Good morning.

Thank you for your reply hope4thebest.
The tinnitus may be part of the problem and that may be related to medication.
Initially I took large amounts of Tylenol3, Talwin and Atasol30 but, I soon realized that those meds did not do a thing for the pain and I gave them up in 1984. After that I took Anaprox, 275mg three times a day for 23 years but quit that as well after my heart attack. When I stopped taking Anaprox, I found that this med had not done a thing for the pain either; Anaprox may have caused the heart attack since I don't have atherosclerosis.

Jo*mar, you may be right on the money with the "cognition issue", that has occurred to me as well.
Some problem with sounds may be related to the tinnitus; the phone seems to be ringing at the same frequency as my ears so that I have trouble hearing that. When it comes to speech though there seems to be another issue.
If it were loss of high frequency hearing I should have more trouble understanding women than men but, that is not the case in all instances.
Watching TV I can understand some female newscasters quite well and some males not at all. TV adds, where the volume is kept at a constant amplitude, I can understand without problem. The highest note on my keyboard is C7 at 2093 Hertz, well above the limit of a woman's speech and I can hear that even at low volume so, high frequency hearing loss does not seem to be the problem.

Turning up the volume is no help and only leads, eventually, to pain.
If someone speaks slowly and clearly I have no problem following the conversation especially when there is no background noise. If two people speak at the same time I am lost so, cognition seems a more likely culprit than hearing.

bobber, you are correct of course that, as we get older we lose some hearing but, I am only 65 and other than speech and the telephone I don't seem to have a problem hearing sounds. I sing in two choirs and would expect to have a real problem with learning new songs if my hearing were impaired. The problem I have is, understanding what is said and, remembering and concentrating.
Maybe it's a combination of RSD and brain injury and I will just have to live with it. The Otolaringologist I saw was no help; when I told him that something in my head, around the ears, felt swollen all the time, he very curtly said, " nothing is swollen." It seems that Doctors around here are not interested in pursuing any difficult problem; it interferes with looking after their, admittedly very high patient load.

Anyway, thank you all for your input, I appreciate it.

woodsman