Adult ear infections are just not fun.

Almost 8 weeks ago, I basically lost my hearing in my right ear. Attenuation was down almost 26 dB on the core frequencies between 200 Hz and 5 kHz. I could not perceive any sound above 8 kHz  or below 175 Hz. And even the sound I could perceive in the lower frequencies was significantly off pitch compared to my left ear. For the most part, I really could not perceive any external sound from the right ear and I lived in this unusual world of being physically challenged with profound hearing loss.

How would I describe the experience? In a word, terrifying. And it became very disheartening as the weeks went by and there was no real improvement in my hearing.

After church on Sunday I went out for a bike ride. A really hard ride. I was so angry and so frustrated that the infection was not clearing that I took it all out on the ride.

When I returned home, aside from completely obliterating my previous personal best time and pace, something happened.

I was carrying the bike from the road on our gravel drive when an explosive sound suddenly took place in my right ear. Sound! I could hear again. Sounds from the forest on our property. Sounds from my feet making contact with the gravel road. Sounds from my hands brushing my clothing. The infection had cleared and my hearing was finally restored.

I tested my hearing this morning and all frequencies from a low of 25 Hz to about 14 kHz were consistent in pitch and amplitude.

Very thankful that the condition has healed on its own. I had read reports that ear infections can take several months for the fluid to drain and for proper hearing to resume. I remember reading one website where someone said that you have to be patient. My wife told me that I was being taught a lesson in patience. I hope I do not have too many more lessons like this one. Stressful and exhausting.

I was able to get back to some audio work last night and early this morning. I also listened to a movie on the surround sound system. So nice to hear again.

So many things to be happy about on Tuesday.

• I had a chance to enjoy some tea with my wife downtown.
• The drummer in our band brought his kit out to my studio. This means that we can finally start some tracking. And with my current hearing issues, I won’t need to worry about how loud he plays.
• New tires for my car are in stock and ready to be installed on Thursday. Soon there will be an end to all of those Tire Pressure Monitoring System alerts. Soon there will be an end to stopping by the gas station to pump air into tires.
• I was able to re-arrange and simplify the studio. Partly to make room for the second drumkit and partly to make it a nicer space for recording. It looks great. Very minimalist and functional. Just the way I like it.
• I caught the last sprint on stage 10 of the Tour de France. Surprise, surprise. Andre Griepel beat Mark Cavendish. Griepel is nicknamed the Gorilla. He stands just a touch over 6 feet and weighs 179 pounds. He can also produce 1,800 watts of power on a sprint. Cavendish can only get about 1,300 watts. Mere mortals struggle to get 700 watts or so when sprinting. Those guys are fast. And strong.
• Spent some time with my Tom Anderson Drop Top. That guitar has been a bit neglected as I have been spending most of my time with the Collings. But I still really like the Tom Anderson. Awesome guitar.
• I’m happy that my son got me an invite on Google Plus last week. Yesterday, I decided that I quite like Google Plus. Even after the first week. My friends are not so active now but a lot of the folks I follow are giving it a good workout.

Monday proved to be an awesome day.

• My new Soundcraft mixer arrived. At 7 in the morning no less. It was hard to break away from the machine to get out to work.
• I drove in to work with my son. I really enjoy being able to spend some time with him.
• I finally hit 2.25lbs per inch of body weight. Same as the average weight of the Tour de France riders. Now if only I could get their speed.
• My personal trainer tried to break me. But he failed. I got through the workout, the toughest one this year, in one piece. At least until he left the house. Then I collapsed.
• I was able to spend some time with my lovely wife. She makes my day. Every day. Even when I forget to tell her.
• We are getting ready for our vacation in a few weeks and Lorraine and I spent some time taking about some of the shipboard activities. I am really excited about the upcoming trip and the opportunity to spend time with my wife and my youngest son.
• And I was able to test the new mixer late last night. Although I still cannot hear very well with my right ear, I was able to hear well enough on the headphones. Almost normal.

The blog went dark this week. This week was a grind.

But the viral infection in my ear has started to ease. Finally.

Slowly, very slowly, I am beginning to hear out of my right ear again. Not yet normal, that will likely take another few weeks I suspect, but at least to the point where I can appropriately discern from 300 Hz to my limit of hearing — which is approximately 14 KHz at this stage of life.

Frequencies below 300 Hz are still bent on the right side. I hear a significant variance in pitch and amplitude ear-to-ear from about 300 down to 33 Hz. I begin to stop perceiving low frequencies on my right ear just below 80 Hz. It is also touch-and-go in terms of coping with loud sound. I am playing this week-end and rehearsals are set for tomorrow morning. We’ll see how that goes.

Tinnitus did emerge through this wonderful infection. That likely contributed to the general sense of doom and gloom that carried me through the week. Things changed last night when the inflammation in my middle ear began to ease. The frightening part of losing the ability to hear is the sense that it might be permanent. The wonderful part of gaining back the ability to hear is the sense of hope that things will go back to normal and that the tinnitus will retreat into the unconscious mind.

Normal can be nice.

How bad is my hearing loss from this current struggle with an inner ear infection?

Pretty severe.

This is day five and there has not been any noticeable improvement in my hearing. The pressure in the right ear has subsided and I am no longer taking ibuprofen to relieve that pain. However, the right ear continues to be plugged.

Without a reference point, it was hard for me to know the current state and whether things were improving. I was using ToneTester to assess pitch consistency. And certainly below 200 Hz I am anywhere from a semitone to two semitones off side-to-side. But I needed a better testing platform to assess the hearing loss. And hopefully map the recovery.

I went into the studio and created a series of test tones: 200 Hz, 500 Hz, 1 KHz, 2.5 KHz and 5 KHz. All tones were created as sine waves referenced at -20dB from unity gain. I auditioned the tracks using sound isolation headphones — these headphones cut external sound by -25 dB although it was 5:30am and things were pretty quiet around the house. Headphone volume control was set at 10 percent. Why ten percent? It produced a sound level that was roughly 75 dB at 1 KHz on my right ear. A comfortable sound level.

Tones were auditioned left side then right side. I adjusted the left faders down until I arrived at a qualitative level of balance side-to-side.

With the right side faders at unity gain, here were the results:

• 200 Hz, down 18.8 dB
• 500 Hz, down 24.6 dB
• 1 KHz, down 26.0 dB
• 2.5 KHz, down 21.2 dB
• 5 KHz, down 19.8 dB

At roughly -20 dB difference in auditory perception, that amounts to .01 delta side-to-side or a factor of 100 times.

Gulp.

I can tell that surface rubbing behind the ear provides a consistent perception of sound left to right so I am hoping that it is simply a matter of time for the fluid to drain on the right side.

The past several days have been difficult and challenging. I hope that recovery comes soon. I am spending the next 12 hours or so on a tech crew for sound and multimedia. Fortunately I am not on sound for this event. But being anywhere around sound is really, really tough. More so when the ambient volume level goes up.

In the early part of May I came down with a pretty severe flu and it led to an ear infection. About three weeks ago, I basically lost my hearing in my right ear for several days. It had cleared up, or so I thought, until yesterday. At around noon. Pressure on the inner ear and then a general decline in auditory performance leading to complete hearing loss during the night.

I woke at about 1am. I reached a conclusion fairly quickly: hearing loss terrifies me.

I use software that Daniel Griscom created a number of years back called ToneTester. A series of tones are issued left and right with sliders that can determine relative sensitivity and inter-aural pitch difference.

At around 2am, I decided to test my hearing. I could perceive little in the way of pitch below roughly 3 KHz. Nothing in the low end below 500 Hz.

I woke up around 5:30am and the hearing had improved a little. There is still a strong feeling of the ear being plugged but I had fairly good response on my right ear with consistent pitch perception down to 220 Hz. At 220 Hz and below, my right ear is now a full semitone off pitch. Although I do not have precision on overall response ear-to-ear, I think I am about 3 dB or so off on the right — basically the sound in my left ear is perceived as quite a bit louder than the sound in my right ear.

This will begin to improve as the ear infection takes its course. Unfortunately it can take weeks, even months, for a viral ear infection to resolve.

ToneTester runs on a Mac and requires Rosetta. Daniel, you wrote a terrific utility and it has helped me out several times over the years as I battled with tinnitus and then with ear infections.

As someone who suffers with tinnitus, I have learned how to retrain myself to ignore the ringing sound in my head. When tinnitus first emerged several years ago, I initially lost hope. Passionate about music and sound, the emergence of tinnitus overwhelmed my critical listening skills and plunged me into a very dark place.

I recovered from that initial event although it took several months to adapt to this new reality. Now, for most of the time, I am not aware of the tinnitus.

It did emerge again with a vengeance about two years ago. Not sure why. It proved to be almost as discouraging as the first time it emerged. Fortunately, I quickly adapted after only a week or so.

I came down with a bad virus over the Easter week-end. The virus left me with a little gift: an ear infection. This past Sunday I was very uncomfortable. Feverish and discomfort in my right ear. That discomfort resulted in a complete hearing loss on the right side. Typical of an ear infection, the right side would plug up at night and then would clear sometime during the day.

Unfortunately it brings along with it the dreaded T-monster. The cursed ringing sound. When the ear plugs, there is no externally perceived auditory stimulation. The ringing sound dramatically increases. I’ve not been able to sleep well and I have been dragging myself through the day-to-day activities of life.

The infection is slowly clearing up. The ear stayed open until about 3am today so I was able to get about 4 hours of sleep. I have been up since then. The ear cleared around 5:30am. The tinnitus though is proving to be a bit more resilient.

Incredibly drained and exhausted. I hate tinnitus.

Personal Trainer: “I have something new for you to try out tonight!”

Me: “Will it hurt?”

Personal Trainer: “You might not be too happy with me tomorrow.”

We did push-ups. Squats. Side planks. And many other exercises with this TRX Suspension System. As I write this post, I am no longer able to use any muscle in my body. Which my personal trainer tells me is a good thing — even if I am not too happy with him right now.

You can learn more about this system here.