6 ms·

I hear it right now. Doesn't everyone?

by cevn 7y ago

dicknuckle 7y ago
My office has plenty of hum and hiss, so no.
- bdamm 7y ago
  This is exactly my problem as well. How would I actually be able to differentiate high pitches (which I hear constantly) from noisy electronics and power supplies? The times where I'm out in deep nature with utter quiet (e.g. no airplane flying overhead at 30,000 feet) is so rare that I couldn't say I'd achieved homeostasis with silence. So really I spend 99% of my life in near proximity (within 30') of some cheap electronics that could very well be the source of this constant high pitch background noise. Or it's me.
  - hluska 7y ago
    I have tinnitus and haven’t talked about this with other sufferers so this may just be me. But if I slowly plug and unplug my ears, the difference between tinnitus and all the background shit is obvious. The only way I can describe it is that the sound comes from a different place and when you change how your ear works, you can hear the differences between the sources. My hearing is awful so I really pray this anecdata is of no use to you.
  - falcolas 7y ago
    Ear plugs. If you can drop the surrounding noise by 35+db, you'll notice what's tinnitus and what's ambient noise. Funny story related to this question, one day in a conference room I thought my tinnitus was just particularly bad, until someone went and turned off some unused AV equipment. The pitch of the electronic noise was identical to my personal tinnitus (and different than someone else's - they commented that it wasn't the right pitch for them).
xvector 7y ago
Nope, that's tinnitus. But it's a fairly common condition.
- pas 7y ago
  What's the typical onset? (Since I remember <10 years old, I heard some noise and just accepted it as amplifier-like-no-signal-noise, even though regular hearing tests measured above average hearing. Though they don't cover the whole audible spectrum usually :/)
  - wildrhythms 7y ago
    Were you ever in a school band? I was in every band class the school offered from grade 6 thru 12 and I attribute my tinnitus to constant loud instruments every day in those enclosed spaces. Four of those years I sat directly in front of the percussion section in a tiered seating layout, where my ears were exposed to snare drum and cymbals from mere feet away. I have constant ringing in both ears... fortunately it isn’t debilitating for me. I hope awareness around ear protection continues to grow.
  - cevn 7y ago
    My experience as well
  - xvector 7y ago
    Same for me. Remember the noise since I was a small child. Always thought it was normal. Hearing tests consistently come back perfect. But yeah, hearing tests cover a very tiny portion of the spectrum. Audiology, in this regards, seems to be completely divorced from the frequencies people hear in real life. In reality, the vast majority of hearing tests barely cover the frequency range of human voice - let alone frequency ranges for music or even tinnitus. I asked my audiologist if it might be possible to cover a wider range of frequencies and she seemed flabbergasted that someone would even request such a thing. So, yeah. If you have tinnitus, or music isn't sounding as nice to you anymore, or for some reason bass frequencies sound off - well, you won't find out with a traditional hearing test.
hluska 7y ago
I’m not sure how old you are, but can 42 year old me give you some advice? Go get a hearing test. If I would have known about my tinnitus at 22, I would have a noticeably higher quality of life at 42...
- astrodust 7y ago
  Why? What would they do?
  - hluska 7y ago
    I would stopped damaging my hearing almost a decade before I did.
- idonotknowwhy 7y ago
  I know I have tinnitus in one ear, it happened at a nightclub when I stood to close to a speaker. This was 10 years ago. I'm perfectly happy with my condition, it's not getting worse and it's not preventing me from doing anything day to day. What good would getting my hearing tested now do me in the future?
  - hluska 7y ago
    Had I known more about my condition, I could have saved my ears from nearly a decade of damage.
- cevn 7y ago
  It's not really that bad, I only notice it when there is no other sound, then I can notice the high pitched ringing very clearly..

I hear it right now. Doesn't everyone?

by cevn 7y ago

I hear it right now. Doesn't everyone?

dicknuckle 7y ago

My office has plenty of hum and hiss, so no.

bdamm 7y ago
This is exactly my problem as well. How would I actually be able to differentiate high pitches (which I hear constantly) from noisy electronics and power supplies? The times where I'm out in deep nature with utter quiet (e.g. no airplane flying overhead at 30,000 feet) is so rare that I couldn't say I'd achieved homeostasis with silence. So really I spend 99% of my life in near proximity (within 30') of some cheap electronics that could very well be the source of this constant high pitch background noise. Or it's me.
- hluska 7y ago
  I have tinnitus and haven’t talked about this with other sufferers so this may just be me. But if I slowly plug and unplug my ears, the difference between tinnitus and all the background shit is obvious. The only way I can describe it is that the sound comes from a different place and when you change how your ear works, you can hear the differences between the sources. My hearing is awful so I really pray this anecdata is of no use to you.
- falcolas 7y ago
  Ear plugs. If you can drop the surrounding noise by 35+db, you'll notice what's tinnitus and what's ambient noise. Funny story related to this question, one day in a conference room I thought my tinnitus was just particularly bad, until someone went and turned off some unused AV equipment. The pitch of the electronic noise was identical to my personal tinnitus (and different than someone else's - they commented that it wasn't the right pitch for them).

xvector 7y ago

Nope, that's tinnitus. But it's a fairly common condition.

pas 7y ago
What's the typical onset? (Since I remember <10 years old, I heard some noise and just accepted it as amplifier-like-no-signal-noise, even though regular hearing tests measured above average hearing. Though they don't cover the whole audible spectrum usually :/)
- wildrhythms 7y ago
  Were you ever in a school band? I was in every band class the school offered from grade 6 thru 12 and I attribute my tinnitus to constant loud instruments every day in those enclosed spaces. Four of those years I sat directly in front of the percussion section in a tiered seating layout, where my ears were exposed to snare drum and cymbals from mere feet away. I have constant ringing in both ears... fortunately it isn’t debilitating for me. I hope awareness around ear protection continues to grow.
- cevn 7y ago
  My experience as well
- xvector 7y ago
  Same for me. Remember the noise since I was a small child. Always thought it was normal. Hearing tests consistently come back perfect. But yeah, hearing tests cover a very tiny portion of the spectrum. Audiology, in this regards, seems to be completely divorced from the frequencies people hear in real life. In reality, the vast majority of hearing tests barely cover the frequency range of human voice - let alone frequency ranges for music or even tinnitus. I asked my audiologist if it might be possible to cover a wider range of frequencies and she seemed flabbergasted that someone would even request such a thing. So, yeah. If you have tinnitus, or music isn't sounding as nice to you anymore, or for some reason bass frequencies sound off - well, you won't find out with a traditional hearing test.

hluska 7y ago

I’m not sure how old you are, but can 42 year old me give you some advice? Go get a hearing test. If I would have known about my tinnitus at 22, I would have a noticeably higher quality of life at 42...

astrodust 7y ago
Why? What would they do?
- hluska 7y ago
  I would stopped damaging my hearing almost a decade before I did.
idonotknowwhy 7y ago
I know I have tinnitus in one ear, it happened at a nightclub when I stood to close to a speaker. This was 10 years ago. I'm perfectly happy with my condition, it's not getting worse and it's not preventing me from doing anything day to day. What good would getting my hearing tested now do me in the future?
- hluska 7y ago
  Had I known more about my condition, I could have saved my ears from nearly a decade of damage.
cevn 7y ago
It's not really that bad, I only notice it when there is no other sound, then I can notice the high pitched ringing very clearly..