tinnitus

have you seen a doctor?

Really bad the last 24 hours, and I'm someone with a lifelong noose of it round my ears, so it takes a lot for me to notice mine. I'm massively stressed/depressed at the moment so I think thats aggravating it. It almost has a *sensation* as well as a sound . I can hear it over plentiful office noise/chatter/aircon/PC hum. So its bad. Ugh.

Resorting to a soft whitenoise generator on my iphone to dull it out. Suprisingly its working.

sorry to hear that Trayce :( hang in there

I've had tinnitus in one ear since the mid-'90s (caused by a sharp loud noise within inches of my ear), and it was quite bad for much of a decade. I couldn't sleep without some sort of fan or white noise in the background; complete silence was awful. But then, unexpectedly, it slowly started to subside. It still comes and goes, but except at it's worst it's soft and not very noticeable or bothersome, and at best I can't hear it at all.

So hold out hope, Shakey and Trayce

i suspect i've had tinnitus for maybe 15 years but have only just become conscious of it this year. the trigger to noticing it was having to wear earplugs *heaps* in this flat because of the crappy building and the shitty neighbours upstairs. (going to bed with earplugs is nbd because i drop off, but when i'm awake for ~2 hours with them in i tend to notice more stuff.)

it's doing this:

- a constant high-pitched ringing in the middle of my head, which i've been vaguely aware of forever
- the thing i've only noticed this year: a sort of throbbing pitchfork-type tone in my right ear

i only really hear either of those when i'm wearing earplugs (as per above) and when it's quiet, but because i've only really noticed it recently, i don't know whether it's been happening all this time. i notice it frequently now, even sometimes in normal noise situations, but half the time i'm probably imagining it (and recent severe anxiety probably exacerbates both the symptoms and my awareness of them).

i've been shitty to my ears over the years, so obviously it's all my fault, but in the past few years i've been a fascist with established volume limits, closed-design earphones, earplugs in clubs etc., specifically to protect my ears. so, whatever happens happens, but right now it's only a ~thing~ rather than a problem.

btw, trayce otm re the 'sensation'. i could swear i'm physically feeling the pitchfork-type tone as a sort of buzz, but if i can't hear the tone, i can't feel it either. the whole notion that your brain creates tinnitus through interpolation is fascinating.

the single most incredible thing i've discovered about tinnitus is that noticing it makes it worse. i'm 100% sure i've had it buzzing away in the distance for a good 15 years (as per last post), but in the last 2–3 weeks it's been distracting me constantly, even if it's only on the edge of my awareness. if it's actually worse, it's only a tiny bit worse, but my brain has decided to latch onto it.

the ent i saw a couple of weeks ago was all about comforting me and rushing me out the door, and didn't seem to want to answer my questions properly (what's banging around in my ears when i move my head? why do loud noises make my left ear click? etc etc, all brushed off). he also got some things straight-up wrong in his notes. but, he didn't go all guilt-trip about loud music, so it wasn't all bad.

at this point i'm supposed to have a hearing test in a soundproof booth, and an mri to look for tumours. after that, the ent will call me back and presumably point me to an audiologist, and ignore the 12 gallons of fluid that's been sloshing around behind my eardrums for as long as i can remember.

good luck with that, Autumn. i went through those tests you describe. ent said based on what she saw, my tinnitus was probably caused by some kind of ear infection in the past.

i do think i have one bit of advice that may be useful to others: watch out for aspirin. i had surgery for a broken leg in early september and for the first week and a half afterward my tinnitus became absurdly loud (not good when you're having a hard enough time falling asleep due to pain). i did some research about the various meds i was on, and read that aspirin (which i was taking for anti-coagulant purposes), in some people, can exacerbate tinnitus. i called my doc and he said "yup, that could be it", so he switched me to another anti-coagulant for a few weeks(Lovenox, which I had to self-inject daily, but that was an easy trade-off. Within less than 48 hours the tinnitus subsided to tolerable levels. this was huge for me.

now I don't know how this is possible, but apparently there is one, that's right, ONE tinnitus specialist in all of Boston. i have my appointment coming up in early December, but I booked it a year and a half ago - that's how far ahead you have to book with her. it better be good!

excellent that you found something to reduce your tinnitus.

is it possible that there aren't many tinnitus specialists because there aren't many successful treatments of tinnitus? with the incidence of cases (especially in america), i can't think why else there wouldn't be thousands of specialists everywhere.

So I seem to have developed some kind of tinnitus

Started a couple of weeks ago, only noticed when I went to bad and waking up in the morning. It wasn't a constant buzz but rather a two tone sound, like the old modems uploading data!

Went to the docs last week and she was very quick to tell me it was just tinnitus and that it can come and go and a lot of the time it can be caused from a recent virus/infection affecting the nerves in the ears.

But last night was quite bad, not only did I have the original two tone sound but also a constant pitch every now and then. Reading a book it was unbelievable.

I'm still 99% sure that it's just because I'm focusing on it, and last few months I've had high anxiety levels so I think that's not helping.

If I'm busy doing stuff it just doesn't even register.

so odd. The brain fascinates me sometimes.

"bed" ffs

this shit sucks. you have my sympathies. dealing with it is an endurance test (in my experience) but take some solace from the fact that physically this can't really hurt you/is usually not indicative of anything serious. mentally it's a bitch.

but you will be ok! everybody with this seems to become more or less ok with it over time.

I just think of it as a radio station devoted to Alvin Lucier that plays in my head all the time

haha, man, I went to an Alvin Lucier concert last year (including "I am sitting" and "Silver streetcar") and definitely had a weird feeling of wondering to what extent it sounded at all the same to most other people in the room. But I guess that question might have occurred even if my ears were perfect.

I'm at a point now where even when I find myself paying attention to my tinnitus, it doesn't really bother me. One exception: when I'm exhausted. But everything is terrible then, so ...
Still, those early times, when you're constantly kinda on the alert for it and thinking about it and worrying about whether it'll get worse &c are the worst. Hope that won't last too long for you.

Dunno if I mentioned it here, but I didn't bother to go see a doctor about my tinnitus, because I'd read that it was incurable etc. When I told my doctor last year (having had it for over a decade) she was shocked and kinda disgusted with me and sent me straight to an ear-doctor. Ear-doctor said "Meh -- waddyagonnado?"

yeah that's what they say

I guess my tinnitus posts were on a different thread but these are things that have helped me this past year:

Quitting earbuds and closed can headphones, switching to open air ones instead (grado)

Using a music player with crossfeed, also cutting upper treble on most music

Oddly enough, listening to an 11khz sine tone. I figured out my tinnitus is about 13 kHz and the adjacent tone knocks it out a little

Magnetic pulses to the brain deliver long-lasting relief for tinnitus patients

Not sure I want magnets near my brain.

http://i.imgur.com/9HjUcIW.jpg

my tinnitus is p. mild and mostly not a bother* but I am quite happy for my brain to be wiped tbh so sign me up for testing

* either it gets worse or I stop being able to filter it out whenever I have a cold, so that's bad; and when I go and see live music even with earplugs it goes "oh hai" for a week afterwards and makes me miserable about how I can't even go out and have fun any more, so I've 99% stopped doing that - but apart from that... hey wait, maybe it is a bother after all

seriously it's nice to see anyone researching this at all

Good God it's been loud the past day or two, and today even worse.

Having trouble thinking straight sometimes. I'm sure my ilx posts show it too.

Peace to all itt.

Good luck, be strong fellow sufferer

Indeed, godspeed. Mines been coming and going, not sure if I've readjusted or its subsided slightly.

Thanks Outis & Trayce, and back at you.

Music at bedtime will help. I've become oddly fascinated by 4-hour long youtube vids with New Age tunes and images of immaculately groomed tropical landscapes and gurgling brooks.

Yeah as Ive said upthread white noise apps are a boon. I use an iphone one called... White Noise, rather originally, you can mix tracks of water and birdnoises and such, and it doesnt sound too looped or fake.

thanks for the tip Trayce, i'll check it out.

had a scare two weeks ago. it lasted only 24 hours and only on my left ear, but the frightening part was it was triggered by going to a pretty tame show (sloan)

i wasn't standing that close to the stage or amp, but i wasn't wearing earplugs. admittedly, i've hardly worn earplugs to shows, only when rehearsing with bands

anyway, i didn't even want to post that it had gone away because i thought it would come back. i basically listen to everything pretty low and have stopped using headphones, as i used to use them almost everyday for a couple hours

yesterday i was on the phone for a couple hours and had my phone on my left ear as usual. that night i woke up in the middle of the night and my *right* ear started ringing for like three seconds, but that's it

all clear, but have been exercising caution

any tips for prevention?

in my experience shit just happened with no relation to past treatment of my ears. my left ear just decided I have tinnitus now. But in general if you're trying to minimize hearing damage, wear plugs etc. Tinnitus can occur independent of hearing loss (as it did in my case).

that's interesting

thanks for the info

Mine is exactly the same and just as loud, maybe louder, than it was three years ago but for whatever reason it hardly ever 'bothers me' anymore. I still have some discomfort listening to digital-era solo piano and choral recordings on headphones, though.

Almost two years later, bass frequencies still physically hurt my ears. Haven't been to a live show in that time and even loud bars trigger a mild hyperacusis for the next day or so. The ringing is still ever present but I rarely notice it anymore. You do get used to it. I sleep with a pink noise app on my phone, which was recommended by an audiologist.

In retrospect, I was fortunate, given that I trashed my right ear when I was 16 but didn't have any notable permanent damage until more than 30 years later. Still, I won't let my kids go to shows without earplugs.

If your ears are ringing for anything less than 20 seconds, its likely just an unrelated physiological reaction. I occasionally get that in both ears, increasingly so as I get older. But nothing to worry about.

Yeah you do get used to it. It took me a really long time tho.

This bothering me every night now. Work has been extremely stressful, wondering if the two are related.

If your ears are ringing for anything less than 20 seconds, its likely just an unrelated physiological reaction.

this is actually good news, I have a solid bed of high frequency whine but every once in a while it gets REALLY loud and freaks me out.

so much research still to be done on this, so little is actually understood

the goddamn low frequency flutter in my left ear that was caused by totally excessive volume at a Gary Numan concert is still there, but I only hear it when it's very quiet/at night in bed.

Sleeve is that like the physical-feeling flutter where your timpani sort of does a soft drum roll, or pure sound?

My tinnitus is a plain 13khz whine... My wife's is midrange white noise 'like a vacuum cleaner running in another room'. She won't go to bars at all let alone concerts.

I have the constant high-pitched whine, and the occasional kick-drum flutter, and sometimes one ear will just go out entirely for a minute or two. It's awesome, I tell you.

xp Jon it sounds kind of like a street cleaner? a rhythmic sort of whoosh/flutter? that's what I thought it was when I first heard it (with earplugs in, at night)

Does it help to plug your nose and blow out, to "pop" your ears? My ENT specialist suggested doing this several times a day and yeah, I find that it does help with mild hyperacusis.

This reddit post talks more about spontaneous yet brief ringing in your ear.

doug for me it helps to cover my ear tightly with my palm! the muting makes the sudden upsurge of whine/feedback subside.

Yes, I've done the same with the acute tinnitus. But I've also found that it subsides within 30-60 seconds regardless.

My other comment about "popping" your ears was as a suggested response to when there's a fullness feeling in one ear and a slight pain with some frequencies (usually bass frequencies for me.)

from 2013:

the single most incredible thing i've discovered about tinnitus is that noticing it makes it worse.

i had largely forgotten about this, but a couple of weeks ago i was trying to work out whether my tv soundbar was having trouble putting out treble due to age/dust or whether i was just having trouble hearing higher frequencies. in doing so i basically beetlejuiced my tinnitus and now it's back, or rather my awareness of it is back.

i really don't think it's much worse than five years ago (except today my left ear is squealing like a pig for some reason), but i'm fascinated in the fact that noticing it has suddenly brought it back to life.

why do loud noises make my left ear click? etc etc

this is another thing i forgot all about until now, which is suddenly obvious again, and which i've just learnt is called hyperacusis.

other things i've realised in the past few days, now that this is a thing again:

• in my teens i learned to do those super-loud whistles you do by shoving your fingers in your mouth, and i would try to produce the loudest whistle i could. at least once i came out of it with a ringing that was violently, terrifyingly loud on dozens of frequencies all at once – far, far worse than post-concert ringing. at the time i was too young/too stupid/too uninformed to recognise it as hearing damage.
• i've had trouble understanding speech in noisy environments since at least the early '90s, which i assume is an indication that the associated high-frequency hearing loss has been there for ages.
• i've developed tmj on my left side (painful jaw clicking when i chew/talk), which is also the side with hyperacusis and today's squealing. could be coincidence though.

this one was clearly caused by some auditory canal issue (i.e. not loud noises), because it always gets louder two days before i have a cold. it's a functional early warning system that helps me sort out my shit when i'm busy.

also i don't talk about my tinnitus ever because i don't want to remind sufferers they have it, and i don't want people who have never noticed it before (e.g. me in 2013) to suddenly realise, panic, go through 40 years of hell &c.

Mine is really noticeable at night, I dunno if it's entirely because it's quieter then or if it actually gets worse at night.

I get multiple high pitch tones, have thought about trying to figure out the actual notes and make a drone out of them.

My wife got me earplugs for my birthday but it's probably too late now. I suppose it might not get worse.

The weird thing is I do really well on those hearing tests for high frequencies, I can usually hear the tones only teens/early 20 somethings can hear. So I obviously have some kind of hearing damage but it just manifests as tinnitus and I think some reduction in volume, like sometimes I have trouble hearing really quiet sounds, but the frequency isn't affected.

it might help to go to an audiologist and see whether you actually do have hearing damage, because if not the cause could be something treatable

Yeah, I have tinnitus and hyperacusis (I'm 40) but my hearing is fine. I actually did better on my least hearing test than the one five years before.

also i don't talk about my tinnitus ever because i don't want to remind sufferers they have it

This! It's so difficult to get that balance between taking about it, not talking about it, and - especially - getting advice that doesn't make you feel even *more* self-conscious about it.

I'm having trouble at work right now - we just moved to an open-plan office and it's much, much louder, so I have to work at home most days. Disability rights in the workplace are actually pretty good in the UK, but workplaces always look at disability rights as recommendations - not, you know, THE LAW.

xp I've been to the GP about it, and they had a look and (TMI time) I had *massive* amounts of ear wax in both ears, which they couldn't get out by syringing and had to book another appointment to have them cleaned out with a suction device, which I had done a few months ago. Made *no* difference at all to the tinnitus though. I guess I'll have to go back.

today my left ear settled down, weird

Yeah, I have tinnitus and hyperacusis (I'm 40) but my hearing is fine. I actually did better on my least hearing test than the one five years before.

this is super weird since everything i can find about tinnitus indicates associated hearing loss, especially where there's hyperacusis. tinnitus is such a fucking weird thing. recent research points to some people's brains inserting the noise and others' brains just not.

xp I've been to the GP about it, and they had a look and (TMI time) I had *massive* amounts of ear wax in both ears

it's possible the ear wax is inhibiting the sound hairs in some way, but as per above i don't know what i am talking about