Last weekend my husband and I went to two shows, one for indie band The Getup Kids on Sunday night, then O.M.D. on Monday night (and the incredible opener, one of my new faves, Oh Land). STUPID me didn’t wear earplugs. I should know better too, having worked for Virgin Records and several radio stations back in my early days. I’ve been to countless upon countless shows and always wore my ear plugs. I guess this time I figured that we weren’t really close to the speakers (except because of the way they remodeled and put the speakers above the crowd, they were directly in front of where we stood in the balcony) and I also thought that eh, I don’t go to many shows so it shouldn’t matter.
(I can hear myself screaming and singing in that video, ha!) on Sunday, my ears were ringing like mad but it wore off as the next day wore on. Then O.M.D. in the evening…
who were INCREDIBLE (in that video, at the beginning, when Andy McCluskey has his hand outstretched, there was a spotlight shining on me in the balcony and he was reaching out toward me! COOL!). However, at that show, again, I wore no earplugs.
That night I felt fine. The next morning, not so much! Before I even got out of bed I knew something was wrong. I felt drunk, except that made no sense…I had only had one beer the night before, at 7PM and there was no euphoria, just the inability to walk a straight line. Basically I had vertigo. My equilibrium was off…my inner ears really unhappy with my rough treatment of them the nights before! If I turned my head or looked down it felt like I might fall over or pass out. Scary. I could hear ok and my ears weren’t ringing…it was all just massively impaired motor skills. As the day went on I improved a little but a day later it seemed the same. For a couple of days I was woozy and off-balance. The idea of exercising was out of the question, as was driving and even bending down to pet Nero. In short, it was horrible.
Turns out that the noise created debris in my ear, essentially. Ironically it was these little crystals that had messed Crystal up. When this happens, fortunately, there are some exercises that can help dislodge these crystals, called the Epley Maneuver.
A few times of doing this and WHEW. I returned to normal. But not after tears and lost sleep (literally) in fear that I had damaged my ears permanently. I can’t tell you how relieved I am that all is ok.
Moral of this story: PROTECT YOUR EARS! Don’t fuck around with them. Wear earplugs at concerts, don’t turn your ipod headphones up higher than necessary, etc. You only get one set of ears and they control far more of your body than your hearing. You don’t realize how precious they are until you have messed them up.
Related articles:
- Vertigo from car accident? (zocdoc.com)
- Vertigo on rise: physiotherapist (cbc.ca)
- Exercises to Prevent Vertigo (brighthub.com)
- Omg, Omd! (kikiandlalaland.wordpress.com)
