Is there an audiologist in the house? Earbuds and headphones problems

August 8, 2020 9:35 AM

I work in an office and like to listen to podcasts and occasionally music and both earbuds and headphones hurt my ears over time. Not sure what to do.

I like to listen to mostly podcasts and occasionally music at work about half the time on & off usually at the lowest volume. I noticed the earbuds that came with my old iphone bothered my ears so got some bose wired earbuds but still had problems. Got some apple airbuds, same problem. It feels like theres pressure in my ear canal and after an hour or so the inside of my ears hurt. I became concerned about hearing damage-even if its the lowest volume, if my ear canal is sore that worries me. So I got headphones, small ones that are little discs that don’t sit inside the ear. I’m the receptionist so I can’t wear big bulky over the head style headphones. Earbuds and small disc headphones are unobtrusive under my longish hair. I wish the airpods didn’t bother me because they have such nice user friendly features like tap on and off etc.

I really liked the headphones at first. There was a massive reduction in the feeling of pressure and I thought okay great, problem solved. Then covid hit and I was sent home for the summer and didn’t use them at all. Am back in the office this week and loaded some podcasts and went to work while enjoying my podcasts. By Friday my ears were getting sore again. I’m not feeling the pressure sensation but my ears definitely hurt. I don’t want to hurt my hearing! I wear foam earplugs at concerts or sporting events, in fact I always carry them and use them if am in a loud place. I worked in a factory in my 20’s (am 53 now) and I was careful even then to use hearing protection. In my teens I was dumb and would have ringing ears the day after concerts but not too often. I wised up hopefully in time to prevent serious damage. I don’t have problems hearing speech or in everyday life.

So now I’m back trolling the web for a solution and am eyeing jawbone headphones but am leery. I’ve had problems with both cheap and spendy listening tools and and am several hundred dollars deep and ready to buy more damn headphones but worried they’ll sit in a drawer with the others.

Okay enough of my headphone saga and on to my questions.

Do some people just have sensitive hearing? I’m really not bothered by most sound in life except earbuds/headphones.

Is it possible its just the pressure bothering me or am I damaging my hearing? I’m not noticing ill effects after use like I’ve been to a concert or similar w/o protection. Soon after removing them I’m fine.

Can others hear the bone style headphones? My boss is approx 20 ft away and its a pretty quiet office, nobody listens to music or talk radio w/o earbuds plus I like political podcasts and we’re a divided office in that respect, I don’t want to add fuel to that particular fire.

Should I just give up on listening at work and load ocean sounds or some unobtrusive stuff so I have some sounds to enjoy for part of the day? I think I could play that on the phone over air for part of the day w/o bothering others, volume can be low but I don’t have to strain to hear words so its fine if its quiet. Lastly I really want something wireless, the disc headphones I have are wired and I’m a tangled mess with my mask ear elastic. They were a cheap pair-maybe quality is low and a better pair wouldn’t have the same result?

posted by RichardHenryYarbo to Health & Fitness (10 answers total)

I think it should be free or cheap to get a hearing test from an audiologist, maybe that would help reassure you? You could ask for advice while you're there. (I get the impression audiologists make most of their money from hearing aids, and treat hearing exams as loss leaders.)

I'm no expert, but I doubt that soreness has anything to do with hearing damage. The parts damaged by loud noises are in your inner ear, which even the pokiest earbuds aren't going to go anywhere near. I think it's more important to keep the volume no higher than necessary.

But, again, if you're worried, definitely talk to an expert.
posted by floppyroofing at 10:29 AM on August 8, 2020

I'm not totally clear on the things you've tried, but I find the earbuds that are discs that sit in the outer pocket of the ear incredibly annoying. The kind that look like earplugs and actually go into the outer part of the ear canal I can wear for tens of hours. Many also block out external sounds, which makes listening at low volume more satisfying, if that's appropriate in your office. (I'm a fan of the Etymotic brand, which makes ~$100 ones with a very wide range of plastic and foam inserts for different sized ears.)

I'm skeptical that what you're experiencing is due to sound levels. But, I'm absolutely not an audiologist. Doing an A/B test where you play a sound through the headphone and then listen to the same sound at the same volume might be useful. Generating a calibrated sound is hard. But, using a cell phone app next to your ear in front of a stereo speaker and then switching to headphones would distinguish between probably safe (less than 60 dB) and probably dangerous (more than 80 dB).
posted by eotvos at 10:34 AM on August 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Hi not trying to threadsit but I see I was unclear in my Ask. I don’t think the volume is the problem at all, just wanted to note that my ears hurt even on the lowest volume. For sure its worse if I go louder so I play at the level where if I try to decrease any more it goes to mute. I don’t think I’ve tried any that are noise cancelling, my complaints are unrelated to outside sound. The soreness is not a physical pain, its more that my hearing feels sensitive or -I don’t know how to describe it except to say my hearing hurts and it feels like theres a pressure too which is uncomfortable.

I will consider making an appt at my local costco that has a hearing center though I don’t think I need any hearing aids I tend to trust they won’t try to scare me into buying hearing aids when I probably need some advice to avoid them in the future. Sorry if I was unclear.
posted by RichardHenryYarbo at 10:43 AM on August 8, 2020

This sounds tremendously like the problem I was having with Zoom calls at the start of All This. Turns out I had some fairly impacted earwax. Some softening techniques (for me, almond oil followed a few days later by peroxide) have alleviated the situation, but it's something I have to monitor more than I used to.
posted by scruss at 11:30 AM on August 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

My outer is ears are sensitive to any kind of pressure. I don't know if it has anything to do with it but I have really hard cartilage and neither my ears nor my nose can absorb any impact force whatsoever, no matter how light.

I wear completely over the ear can style headphones now where no part of the headphone touches any part of my ear tissue and have no more problems.

YMMV of course but I worked reception for years and got real used to doing the cringey DJ only one ear is covered thing when people were around. No one cared.
posted by phunniemee at 11:56 AM on August 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

I have abnormally small ear canals and a lot of scar tissue from repeated childhood infections. Earbuds and earplugs have always been painful; doctors say there’s no help for it. When I need earphones I use the big over-the-ear style.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:08 PM on August 8, 2020

Best answer: After a few hrs of constantly listening to things using headphones or earbuds my ears hurt. At work there are normally reasons to take them off every so often so this is less likely to happen. But on a long-haul flight for example I always notice it after a few hrs and have to stop listening for a while and just enjoy the noise cancellation. I have tiny ear canals and a wide head and it took a while to figure out what works for me In terms of fit and my setup fits well and is extremely comfortable so it has nothing to do with pressure points. Also seems to be unrelated to volume, especially once I embraced noice cancelling headphones and stopped trying to drown plane noise. There is just something about listening to things like that, that seems to put greater strain on my ears.
posted by koahiatamadl at 3:13 PM on August 8, 2020

Best answer: My husband has these bone conduction headphones and you can't hear what he's listening to. I've tried them on as well and they're super comfy. They're small but not invisible with long hair like airpods and the like.
posted by klugarsh at 7:22 PM on August 8, 2020

Any kind of silicone or foam buds bother me after 30 minutes regardless of the tips, though in my case I find I can actually tolerate Apple's plastic ones a lot better, because apparently they happen to fit my ear reasonably well. But I listen to hours and hours of podcasts and audiobooks, so even those can become irritating after a while.

Most on ear and over the ear headphones also squeeze painfully after too long, but I've found these dirt cheap JLAB retro wireless headphones are lightweight and I can wear them till the battery dies. They don't work well for calls, and aren't an audiophile's dream for music quality, but they're not bad and are more than fine for podcasts. (Also, at high volumes they could leak sound in a very quiet environment.)
posted by Pryde at 10:25 AM on August 9, 2020

Response by poster: Thanks for the helpful replies. I will limit my use of earbuds to one hour in the morning and one in the afternoon. I ordered a set of jawbone headphones but am doubtful they will cure this problem-pretty sure its just too much usage for me.
posted by RichardHenryYarbo at 7:20 AM on August 14, 2020