by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
A lady asked,
Have you ever dealt with the problem of noise (buzzing) from fluorescent lights in a loop system? I’ve heard that you can buy special ‘ballasts’ for the lights that will take care of that. Is that right?
Here’s the deal. Back about 1998 or so, a bunch of fluorescent light ballasts were imported into the USA that were basically junk and caused a lot of interference which was picked up by the t-coils in hearing aids. Most of these defective ballasts have since been replaced so interference from bad ballasts is not all that common now, but it still happens. (Occasionally, ballasts can go “bad”.)
Modern ballasts shouldn’t cause any interference. For example, I have a 4 tube fluorescent light fixture right above my desk in my office, but the ballast causes such minimal interference that my fancy field strength meter’s t-coil has to be within 9″ of the ballast before I even reach the ideal minimum noise (interference) level as specified in the International loop standards.
This means that you could have the top of your head bumping the light tubes and you still shouldn’t hear any buzzing in your hearing aids from these lights. That’s how little interference modern florescent light fixtures really cause.
If you turn on any fluorescent lights and immediately hear a buzzing via your t-coils, you know something is bad somewhere. If you walk under a light and the noise is loudest there, that light probably has a bad ballast. If the ballast is bad, all you need to do is replace the ballast and the interference should stop. However, sometimes it is the lighting wiring itself that was not done correctly. This can cause a ground loop that gives off the buzzing interference. If this is the problem, you’ll need an electrician to re-wire it properly.
Note that loop systems do NOT pick up this interference. It is the t-coils in your hearing aids that pick it up. Too many people blame interference on the loop system because they only hear interference when listening to a loop system—but this is because that is the only time they have their t-coils turned on!
is there something that can be done to shield my tinnitus from the effects of flourescent lights. I will need to give up one of my classes becasue of the lighting. And no I can not tell them to fix their lights.
Hi Debby:
I don’t understand. How are the fluorescent lights affecting your tinnitus.
Cordially,
Neil
I keep getting Musical Ear every time I go in 2 stores in my town. How do I stop the Musical Ear . I will not go into those stores again, but my town is small and not many stores.
Hi Sue:
Are you sure it is Musical Ear syndrome and not audio pareidolia you experience in those two stores? MES doesn’t just start and stop when you enter a store–but audio pareidolia could–especially if there are fans running in the store. If you put your fingers in your ears, does that stop the music?
Cordially,
Neil
I had the strangest thing happen today at work. My desk is under a fluorescent light that is malfunctioning and the ceiling is very high. My cochlear implants were on M (I checked to be sure they were not on MT) and they picked up a strange wavy sound from that bad light. Would you expect cochlear implant processors on M to pick that up? No one else in the room heard it with acoustic hearing.
Hi Mary Beth:
I wouldn’t have expected them to pick up such signals–but it was malfunctioning as you said–so who knows what kind of electromagnetic radiation it was putting out and at what frequency. It could be that some circuit in your CI was tuned to this frequency and picked it up. I think this is a rare occurrence, but strange things can happen. Too bad you didn’t switch to T position and see what it sounded like that way. It may have sounded exactly the same if it was an internal circuit that was picking up the signal–not the microphone or t-coil.
Cordially,
Neil
Hi Neil,
Thank you for your response.
I didn’t think of switching to T and listening! Sorry!
And work was so accommodating that when I reported the problem I was having due to the malfunctioning ballast/fluorescent light, they had it all fixed by the next morning! And that interesting strange pulsing sound vanished!
I am getting new hearing Aides what brand would you advise so I don’t have the same problem like this with my new ones
Hi Sue:
The brand of hearing aids is immaterial. If you have MES, any hearing aids can help you hear real sounds so your brain doesn’t have to make up it’s own sounds. And if you have audio pareidolia, wearing hearing aids may let you hear fans better and thus the audio pareidolia sounds..
Cordially,
Neil