71 - Nic Wray on Tinnitus - what is it, and what can I do?

Episode 71 of the Long Covid Podcast is a chat with Nic Wray from Tinnitus UK (formerly the British Tinnitus Association) about all things Tinnitus. We chat about possible triggers, the ups and downs, what can be done about it and research that is ongoing into the condition.


This episode ties in with Tinnitus Week which is this week - February 6-10 2023. More information in the episode, or the links below.

Tinnitus UK

Your Covid Recovery tinnitus information

For more information about Long Covid Breathing courses & workshops, please check out LongCovidBreathing.com

(music credit - Brock Hewitt, Rule of Life)

Transcript

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Jackie Baxter  0:00  
Welcome to the long COVID podcast with me, Jackie Baxter. I'm really excited to bring you today's episode. Please check out the podcast website, longCOVIDpodcast.com, where there's a collection of resources, as well as a link to the Facebook support group. If you're able to please consider supporting the show using the link in the show notes. If social media is your thing, you can follow me on Facebook @longCOVIDpodcast or on Twitter and Instagram, both @longCOVIDpod. I'm really keen to hear from you. If there's anyone you'd like to hear on the podcast, or if you've got any other feedback, please do get in touch through any of the social media channels or email longCOVIDpodcast@gmail.com I really hope you enjoyed this episode. So here we go

Hello, and welcome to this episode of the long COVID Podcast. I am absolutely delighted to be joined today by Nic from Tinnitus UK. So obviously we're going to be chatting a load about Tinnitus today. So welcome to the podcast.

Nic Wray  1:25  
Hi Jackie, thanks for inviting us on to talk about tinnitus.

Jackie Baxter  1:29  
So I'm really excited about diving into this topic. To start with, would you mind just introducing yourself a little and I guess what it is that you do? 

Nic Wray  1:39  
Well, my name is Nic Wray. And I work for Tinnitus UK, which was formerly the British Tinnitus Association. And I've worked there for 12 years as the communications manager. And a big part of my role is producing information, which will help support people with tinnitus, their carers and their families. And obviously, at the start of the pandemic, I did a lot of work very quickly, learnt a lot about this condition and have done going forward, including sorts of vaccines and now long COVID. You know, I'm delighted to be able to sort of share that information on a wider basis with people.

Jackie Baxter  2:26  
Amazing. Now, would you mind just explaining a little bit about what tinnitus is, I think a lot of people will probably know,

Nic Wray  2:34  
 I think a lot of people will know, because a lot of people experience it - about one in three people will have experienced tinnitus at some point in their lives, but they might not know what it actually is and a definition. So tinnitus is when you experience a noise in one or both of your ears or your head, that isn't from an external source, such as the radio, traffic, you know, your washing machine. And these sounds can be what is often called ringing in the ears. But it's not necessarily just a ringing sound. You can have buzzing, you can have whining, you can have music, you can have a mixture of sounds. 

And these sounds are actually generated by the auditory system in the brain, and not the ears. Now everybody's experience of tinnitus is different. Some people hardly notice the sound. And for others, it can be very distressing and have a big impact on the quality of life that they have. And it can affect mood, it can affect sleep, it can affect concentration. And one of the challenges with tinnitus is it can fluctuate, so sometimes you might not notice it, and other times it can be really troublesome. And that can be quite difficult for people to deal with.

Jackie Baxter  3:53  
Yeah, of course. And it's really interesting. I guess, with any type of symptom, you've got this massive range of how much it will affect people, but also how much it will affect people on different days. Just thinking about some of my own symptoms, sometimes they might be barely noticeable. And some days, they're so bad that I can't get off the sofa. So this kind of  variation is. It's really interesting, isn't it?

Nic Wray  4:19  
Yeah. And a lot of people phone us when they're going through what we call a spike, you know, there's been an aggravation of their symptoms. And a lot of the time it's, you know, talking to people reassuring them that they're called spikes because they go up, but they also go down. But it's dealing with that and you know, when you've been perhaps managing tinnitus really well for a long period of time, it can be very unsettling to find yourself distressed again, by it and you're wondering what you can do and the impact it's going to have and the uncertainty about it.

Jackie Baxter  4:54  
Yeah, of course. Do you know what can cause - well I suppose partly it to happen initially, but also for it to, as you say, Spike, and then de-spike is that, I don't know if that's the right word?

Nic Wray  5:11  
settle - settle I think. I mean, the thing is with tinnitus, the brain listens to all the sounds going on around us all the time, and then decides which ones it wants to listen to. So, you know, at the moment, as we're talking, we're focusing on the conversation. But you know, there might be traffic outside, there might be birds outside, whatever, but we're not listening to those, we're focusing on each other's voices. And so normally, the brain is used to ignoring all the sounds that aren't important. So like the clocks ticking and like the traffic, and with tinnitus, that can change it then focuses on these noises that the auditory system is creating. 

One of our experts calls tinnitus the sound of the neurons in the nerves talking to each other, which I think is a charming sort of picture. Sometimes you do then wish that, you know, they'd shut up. And while we don't know, for certain what causes tinnitus, some of the most common triggers are hearing loss, exposure to loud noise, stress and anxiety, ear infections, ear wax build up, neck and jaw problems. And now we also know that COVID and long COVID can be a trigger as well. 

In terms of spikes, well tinnitus is often linked to change. So when something new happens, the brain has to think about that instead, it can't just kind of carry on doing what it used to do. Now, this new thing might be an infection such as COVID. It might be that we're having a problem with our hearing, even just sort of the congestion from a cold or earwax, it might be that the change is we're worrying about something that we weren't worried about before. And so while the brains figuring out what's happening is sometimes forget to cancel out these sounds, or it focuses on certain noises, almost by mistake. 

And so quite often when we talk to people who are experiencing spikes, and this was very noticeable at the start of the pandemic, people's situations changed. So their tinnitus had changed. And some of these changes were around whether they had COVID, or whether they were, you know, now working from home in a quiet environment and not a busy office. Or they might have been worried about childcare arrangements or shopping or you know, toilet paper, all these kinds of things, any of these things could quite often affect people and their tinnitus.

Jackie Baxter  7:47  
That's really interesting, isn't it? Because I think certainly for me, I kind of forget that everybody's life changed in March 2020. It wasn't just mine, because I got ill - everybody's life changed, even if they weren't ill, you know. So yeah, you're right. It was a very unsettling time for everybody.

Nic Wray  8:06  
Yeah, I think it became quite clear very quickly. I mean, we were very lucky, we were a small organization. And we were able to pivot very quickly to providing support online and via the, you know, the miracle that is internet telephony, we were all able to work from home and answer our helpline calls, and the volume increased, but also the types of call increased and the number of people that we're talking about new tinnitus, or spikes in their tinnitus, it very quickly became apparent that something was going on. And we knew this anecdotally, from, you know, from our helpline and talking to various researchers who, you know, their lives had changed too, and perhaps their existing projects weren't working. 

One of them in particular Eldré Beukes at Anglia Ruskin University, set up a project. And it turned out to be an international project in the end, which looked at the impact of the pandemic, on people's tinnitus. And this wasn't people who'd had COVID, necessarily, this was everybody. And at the time, I think we were in quite a heavy lockdown, in the USA, not quite as severe. 

And so we were looking at - they looked at what the impact was on people's tinnitus. And it turned out that sort of four and 10 people in the UK said that their tinnitus had been impacted by living in the pandemic, and about a third of people in the USA. And that I think reflected the different levels of of lockdown that we were having, perhaps, but the conditions that people were in, and it wasn't that it was necessarily that they were ill. It was the changes that were going on around them. 

Some research was actually done at a similar time looking at people who've been hospitalized with COVID. And how that had impacted their tinnitus and their hearing in general. And there was an impact on that as well. It was a bit sort of lower, but about 14% of people who've been hospitalized by COVID reported problems with their hearing after discharge. So it was very clear that there was an impact from this virus and the conditions that we were living in on people's tinnitus.

Jackie Baxter  10:37  
Yeah, that's, that's insane, isn't it? I mean, I think I am, and I'm sure a lot of people with long COVID are guilty of it as well, where we think that you know, oh, tinnitus, this is a thing that only comes with long COVID. But actually, you know, it's a thing that's been preexisting for, I don't know, however long. And people like me have only become really properly aware of it recently, having experienced it ourselves. 

Nic Wray  11:05  
Yeah, I mean, records of tinnitus go back as far as written records go. Basically, there are records of kings and emperors in Assyria in sort of, what 4000 BC, who said that they were hearing these noises. And this guy being an emperor realized that, you know, one of the ways he didn't hear it when he was visiting his blacksmith, so he got his blacksmith to follow him around hitting things. You know, so there's records in ancient Egyptian texts, ancient Greek texts, medieval texts. But it isn't something new. It isn't something that's been caused by people wearing headphones and headsets. It isn't caused by 3g, 4g, 5g. It isn't caused by microwaves, you know, it's been around forever. 

And for some people, it is something that just happens, it doesn't have to be triggered by loud noise. I can't imagine how loud an Assyrian court got, you know. So it's something that can be intrinsic to people. So it's been around for a long time. But there does seem to be something in this infection, that seems to be triggering it. Now, whether that's the stress and anxiety of living with long COVID. Because it's an uncertain disease, there's lots of things going on. We don't know very much about it. Or whether it's something to do with the infection itself, because we do know that Tinnitus can be triggered by other infections, you know, viral infections, ear infections can trigger tinnitus. We don't know. And I think that there's research going into that, but tinnitus isn't a new condition.

Jackie Baxter  12:54  
Do you think that - I don't know if you can answer this. But I do think that some people might be more susceptible to it, or is it a bit more random?

Nic Wray  13:05  
Yeah, we don't really know. But there's been some really interesting research done. I think it was just prior to the pandemic and was published during that time, where it was looking at the genetic component of tinnitus. And it seems to be there are places on the human genome that people with tinnitus have in common, those markers. And it could be that some people have a genetic predisposition. But it requires certain circumstances for the genes to express their potential, in the same way that you know that there's genetic components to some cancers, to diseases like multiple sclerosis. So it may be a combination of a genetic predisposition, and then circumstances and environment. 

So, you know, COVID, or, you know, you're in a noisy environment, that perhaps if you weren't exposed to these things, you would never go on to develop tinnitus, but because you have been, you may. It's a really exciting area of research that's being looked at. And some of the work that we're funding is looking at trying to find these biomarkers, that perhaps by looking at, there's a study we're funding that's looking at twins. So perhaps, is there something in one twin, you know, if a twin's got tinnitus, and their sibling doesn't, what's the difference? And so we might be able to say, well, actually, if you've got these biomarkers, or you've got this indication, then you're going to be more likely to have tinnitus. It's really interesting. We're beginning to know more and more about tinnitus, but there's still a lot we don't know, an awful lot we don't know. And that's why it's sometimes quite challenge for people to manage it because we are still working out the best ways around it.

Jackie Baxter  15:06  
Yeah, that is absolutely fascinating. So what can be done to help? Say someone has developed tinnitus as a result of well, Long COVID as an example, but I suppose it doesn't really matter what the trigger for it was? What would they be able to kind of do to help - either themselves or with other help?

Nic Wray  15:30  
Yeah, well, I think one thing is, it's important to say Although tinnitus, you know, a lot of people hear, Oh, there's nothing that can be done. There's no cure for tinnitus. The fact that there's no cure is true, the fact that there's nothing can be done isn't true. There are some things that can be done and can be very effective. And in most cases, it is important to say, really, that tinnitus improves or even goes away with time, because the brain forgets it's listening to the sound - this process is called habituation. It's kind of like how if you're in your house, you don't notice, say, your fridge, the noise of your fridge until it stops working once you know there's a power cut, and you go, oh, something's different. And then the noise is no longer there. You've got so used to it that that you don't know. 

And it is impossible, really to predict how long habituation takes. I get asked that all the time. And I, you know, I wish I could say it takes this amount of time. In the same way, as you know, you could predict how long a broken arm takes, it doesn't really work like that. I mean, it's been shown in some people who've had COVID, that the ringing in the ears only lasts a couple of days. But some people might be experiencing it weeks or months afterwards. It can be a slow process. But this process does happen. And there are things that you can do to encourage that. 

I mean, there isn't a drug that you can take for tinnitus. And that's why sometimes I think people feel that their GPs have said, Oh, there's nothing that can be done. It's simply because there's nothing that they can prescribe. And it's the same with supplements - stay away from those as well. There's nothing really there, that's going to be helpful. But there are a lot of things that you can do to make tinnitus, less intrusive, or even encourage it, you know, to go away. Again, another thing to remember is everyone's tinnitus is different. And what works for one person might not work for something else. And also, you might need a combination of things to help and these things will take time. 

It's I sometimes say tinnitus management is like, you know, physio for an annoying injury, you've got to do it regularly, you've got to do it often, you might not see changes day to day. And it might feel really tedious and a bit of a slog, but it will work, you know, eventually. And, you know, most people find things that the useful techniques that most people find are, well, if you've had hearing loss, for example, and a number of people who've experienced COVID do experience hearing loss, then fitting hearing aids, and wearing them regularly will help with both the tinnitus and hearing loss. So if you're suspecting things aren't quite how they used to be, you know, talk to an audiologist, talk to your GP, or get your hearing checked. 

Another thing that people find helpful, and it might sound counterintuitive, if you're already hearing noises, is actually playing quiet background sounds. So things like a natural sound, or having a fan, music on the radio, if you're playing that to a lower level than your tinnitus, that can encourage the brain to listen to the more interesting sound instead of the tinnitus. And if it's not listening to it, and you're not noticing it, it makes it easier to forget. It's a bit like you know, when you were a child with a wobbly tooth, and you were always playing with it, you know, you were very aware of it and then when you forgot about it and were running around the playground, that's when your tooth dropped out kind of thing. It's almost like, it's almost like that. 

So listening to sort of quiet music, it's important that it's at a level below the tinnitus because if not, tinnitus might ramp itself up in sort of competition. And some of these music you know, if you choose natural sounds, they can be quite relaxing and again, relaxation techniques are quite important because stress plays a big role in the development, and persistence of tinnitus. So if you look at some practical ways to reduce the stress that you're experiencing, they can be really helpful. So something as simple as you know, 10 deep breaths in and out or other breathing exercises, they can be useful. Meditation exercises from an app, there's been loads on smartphones that are free, try the free stuff first. And there's also tinnitus apps that do both unique and get some tinnitus apps that have meditation exercises, but also these quiet background sounds. 

A lot of people find that sharing experiences is helpful, as well. And I imagine a lot of the listeners about long COVID are finding kinds of support from other people with long COVID. And that's the same with tinnitus. So there's local support groups, there's online support groups, we offer a free helpline and web chat, so that you can call up and talk to somebody who really understands what you're going through. 

But some people prefer a more sort of structured approach and go and talk to a counselor, and CBT cognitive behavioral therapy has been proven to be sort of the most rigorously tested and effective treatment for tinnitus. So that can be really helpful - the counselor doesn't have to know a thing about tinnitus, really, because it's about how you approach your thinking about it. Now, obviously, anybody could set up as a tinnitus counselor, so check out you know, their qualifications, and so on. And these are all things that you can do yourself. But if you need some help learning to manage your tinnitus, then you can always talk to your GP, and they can refer you onwards to an audiologist, or a hearing therapist, if it's appropriate. 

There are some times that you should always go to your GP - little red flags, we call them. And that's if your tinnitus is in just one ear, if it beats in time to your heartbeat, or if you've got dizziness with it, go and see your GP. If you have hearing loss in one ear, or if you get real sudden hearing loss in one or both ears, again, go to your GP because that will need to be checked out as well. But so much of tinnitus management is about the kinds of things that you can do for yourself, you don't really need to get other people involved, unless you want to.

Jackie Baxter  22:45  
That's really interesting, actually, and especially what you were saying about the listening to other sounds - music or waterfall sounds or whatever. Because my instinct would have been to make sure that whatever I was trying to listen to was louder than what was in my head. Because that would seem logical to me. But actually, as you explained, that's actually worse. So that's a really interesting point.

Nic Wray  23:07  
I mean, I think that's one of the principles behind it as well. It's a bit like what we call the birthday cake, candle theory. So if you're actually in a quiet space, and a lot of people with tinnitus think they need to avoid sound, and you go into a quiet space. Well, your tinnitus then will stand out more. It's a bit like you know, birthday cake candle. If you're in a daylight, it doesn't really look like much because there's so much other light competing with it. So it's insignificant, but you turn the lights down to bring the cake in - wow, it looks amazing, doesn't it? You know, it really stands out. And it's it's the same with tinnitus. So quite often people find if they're in very quiet spaces, their tinnitus is more intrusive.

Jackie Baxter  23:53  
Yeah, good point. Yeah. All of those - you mentioned a helpline and support groups and things and I can put some links in the show notes for people. So if they're wanting to get hold of any of that. I mean, you mentioned earlier that there was some research into - you were talking about twins. Is there anything else in the way of research into tinnitus?

Nic Wray  24:15  
There's there's quite a lot actually happening. And I think it's a really exciting field, we're really beginning to dive into, you know, a lot of the sorts of causes of how and why it works, and it's an increasing field. However, it is still desperately underfunded. Our campaign for tinnitus week last year was actually trying to raise awareness that tinnitus is under researched and that you know, 40 times more expenditure is given to conditions, other conditions that have a similar impact and effect a similar number of people. So we've been working quite hard with funders, with the Department of Health and Social Care to actually see if we can increase that, because tinnitus currently costs the NHS about 750 million pounds a year. And there's over a million GP consultations for tinnitus every year. And there's very, very little spent on research. So we were calling for 1% of the NHS spend to be channeled into tinnitus research. 

And so at Tinnitus UK we're developing a plan for a tinnitus biobank, which will be able to, again, find a lot of this information, looking for biomarkers, looking for these links, looking for these genetic components. And any researcher will be able to access, so that we can make the money go further, basically. But also it will be a step change in our knowledge and the information that we do. So around the world, there's a lot more research happening than there was even 10-15 years ago. But there's still a long way to go. But there are some really interesting projects out there.

Jackie Baxter  26:18  
Amazing, something that you know, people with long COVID, and I think probably a lot of other kinds of long term health conditions - people will know about this like fluctuation of symptoms, and how you know, you can have a symptom and then it will go away for a bit and then it will come back again. Is that something that can happen with tinnitus? And if you've had it once, and it's kind of gone away, does that maybe make you more likely that it might come back one day?

Nic Wray  26:43  
Well, for some people, they have it once and it goes away forever. For some people, it comes back periodically. I have tinnitus, it's not particularly severe. But I notice when I do hear it, there's usually some reason behind it. So it's normally a flag that I'm either too tired or too stressed, and I need to do something about it. And then when I've done something about it, it goes away again. For a lot of people is like that. 

But equally for a lot of people, they have one episode it might be related, say for an ear infection, the ear infection clears the tinnitus clears, might take a bit longer than the ear infection. It goes, they never hear or think about it again. For some people, their tinnitus is longer term. It's continuous, it's with them. But they don't necessarily notice it. It's you know, it's part of their life, a bit like wearing glasses, or you know, it's something that they can live with and forget about until you actually ask them.

Jackie Baxter  27:52  
Yeah, so it's totally individual, like, well, so many other things, isn't it?

Nic Wray  27:58  
Yeah, I mean, we're all individuals. And you know, and it is something that's, you know, it's generated in our auditory system in our brain. And we know that, and the research is showing more and more areas of the brain are involved in the perception and sort of promotion of tinnitus. And we all know everybody, everybodys brain's different. Everybody thinks differently. It's not something where you can say, you know, we're not sort of carbon copies of each other.

Jackie Baxter  28:29  
Yeah, definitely. And I think it's maybe one of those things that until you experience it, you don't really understand quite how debilitating, maybe is the right word, it can be?

Nic Wray  28:44  
That's something we hear a lot actually from the people we talk to, you know, they say, well, their friends don't realize, or their family don't realize, and their families can be very supportive, but they forget that it's something they're living with 24/7 and actually on the tinnitus UK website, we have a video clip, and it's electronically recreated sounds of people's tinnitus, because obviously nobody else can hear your tinnitus. So they've been generated, you know, and we play that video to people. And it has a massive impact, what I mean, especially if we're talking about prevention, because it's like, Would you like to live with this sound? You know, so people will play that so that other people get an understanding of what they're going through.

Jackie Baxter  29:38  
That's amazing. I'll pop a link to that in the show notes as well. If anyone is interested in having to listen to that, because that sounds horrendous.

Nic Wray  29:47  
Yeah, it will. It should come with a warning. It is not pleasant. I mean, I once played it to a bunch of students. And they were absolutely horrified. You know, it was Freshers Week. And they were all like, where do I get earplugs for these gigs I'm going to? We had a previous one going back - Well, originally it was done on cassette. So that's how old it was. And that was even worse in terms of what people listen to. It was really screechy, but it had this very, you know, 1970s BBC announcer kind of introduction. The video is a bit more accessible & approachable.

Jackie Baxter  30:30  
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, isn't it, and it comes back to this, you know, people say invisible illnesses. And it's this thing where, you know, if someone has a broken arm, like you said earlier, you know, you can see it, everyone knows what it is, you know, you know how long it's going to take to fix and what your prognosis is afterwards. Whereas with something like long COVID, or with tinnitus, or with lots of other things, because you can't see it in the same way, and there's no things like a test or an x ray, you know, it's something that people can just not really realize that you're going through, or certainly not understand.

Nic Wray  31:07  
Yeah, and one of the other things that people quite often say is, well, it's only a noise, how bad can it be? And the answer can be Very bad. You know, for some people, it is enough to drive them to having thoughts of suicide. And, you know, we find that a lot of people it does have a big impact on their mental health. We know that they think about their tinnitus every day, several times a day. They find it hard to sleep, they find it hard to concentrate for some people, they feel they have to change how they socialize, how they work, where they work. So it can have a big impact. I mean, that's not to say that everybody feels like that, I wouldn't want people to think, oh, my gosh, I've got tinnitus, it's hopeless, is all going to be horrible, because that's not the case for most people. But for some people, it is. 

And even for these really bad cases where people are very distressed, things generally get better. But while you're going through it, it can be quite unpleasant. And that's where we're here to help. At Tinnitus UK we have information, we have a free helpline, we have web chat, if you're in a - particularly if you're finding it difficult to hear or talk or, you know, have the energy to make a phone call. We have webinars, we have support groups, you know, all different ways of providing help and support for people with tinnitus, or their family and carers and, you know, medical professionals. Because, again, you know, we keep coming back to this, everybody's different. And everybody needs different ways of managing their tinnitus. Well we're here to try and help them, you know, in ways that people need, that people want. So there is support out there, nobody should feel that they're going through this by themselves.

Jackie Baxter  33:07  
Yeah, I think that's really important to say, I've definitely noticed the power of support through what I've been going through. So yeah, absolutely.

Nic Wray  33:16  
Well, you know, this is the thing, I think it can be a very isolating and lonely condition. Because like you say, you know, with it being invisible, nobody's got a badge. Nobody's got a stick. Nobody's, you know, there aren't any signifiers. You know, you would never know for example, if you watch Chris Martin at a gig for Coldplay, he has tinnitus, Bill Oddie, if you've watched him do nature programs. He's got musical tinnitus, so he's hearing bagpipes, and trombones and snatches of music going on while he's doing that, you know. 

The number of people we've kind of say, one in seven people are experiencing tinnitus in the UK, one in seven adults. So, you know, you're standing in a supermarket queue. There'll be somebody there who has tinnitus, you are at a family gathering. There'll be probably two or three that have tinnitus. Even children can experience tinnitus. So in a classroom, there'll be one child, it's about one in 30 for younger children. There'll be a child in there who's experiencing tinnitus. So it's common, but it's not taught about it's not seen. 

And, you know, we're trying to raise awareness and so that people know that they're not on their own. And we do know from some research that has recently been published, I think it was looking at people in Ireland who were living with long COVID, and about 38% of people reported that they were experiencing tinnitus. So it is something that's common in people with long COVID. And that's why obviously, that's why we're talking to you today. Why there's going to be information on the Your COVID Recovery website, and why we want to kind of let people know that there is help and support out there.

Jackie Baxter  35:18  
Yeah, definitely. So if we've timed this right, this week is British tinnitus week, is that right?

Nic Wray  35:27  
Yeah, tinnitus week is kind of international. So we are not just British. Yeah, it's tinnitus week, and we're trying to raise awareness of tinnitus. And the theme for this year is actually around prevention, which possibly isn't quite relevant for you guys. Because, you know, you can't necessarily prevent it coming on from Long COVID. 

But, you know, we're trying to make sure that as few people experience it as they can, because we know that, you know, one of the main causes behind tinnitus is noise exposure. So we're looking at making sure people have safe listening behaviors, whether that's at work, you know, say for example if you're a trades person, or tube driver, or emergency services, whether that's from the hobbies that you do, you know, motorbiking, or shooting or going to gigs, whether it's sort of entertainment related, whether you work in that field, as a musician, an entertainer, lighting, crew, cinema usher, you know, everybody who's exposed to loud noises. 

So we're trying to get people to be aware of tinnitus, but also to be aware of protecting themselves from tinnitus. Because it's a big concern that with, you know, modern life and what we experienced in modern life, that people need to be aware of the dangers. So years ago, people did things that we would think were dangerous now, like going out in the sun without sunscreen, or, you know, putting the kids in the car, and then not even having a seatbelt, never mind a car seat. And we want hearing protection to become as second nature as that, so that people don't experience tinnitus unnecessarily. And also, if they have tinnitus, they don't aggravate what's already there. And I think that's probably the relevance to people with long COVID is make sure in everything else that you're doing, and everything else that you're focusing on, you don't forget your hearing.

Jackie Baxter  37:37  
Yeah, of course, as a musician, I've always I've always been very aware of my hearing and how important it is. But it's not necessarily something that you think that hard about, is it?

Nic Wray  37:49  
Well, I think I think you take it for granted when it works well.

Jackie Baxter  37:53  
I suppose that's true of everything, isn't it? To some extent? 

Nic Wray  37:55  
Yeah. And I think that's probably why a lot of people find their tinnitus distressing, it's because they never had to think about it. But there are some surprising sort of facts about hearing and noise exposure. I was reading something in the preparation for tinnitus week, that talked about hair dryers, and some hair dryers can be 94 decibels. And the safe exposure limit for noise is about 85 decibels. So, you know, for example, if you're spending a lot of time drying your hair every day, or you were a hairdresser, the noise levels could be reaching, you know, the threshold where actually you need to think about what you're doing. And that's something as simple as using a hairdryer, as well as the obvious things like, you know, using a drill, or a leaf blower or a lawn mower, riding a motorbike, playing in a band. You know, going into the cinema. We've measured cinema sound levels at 110 decibels. So there's unexpected places sometimes.

Jackie Baxter  39:03  
Yeah, that's amazing - things that we just wouldn't really think about. So I guess again, that's why it's so important, isn't it, to talk about these things?

Nic Wray  39:13  
Yeah. And I think it's, you know, it's always important to talk about, well, any aspect of your health. But you know, to make sure that you are looking after yourself, you know, we're not in the business of saying don't go to the cinema. Don't do DIY, don't go on your motorbike. We're like, do it, but do it safely. And I think that's the key message, really, for this week is think about what you're doing.

Jackie Baxter  39:39  
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been really fascinating chatting with you about this, and there's loads of really helpful stuff out there for everybody. So thank you so much for giving up your time today.

Nic Wray  39:53  
It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Jackie.

Jackie Baxter  39:55  
Thank you so much to all of my guests, and to you for listening. I hope you've enjoyed it, or at least found it useful. The long COVID podcast is entirely self produced and self funded. I'm doing all of this myself. If you're able to, please go to buymeacoffee.com/longCOVIDpod to help me cover the costs of hosting the podcast. Please look out for the next episode of the long COVID podcast. It's available on all the usual podcast hosting things, and do get in touch - I'd love to hear from you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai