How Many Have Tinnitus?

[jefe1]

Wow this is a sobering thread to read. Almost 4 years ago I posted in this thread and now I believe I am experiencing tinnitus.
When it's quiet it isn't for me anymore .....
I have an audiology exam set for next month to test my hearing and tinnitus.
Well this is still better than joining the 27 club.

 

[newslane]

Two things I have learned: 1) like many have posted, you just have to learn to ignore it and, 2) short naps are killers. When I wake up, it's louder than ever.

Mine has a distinct pattern: every three days is exceptionally loud. When it's loud, something that works for me (temporarily) is listening to dense electronic music at a decent volume. After a few minutes, it often goes away completely - but returns after 30 minutes or so.

Also, listening to one of the tinnitus-masking You Tube videos with earbuds as you go to sleep can work, too.

 

[JediJoker]

After a few minutes, it often goes away completely...

I don't think it actually "goes away." The neurophysical phenomenon continues; you've simply masked it from your conscious perception. To be fair, perception is tantamount to reality.

 

[Gimme 4]

I have what's best described as the high frequency sine wave too. Right ear worse. I think that right ear issue was brought on from a really loud Brian Auger show I went to in 1975 or so. My right ear was toward a bank of speakers on the stage. It was extremely loud. Plus working for 4 years in a fairly noisy environment on reel to reel and cassette decks playing 10 kHz test tones doing alignments, right into my ears from a pair of speakers about 3 ft away. Mine sounds like two frequencies up around 10 kHz but just a few Hz apart that makes a "heterodyne" or beat. As others have noted it goes completely away sometimes. Often after I've listened to my stereo really loud. Maybe de-senses the nerves for a while I don't know. I've always thought if it goes away sometimes, there would be a way to control it, but I haven't found that yet.

 

[barfle]

I found that, there is no treatment other than learning to ignore it.

Ain’t it the truth!

 

[kap'n krunch]

maybe we should "paraphrase" Phil Collins and Genesis and all sing...
"cause TINNITUS, TINNITUS, TINNITUS...eeeeee, EEEEEEEEEEEEE"

 

[Sal1950]

I changed churches as a result. The pastor was the one who wanted the chest-thumping bass.

Was this some type of Rock & Roll based church?

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Well, this has been a fascinating resurrection of a thread. As I have some hearing deficit too at least I feel I am in good company!

One thing that stands out in all these posts is no matter what your particular hearing problem might, everyone is still listening to music, and loving it! If one has problems it's better to have it equal in both ears. My mom had only one good ear & she had no sense of sonic direction. Once she called me up to tell me her home thermostat was beeping. Mom, your (ancient Honeywell) thermostat can not beep. Turns out it was a low battery in the smoke detector.

And I think if you can hear pretty much equal in both hears the brain seems to fill in the blanks from past memory. You know cymbal hits or the schiff on a reed instrument sounds almost as crisp as 20 years ago. And the nice thing about Hi-Fi Surround is you can adjust loudness, treble, balance to suit yourself. If only we could do that elsewhere!

My tinnitus started at an anime con that featured a group called The Earthbound Pappas. From Japan the feature music from the Final Fantasy games. Really it's very good & more variety than you might expect.



Problem is it's an extremely loud performance. Louder than I've ever heard in my life. Such deep percussive bass pounding you in the chest it's like audio CPR. Everything else in matching volume. Towards a songs end, they would start to fade out & the audience would start clapping. The combined sounds actually did pain my ears & felt like ice picks were being driven through my ear drums.

Why didn't I move or leave? Because I'm a dumb ass. And I really liked the music & had the perfect sweet spot in the auditorium. I have a friend who is a Dead Head & follows the splinter groups around the country. He always uses ear plugs. Now I understand why.

So now I have some high pitched sine wave constant, some threshold deficit, & I'm sure some high end roll off. Haha maybe that's why CD's sound so good. I only have 10bit ears!!

But I for the last twenty years I wear both ear plugs & over the ear protection when cutting grass, leaf blowers, etc. I always said if I lose my hearing it will be from old age & loud music, not a lawnmower. I guess I've achieved that!

 

[cbmmm3]

acquired mine is 2009. bicycle accident. something about 20 feet of free flight - hard landing - and a bike helmet that shattered and sounded like a cannon
( thank the good Lord I had it on !! ) going off in my head. But ? Im still rocking !! Weirdest thing - certain frequencies are hard to hear. The most prevelant is my wifes voice.

 

[Nyad]

Brain injury really sets it off, while I was lying in the neuro ward I could swear I could hear an earth tunneling machine which was putting through a road tunnel (I couldn't!) Actually had 3 levels of tinnitus going simultaneously, one was definitely related to blood-flow. Another maddening form was an echo related to any sound. My brain rehab therapist rightly pointed out that all but the high pitched ringing around 10khz would fade as the brain reprogrammed my hearing, the 10khz white noise sometimes pulsates like cicadas (esp when stressed), mostly it is like a pressure wave. I also spent a bit of time working on music festivals (usually backsage luckily) over the past 15 years, not to mention working in a room with a noisy spray booth with a loud stereo. At 57 my hearing rolls off at 14khz.

 

[DuncanS]

I 'think' I have Tinnitus in my right ear, which is the one I get quite a lot of infections in for some reason. Luckily, which is why I say I think I have, it is a not too loud continuous very high pitched whistle, or my brain has dialled it out!

 

[Infomas]

I like to blame Led Zep and Lou Reed (the Sally Can't Dance show was super loud and distorted, maybe the loudest show I've ever been to), but the reality is, it was all my fault. I had tasted it after the Houses of the Holy tour and when it went away I just kept submitting my ears to the punishment until about 20 or 25 years ago, it decided to stay full time. Mine is also a high pitched white noise kind of sound. I think it is around the 8k mark because that is where most of my hearing loss is. I now hate silence. My wife tries to get me to go to meditation outings where there is complete silence. No way!

A few months ago, I swear it disappeared for a an hour. Maybe I was dreaming. It was heavenly. Still, it is better than before when I had a crackle in my left ear that would happen when I listed to Tom Petty tapes or my ex mother in law would talk into my left ear (the only non music human that made it happen).

 

[fizzywiggs41]

I have to sleep with a fan on. Total silence just puts a bright spotlight on the high pitched whine.

I find that I'm good at daydreaming when I lay in bed

 

[fizzywiggs41]

I got mine when a sound man at my church decided to ignore the safety rules and turned it way up.

He also added infrasonic sound to give that "chest-thumping bass". This is very painful to people who have stenosis of the helicotrema.

I changed churches as a result. The pastor was the one who wanted the chest-thumping bass.

I have a constant hiss and a small gap in my left-channel response.

He probably liked I. RON Butterfly's ...In The Garden Of Eden

 

[Sonik Wiz]

I find that I'm good at daydreaming when I lay in bed

"You're a dreamer. Nothing but a dreamer."

 

[fizzywiggs41]

"You're a dreamer. Nothing but a dreamer."

Yeass ,...both me and Supertramp.

 

[teshil]

I got it during my mining days. It ruined my ability to listened to music and that was sad, and its constant presence annoying company! But, I slowly started working on it and tried to understand it. It came down to a few things. Food, Sleep and Stress. The first two are easy. After a very good sleep, my tinnitus vanished for even a couple of days. Food was mostly trail and error. The stress was the hardest. I needed to understand those matters that stressed me, and learned to change my perspective on it. That took about 5 years of adapting and reconfiguring how my thought processes operated. I still have it today, it comes and goes, but does not bother me anymore. My 2 cents.

 

[svengaleekie]

I'm pretty sure I have it (not officially diagnosed) an ever-present white noise accompanied by what I guess is what others here call a sine wave. Mine is not terrible to live with, not high volume, but it causes me to raise the volume of my audio devices, especially for speech in film and TV to be able to understand it better. 30 years in the fire service standing next to screaming engines/pumps could have done it along with my love of loud music and live concerts. I suppose I should get off my ass and get it looked at, but it's one of those things you imagine nothing can be done about.

 

[Owen Smith]

I find the fire alarms at work painfully loud. We're told we should drop everything and leave immediately. I was asked why I hadn't done that at the last drill, and my answer was because I was concentrating on sticking my fingers in my ears to stop the pain of the noise. I asked for the fire alarms to be made quieter, but was told they can't because they risk being fined if someone dies because they couldn't hear it. Meanwhile they're deafening everybody.

 

[dadmav]

Mine is so bad I am considering selling all of my music collection, rarely listen anymore . Tinnitus and hearing loss is maddening.