment for a follow-up adjustment.
It is somewhat scary to realize that this tinnitus will probably never go away. I’ve had medical issues in the past and most of them were resolved because I changed my habits or took medication or simply grew out of the condition. But this nonstop tinny irritant shows no sign of leaving and that’s a bit daunting. Will it get worse? I’ve gotten used to it but then again you never really get used to it because it’s just not normal and it is distracting and at times depressing.
Meditation helps but then again it doesn’t—because as soon as I open my eyes I’m right back in my thoughts and the ringing picks up. Thankfully the tinnitus has never prevented me from sleeping but it’s like having this annoying friend who won’t leave, and knowing that there’s pretty much nothing I can do about it often makes me depressed.
Should I have known better than not expose myself to loud music? Yeah, sure, but it wasn’t on my mind that anything would happen. But it has and the tinnitus is just a part of my life that I can either obsess over or try my best to treat and live with. I’m opting for the latter two options.
Amy Linden is a veteran music critic/journalist whose work has appeared in numerous outlets including The New York Times, The Source, Vibe, XXL, Spin, People, and the anthologies “Rock She Wrote” and “Trouble Girls: Rolling Stone’s Book of Women in Rock.” She cohosts the podcast “ImmaLetYouFinish” and serves on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominating Committee.
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