# What is the biology behind this? (ear question) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 16, 2007, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biology-behind-this-ear-question/388235 "2007-01-16T19:53:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biology-behind-this-ear-question/388235/1 "2007-01-16T19:53:56Z")
Say you go to a loud rock concert. The next day you wake up with the feeling of something stuck in your ear. Maybe a bit of hearing loss. No ringing (not tinnitus) in your ear and everything else feels normal with your sinuses. A few days later it just clears up and everything is fine. Is this a FORM of tinnitus (tinnitus w/o the ringing)? Basically I am wondering what is going on in your ear when it feels like it’s full of something but it isn’t. Or it feels like your eardrum is obstructed in some way - and it just goes away. My GUESS is that during said rock concert, a bunch of wax vibrated itself down into a clump near your ear drum and is keeping it from vibrating. But this is just a guess. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biology-behind-this-ear-question/388235/2 "2007-01-16T20:03:40Z")
When you are around really loud noise for a while, your body adapts, and stops the little hairs in your ears from vibrating at quieter sounds, in an attempt to protect them from breaking off (once they break off, they never grow back - hearing loss is permanent.) This effect lingers for some time after the event. From [an article written by an ear doc for Electronic Musician](http://emusician.com/mag/emusic_ears_7/): > [@](#): > > Hearing loss first occurs by a process known as temporary threshold shift. After an acute exposure to a loud rock concert, most concert-goers know all too well the cotton-in-the-ears feeling they have. The auditory world is muffled, and the volume of all sounds is diminished. That muffling is the result of a temporary threshold shift, in which the threshold sound level at which hair cells fire is increased, thereby requiring the sound to be louder in order to be heard. Normally, this shift is most pronounced in the high-frequency region. Over the course of hours or even days, the feeling slowly subsides until hearing thresholds have returned to normal. ---
**Author:** ![Keweenaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Keweenaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keweenaw)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biology-behind-this-ear-question/388235/3 "2007-01-16T20:18:46Z")
In that situation you’ve over stimulated your [basilar membrane](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilar_membrane). It’s similar to the numbing experience in the hands after using a push power mower to mow the lawn or using a chainsaw. The long tapered end of the membrane is sensitive to higher frequencies and is also the most easily effected by overexcitation and possibly damaged. The numbing down of higher frequency sounds leads to the cotton in the ears feeling, where low frequency perception is the only one getting through. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biology-behind-this-ear-question/388235/4 "2007-01-16T21:40:54Z")
Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![BlakeTyner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@BlakeTyner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlakeTyner)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biology-behind-this-ear-question/388235/5 "2007-01-16T22:12:08Z")
Doesn’t it work the other way, too? I generally go to sleep with the TV or radio on, and I notice that when I wake up during the night, the volume that was perfectly acceptable to me at midnight is blowing-out-the-eardrums loud at 4am. ---
**Author:** ![Santo\_Rugger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Santo\_Rugger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santo_Rugger)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biology-behind-this-ear-question/388235/6 "2007-01-16T23:22:17Z")
[QUOTE=BlakeTyner] Doesn’t it work the other way, too? I generally go to sleep with the TV or radio on, and I notice that when I wake up during the night, the volume that was perfectly acceptable to me at midnight is blowing-out-the-eardrums loud at 4am. [/QUOTE] I think that has more to do with the ambient noise present at different times. There’s much more background noise in the daytime, both outside and in.