Diki,

You make more sense than the doctor does. I thought “infection” also. There is a clear indication that my left ear has discomfort in it that my right ear doesn’t have. I told the doctor this, and again he reassured me “no infection.” My own thoughts are: If it’s not an actual infection, there is definitely something going on that’s causing sensitivity in that ear.

The piano is at home and beyond tuning because as I mentioned I want to move and maybe get a baby grand if I can fit it in the new place.

The 70+ db measurement was taken while I was practicing boogie woogie and rock riffs (heavy left hand) and walking bass. That’s how the whole thing started…after a few weeks of this! Since my head didn’t move, I took the reading where my ear was most of the time. But as Eugene said, although my ear stayed stationary something else in the room could be “backing up” the (overabundance of) sound waves.

I’m going to ask the technician if he CAN quiet it down somewhat and maybe I can go without the ear plugs for now. I’ll definitely do what you said with the blanket…and otherwise muffle it as much as I could.

To you and anyone reading this, please…..take a lesson here. If you’re not already doing it, monitor what’s going into your ears closely. I think many of us take our hearing for granted and don’t realize the ears are as irreplaceable as our fingers. I should have watched more closely when this first started and maybe I wouldn’t be going through this now!

“Hope some of this helps.”

Yes, it DID help. I got good ideas from both you and Eugene that I could work with. Trying to explore this thing by yourself could be very trying and very unproductive!