Bonfire Night is one of those evenings when North Somerset properly lights up. Whether you’re heading to an organised display or watching from your own garden, there’s a good chance you’ll come home with your ears ringing, at least for a little while.
That ringing has a name: tinnitus. Most of us have experienced it after a loud concert, a firework display, or a particularly noisy DIY session, a persistent whine, buzz or hiss that seems to come from nowhere and settles somewhere inside your own head. For most people it fades within a day or two. For some it doesn’t, and understanding why can take some of the mystery, and the worry, out of it.
Why fireworks are worth taking seriously
Fireworks are genuinely loud. At close range, a large firework can produce a bang of anywhere between 150 and 175 decibels, similar to or louder than a jet taking off. The World Health Organisation’s guidance is that adults shouldn’t be exposed to sound above 140 decibels, and for children the safe limit is lower still, at 120 decibels. Because a firework bang is a sudden burst rather than a sustained noise, it can cause damage in a fraction of a second, long before you’d have time to cover your ears.
If you or someone in your family wears hearing aids, it’s worth turning them off or removing them just before the display starts, or wearing ear defenders over the top, rather than relying on the devices themselves to protect your hearing. Standing further back from the display makes a real difference too. The loudest displays are best enjoyed from a distance, not from directly underneath.
If your ears are still ringing the next day, don’t panic, but do keep an eye on it. Tinnitus that settles within 24 to 48 hours is common and usually nothing to worry about. Tinnitus that persists longer, or keeps coming back after other loud evenings, is worth having checked.
The fuller picture: what actually causes tinnitus
Fireworks are a useful way into the subject because they show one cause very clearly, but tinnitus itself can come from a range of places, and it’s rarely as simple as a single loud bang. What’s actually happening is that the auditory system, sometimes the ear itself, sometimes the pathway between the ear and the brain, is sending a signal even when there’s no real sound to detect. The most common triggers we see include:
- Noise exposure, whether from a single very loud event like fireworks or a concert, or gradual exposure over years, such as working around machinery without hearing protection. This is the cause most people already associate with tinnitus, and often the easiest to prevent.
- Age-related hearing loss. As the tiny hair cells in the inner ear naturally decline with age, tinnitus often appears alongside a general reduction in hearing, rather than as a separate problem.
- Earwax blockage. A build-up of earwax can press against the eardrum and produce a ringing or buzzing sound, which usually resolves once the wax is safely removed.
- Certain medications. Some medicines, including particular antibiotics and high doses of aspirin, can affect hearing and cause temporary tinnitus as a side effect.
Underlying health conditions. Issues such as high blood pressure, problems with the jaw joint, or inner ear conditions like Ménière’s disease can all produce tinnitus as one of their symptoms.
Because the causes are so varied, tinnitus isn’t something to self-diagnose from a search engine. If it appears for the first time, changes suddenly, or starts affecting your sleep or concentration, that’s worth a proper conversation with an audiologist rather than a guess.
What we’d suggest
If Bonfire Night or the New Year Fireworks at midnight leaves your ears ringing and it clears within a day or two, that’s a normal response to a very loud evening, and hearing protection next time is the simple fix. If tinnitus has settled in more permanently, whatever the cause, it’s genuinely worth getting checked. We can assess your hearing, talk through what might be behind it, and, where there’s an underlying cause we can address, such as earwax or an untreated hearing loss, help resolve it.
Enjoy the fireworks this year. Just give your ears a fighting chance.
Call 01934 248426, or pop into our Worle clinic, walk-ins welcome daily. Appointments at Weston-super-Mare, Portishead, Clevedon and Shirehampton.
