Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Hearing fading in and out?

7 replies681 viewsLast reply

Link to this topic
Reply

Occasionally and very randomly I will have high frequency sounds seem to fade out over the course of a few seconds — as though my hearing aids were slowly being turned down. For a few minutes I hear similar to how I hear without my aids, with voices muffled and consonants hard to distinguish and with no background sounds of fans, wind, birds, etc. Sometimes after just a few seconds, other times after a minute or so, they will slowly fade back in. Usually the fade in is slower than the fade out. The onset is very much like the onset of tinnitus…but instead of ringing, it’s silence. I don’t think it’s my aids, as it has happened both when wearing my old Oticons and my new Phonaks. Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

5 people in this conversation3 min readJump to latest

This can happen with hearing aids as they attempt to protect you from very loud noises, or what they think are loud noises. I have always noticed it with my Phonaks. Try this test. have some music that you know well playing in the background on speakers, something with high frequencies. If you can, try to do something like unload the dishwasher, something where you’re clanging things about. plates and cutlery I’ve found trigger this quite badly. what you might notice after making a clang noise, is that the music sound changes.

Sadly there’s not really anything you can do about this, it’s how hearing aid platforms seem to be designed. I’ve ried playing about with all sorts of settings with my audiologist to no effect.

I have experienced this all my life. More than 60 years. It does come and go like some of my tinnitus symptoms. (And some of my tinnitus symptoms will get MUCH louder for a time, and then slowly fade back to normal steady state. I don’t have an explanation except that our bodies and brains do very weird things sometimes. Stress is often a factor.

WH

In reply to @WhiteHat

I spoke with my audiologist, and she suggested that it might be temporary eustachian tube dysfunction related to my CPAP usage. She said it can result in subtle changes in conductivity that can seem to come out of nowhere. She recommended using the humidifier (I had gotten out of the habit). I’ll give it a try and see.

Edited
@The_Latinist said:

I spoke with my audiologist, and she suggested that it might be temporary eustachian tube dysfunction

speaking as someone with eustachian tube dysfunction: absolutely the case. Sorry, your hearing aid can’t help with this. And anyway, given allergies and other factors, even folks with normal eustachian tube function will experience this muffle muffle muffle of temporary issues. Lucky you!! Its a passing phenomenon.

I sometimes think folks expect magic from their hearing aids: let me hear the way I want to hear, and even better than before!! Ain’t gonna happen. I’m hugely thankful for what my provide for me. Imagine the entire history of humankind (or as ee cummings wrote, ““humanunkind”) up until the last 599

Is your experience similarly that the sound seems to just–for lack of a better description–drain away? For me it starts out of nowhere with no sensation of pressure or other symptoms.

In reply to @The_Latinist

OK, that sheds light on the issue! I was going to say it may be the Noise Management function in your aids (some are set TOO aggressively), but if you experience the same high freq fading without your aids in, it could indeed be unique to your physiology/genetics.

My hearing & tinnitus are impacted by pressure changes driven by weather! So I not only get a DULLING of my hearing when rain’s coming, but my tinnitus ramps up with some really musical tones, like BONG! BONG! BONGBONGBONGBONGBONG! for an hour or so even a day before the weather changes. Big swings from HOT to COLD do the same.

Interesting that your audi saw a connection to the CPAP usage. That’s almost like a weather-vane effect right there. She could be right on the mark! Keep us posted with your own experiments and findings.

Related discussions