5 ms·

Earplugs gave you tinnitus? Do you mean earbuds? Earplugs are typically hearing PPE.

eliseumds 5y ago
I've done pretty much everything I could imagine to try to identify the root cause, no doctor could give a reasonable diagnosis. My tinnitus started after a night with earplugs, but it could have been a coincidence since I also used noise-cancelled Sony headphones. Who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Zircom 5y ago
  Not to be rude but you ascribing an equal likelihood of causing tinnitus to one night of using earplugs(which BLOCK sound from your ears) vs presumably regular/sustained use of noise cancelling headphones(which BLAST sound into your ears) borders on ridiculousness and make me think you're just trolling..
  - Izkata 5y ago
    Earplugs go into the ear similar to earbuds, but are squishy and meant to be rolled thin so you can get them in a bit further (then they decompress halfway inside your ear and fill in the gaps). If you push them in too far I imagine they can damage the eardrum, which could cause tinnitus. After trying earplugs myself a few months ago, I decided it was too risky to sleep with them due to the pressure I felt in my ear (the one against the pillow) when I lay on my side.
    - AngryData 5y ago
      You would have to push your ear plugs in so far that you couldn't take them out to get anywhere near the eardrum though.
  - Panoramix 5y ago
    My tinnitus started after a night out with earplugs. Basically the earplugs pushed wax buildup deep into my eardrum. It took quite a while to remove that wax, and while that improved things a lot, the tinnitus stayed after that.
  - Khelavaster 5y ago
    Noise cancelling headphones definitively promote tinnitus
- krackers 5y ago
  Interesting, I've seen the claim of NC induced tinnitus a few other times. In terms of noise induced hearing loss it the canceling should not be an issue (since in the worst case of a complete misprediction you get only a doubling in intensity which), but since no canceling is perfect maybe the residual ends up adversely affecting the auditory pathways at a neurological level somehow.
- writeslowly 5y ago
  Maybe you first noticed it while using earplugs (since they’d block out basically everything else) and now it’s become difficult to ignore? I had something similar happen with noticing floaters in my eyes constantly over the pandemic
ivanche 5y ago
Anecdata, but another case here. I wear them approx. 6 months per year because of knocking heating sounds. Anyway, doctor recommended to do ear cleansing once a year and it helped, maybe 80% of the ringing sound is gone. Earplugs caused all the grease to end up compressed and deep in the ear canal. After a while it blocked signal transmission through the auditory nerve enough so that my brain thinks there's no audio input and it starts compensating with these imaginary ringing sounds.
burntoutfire 5y ago
Earplugs can give you tinnitus because they provide almost complete silence, in which your brain can latch on to the tinniest pre-existing tinnitus sound that was already there (which is pretty common in the current era of hearing-damaging equipment and environments), but you didn't notice it before. Once the brain notices it, it's basically impossible to unhear it. That's my theory at least.

I've done pretty much everything I could imagine to try to identify the root cause, no doctor could give a reasonable diagnosis. My tinnitus started after a night with earplugs, but it could have been a coincidence since I also used noise-cancelled Sony headphones. Who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Zircom 5y ago
Not to be rude but you ascribing an equal likelihood of causing tinnitus to one night of using earplugs(which BLOCK sound from your ears) vs presumably regular/sustained use of noise cancelling headphones(which BLAST sound into your ears) borders on ridiculousness and make me think you're just trolling..
- Izkata 5y ago
  Earplugs go into the ear similar to earbuds, but are squishy and meant to be rolled thin so you can get them in a bit further (then they decompress halfway inside your ear and fill in the gaps). If you push them in too far I imagine they can damage the eardrum, which could cause tinnitus. After trying earplugs myself a few months ago, I decided it was too risky to sleep with them due to the pressure I felt in my ear (the one against the pillow) when I lay on my side.
  - AngryData 5y ago
    You would have to push your ear plugs in so far that you couldn't take them out to get anywhere near the eardrum though.
- Panoramix 5y ago
  My tinnitus started after a night out with earplugs. Basically the earplugs pushed wax buildup deep into my eardrum. It took quite a while to remove that wax, and while that improved things a lot, the tinnitus stayed after that.
- Khelavaster 5y ago
  Noise cancelling headphones definitively promote tinnitus
krackers 5y ago
Interesting, I've seen the claim of NC induced tinnitus a few other times. In terms of noise induced hearing loss it the canceling should not be an issue (since in the worst case of a complete misprediction you get only a doubling in intensity which), but since no canceling is perfect maybe the residual ends up adversely affecting the auditory pathways at a neurological level somehow.
writeslowly 5y ago
Maybe you first noticed it while using earplugs (since they’d block out basically everything else) and now it’s become difficult to ignore? I had something similar happen with noticing floaters in my eyes constantly over the pandemic

ivanche 5y ago

Anecdata, but another case here. I wear them approx. 6 months per year because of knocking heating sounds. Anyway, doctor recommended to do ear cleansing once a year and it helped, maybe 80% of the ringing sound is gone. Earplugs caused all the grease to end up compressed and deep in the ear canal. After a while it blocked signal transmission through the auditory nerve enough so that my brain thinks there's no audio input and it starts compensating with these imaginary ringing sounds.

burntoutfire 5y ago

Earplugs can give you tinnitus because they provide almost complete silence, in which your brain can latch on to the tinniest pre-existing tinnitus sound that was already there (which is pretty common in the current era of hearing-damaging equipment and environments), but you didn't notice it before. Once the brain notices it, it's basically impossible to unhear it. That's my theory at least.