Am I losing my hearing?

Which part of your ear dear? It could be just the weight of the headphones. But just in case turn the music down a few decibels. It wouldn’t hurt to click any of my links, in my eyes.

@everephebe – Thank you :) well one of them, right now. My right ear. It hurts randomly. I’ll turn it down.

One ear… hmm unless you are getting stereo noise that is truly imbalanced I would imagine this is not necessarily noise related. It still could be, the right ear may be more sensitive or something – I’m not an Otolaryngologist, I don’t know. Perhaps it is an inflection or something else. Is the pain usually located in one ear more than the other or does it vary?

If this pain persists see a doctor.

Patient to doctor: Doctor, it hurts when I do do this.
Doctor to patient: Don’t do that.

Get to a doctor, and go soon. We can only guess at the cause of your pain. It might be damage caused by loud music, it might be an infection, you might have a crayon stuck in your ear, it might be a brain tumor. We can’t see you. We don’t have any equipment to check your ears. We aren’t doctors. Go see one.

My first sign was ringing in my ears. Yes, its possible to lose your hearing in one ear only.

Now that I have said that, here is more. For years, I was a drummer playing really loud rock and roll music. I never realized what was happening to my hearing, because I wore headphones in order to hear the singer(s). In 1966, I was in a gunfight, that lasted 32 minutes. I could not hear for two days. Then, the sirens on the police cars in the 80s, just about ended my hearing.

I now wear hearing aids.

Protect your hearing now. Throw away the headphones.

You only get one set of ears for hearing, so protect them both. jp

I used to get earache all the time then I stopped using in-ear headphones. No more earache. Are you using in-ear headphones? I think they are bad for your ears as they put strains on your muscles as you feel like you have to hold them in a bit if you know what I mean.
Turning the music down a notch too cant hurt either, also make sure your levels are set ok. check out your equalizer on your music playing device and make sure the mid to high range isnt set too high, this is the most damaging range for your inner ear.
You can get fairly decent sounding over the head headphones for really cheap. I use the sony mdr-v150 as my crappy day-to-day ones.

Yes it is very likely

You should schedule a hearing exam to make sure, and then start practicing safer listening habits. You should even wear hearing protection when you are using loud power tools like saws or even lawn mowers or sanders. Always wear earplugs when you attend a concert.

A few of my friends, now in their 40’s and 50’s are in bands and some of them have diminished hearing. Many of them now wear earplugs, so as not to make the problem worse.

Once your hearing is gone (or going) you can’t get it back. My father was an jetliner mechanic. Back when he was still working (he retired in the early 90’s), in the 60’s and before, no one wore those protective ear cuffs. Most of his co-workers have some type of hearing loss, my dad’s hearing loss is on the moderate side and it’s been that way for the last 40 years and is getting progresively worse.

As others have noted, noise damage is irreversible and cumulative. So if you do damage to your inner ear now, it may not show up in hearing measurements for several years.

However, noise damage rarely causes physical pain unless it is a significant acoustic trauma. @everephebe asked which part of your ear hurts, and included a link to a diagram of the ear. As @GladysMensch noted, we can not diagnose you over the internet; but I might be able to narrow down the possibilities if you can be very descriptive of your symptoms and experiences. The same is true when you do see a health care professional in person – the case history is the most important diagnostic tool.

So if your problem persists, make an appointment for an Audiological evaluation to have a comprehensive hearing evaluation, and take a few mounts to jot down as many facts about your symptoms as you can (such as: when did you first begin experiencing them? Have they stayed the same, or worsened, or resolved a bit over time? Is there anything that seems to make it worse or better? Since around the onset of your symptoms, have there been ay other symptoms – even seemingly unrelated?).