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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

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...