4 ms·

I'll probably never have proper quiet again, as since 2019 I've got permanent Tinnitus in one ear. I can ignore it sometimes, and I can sometimes cover it up a

I'll probably never have proper quiet again, as since 2019 I've got permanent Tinnitus in one ear. I can ignore it sometimes, and I can sometimes cover it up a bit with ambient noise like waves or out in nature, but it's always there. Not sure what caused it. Predates Covid so it's not that. Might have been working in an open office that always had 4-6 conversations going and I had play music on headphones loud enough to block it out, or my previous car that had a small hole in the muffler I never ended up getting fixed, it got kind of loud at times. Or possibly an antibiotic I took a long time ago I had a bad reaction to that's also known to contribute to tinnitus, although that was quite a ways back that I took it now. Regardless of the cause, I'm stuck with it now. No hearing loss either, at least not yet (I've been tested). Just that stupid ringing.

totetsu 3y ago
I just think of that ringing as the sound of silence.
- retrac 3y ago
  One interpretation is that nearly every person has some degree of tinnitus, but many are almost completely unaware of it - it's just perceived as silence under most circumstances. I hit my head once, and lost all hearing on one side; some of it returned after a week or so. When it did, I was extremely aware of my pulse thumping through my head, bones crunching in my neck, as well as minor fluid whooshing sounds when I moved. Quite disorienting! We are always hearing that, but it is normally almost completely filtered out, imperceptible because it's always present. It is my experience that absolute quiet is sometimes subjectively "louder" than very slight white noise, which can be perceived as true quiet. I also find I notice my tinnitus less under such conditions. This is analogous, in a rather deep way I suspect, to how most people perceive a perfectly dark visual field as grey noise [1], or amorphous slightly coloured blobs, or similar, but not a true black. A true, dark black can only be perceived in contrast to a lighter colour. Same with silence, perhaps. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigengrau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigengrau
  - cableshaft 3y ago
    I'm not entirely sure I didn't have tinnitus before, just that it was usually so quiet I didn't notice (I did have brief moments where I had the same ringing I had as I do now, it just only lasted like 20 seconds and then I couldn't hear it again). And I think I remember a few times in the past that I noticed a very, very mild ringing when I was concentrating hard trying to hear it, but maybe that's a false memory I'm inserting after the fact that I know I've got it now? I don't know. But in mid 2019 I started noticing that it was loud enough and persistent enough I couldn't ignore it easily anymore (I can for periods of time, but I have to actively distract myself now, whereas before I didn't need to).
scruple 3y ago
I drove over a mountain pass at 6,000 feet yesterday twice. Last night, after getting home, I say down to read and there was a noise in my right ear. It sounded digital in nature and was repeating. It was unnerving, I couldn't concentrate at all once I perceived it. My kids have a white noise device that they sleep with, so I commandeered it so that I could read a bit longer. That helped, but it was still there when I went to bed. It took me 30+ minutes to fall asleep, again it was very distracting. Today, I woke up with a lot of pressure in my right ear and nothing I did helped. The sound was gone, however, so I was thankful for that much. The pressure lasted until dinner. Tinnitus frightens me a bit. I'm sure that I'll be dealing with it eventually and I don't know how people can get along with it for years or decades without going completely mad.
- retrac 3y ago
  > It sounded digital in nature and was repeating. My tinnitus is somewhere between a sustained chorus that slowly changes its primary note, and yes, a low-speed multi-tone frequency-shift modem. [1] Closest description I can come up with. Seemingly discrete, constantly changing, warbling notes. First time I realized that, I thought it might be a sign of mental illness - misinterpreting sensory information as coded messages is never a good sign! But apparently not. Just how I perceive my tinnitus. I've heard others describe it in similar ways. Obviously, cultural priming is a factor here; if we had never heard digital modems before, maybe we'd describe it as bird song (as many with tinnitus do). [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/OLIVIA_500_16_sample.ogg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/OLIVIA_5...

totetsu 3y ago

I just think of that ringing as the sound of silence.

retrac 3y ago
One interpretation is that nearly every person has some degree of tinnitus, but many are almost completely unaware of it - it's just perceived as silence under most circumstances. I hit my head once, and lost all hearing on one side; some of it returned after a week or so. When it did, I was extremely aware of my pulse thumping through my head, bones crunching in my neck, as well as minor fluid whooshing sounds when I moved. Quite disorienting! We are always hearing that, but it is normally almost completely filtered out, imperceptible because it's always present. It is my experience that absolute quiet is sometimes subjectively "louder" than very slight white noise, which can be perceived as true quiet. I also find I notice my tinnitus less under such conditions. This is analogous, in a rather deep way I suspect, to how most people perceive a perfectly dark visual field as grey noise [1], or amorphous slightly coloured blobs, or similar, but not a true black. A true, dark black can only be perceived in contrast to a lighter colour. Same with silence, perhaps. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigengrau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigengrau
- cableshaft 3y ago
  I'm not entirely sure I didn't have tinnitus before, just that it was usually so quiet I didn't notice (I did have brief moments where I had the same ringing I had as I do now, it just only lasted like 20 seconds and then I couldn't hear it again). And I think I remember a few times in the past that I noticed a very, very mild ringing when I was concentrating hard trying to hear it, but maybe that's a false memory I'm inserting after the fact that I know I've got it now? I don't know. But in mid 2019 I started noticing that it was loud enough and persistent enough I couldn't ignore it easily anymore (I can for periods of time, but I have to actively distract myself now, whereas before I didn't need to).

scruple 3y ago

I drove over a mountain pass at 6,000 feet yesterday twice. Last night, after getting home, I say down to read and there was a noise in my right ear. It sounded digital in nature and was repeating. It was unnerving, I couldn't concentrate at all once I perceived it. My kids have a white noise device that they sleep with, so I commandeered it so that I could read a bit longer. That helped, but it was still there when I went to bed. It took me 30+ minutes to fall asleep, again it was very distracting. Today, I woke up with a lot of pressure in my right ear and nothing I did helped. The sound was gone, however, so I was thankful for that much. The pressure lasted until dinner. Tinnitus frightens me a bit. I'm sure that I'll be dealing with it eventually and I don't know how people can get along with it for years or decades without going completely mad.

retrac 3y ago
> It sounded digital in nature and was repeating. My tinnitus is somewhere between a sustained chorus that slowly changes its primary note, and yes, a low-speed multi-tone frequency-shift modem. [1] Closest description I can come up with. Seemingly discrete, constantly changing, warbling notes. First time I realized that, I thought it might be a sign of mental illness - misinterpreting sensory information as coded messages is never a good sign! But apparently not. Just how I perceive my tinnitus. I've heard others describe it in similar ways. Obviously, cultural priming is a factor here; if we had never heard digital modems before, maybe we'd describe it as bird song (as many with tinnitus do). [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/OLIVIA_500_16_sample.ogg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/OLIVIA_5...