Itouch 4g only CERTAIN sounds not working?

my new itouch was fine for about a month, then a few days ago i noticed that my alerts didn't make any noise anymore.. and when i play games, the background music doesn't play but the sound effects do!! i've tried looking into the games settings, but it says that all sounds are turned up all the way... also, when i go to my itouch settings, to sounds and to 'ringer and alert', its ALWAYS turned down all the way. everytime i turn it back up to max volume, when i go back into settings sound options, its back to silent. PLEASE somebody help?!?!