28 ms·

Tinnitus linked to undetected auditory nerve damage

• beefman 3y ago
  paper (open access): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-46741-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-46741-5 older report (2016) from one of the authors: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27108594/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27108594/ planned study: https://oto.hms.harvard.edu/news/dr-zheng-yi-chen-named-principal-investigator-hearing-restoration-research-program-grant https://oto.hms.harvard.edu/news/dr-zheng-yi-chen-named-prin...
• jader201 3y ago
  Cue all the top comments about why this isn’t news, or how we’re no closer to a cure. I’ve just accepted that there won’t be a cure anytime soon, and come to terms with it. Would love to be proven wrong, but I think they’ll find a cure for tinnitus when they can cure baldness and cancer.
  • vlovich123 3y ago
    I get the point but we can cure many many forms of cancer and have treatments for baldness so it feels like a moving goalposts situation.
    • thaumasiotes 3y ago
      > we can cure many many forms of cancer We can try. Sometimes the cancer doesn't come back, and sometimes it does, and in no case do we understand why. This is not what most people mean by "cure".
      • noirbot 3y ago
        Earnest curiosity - when someone is cured of cancer, and it comes back, is that different from me being cured of the flu and then catching the flu again later? Obviously it's different sorts of malady, but is it that the same cancer comes back, or is it just that if you had kidney cancer once, it's likely you might get it again? Or do we just not know enough about cancer to say/it varies on the sort of cancer? It's not like being cured normally means "and you'll never get that again ever".
        • beeboobaa 3y ago
          You don't typically catch cancer riding the bus.
          • vlovich123 3y ago
            That’s kind of a flippant answer. I hope you know that viruses (particularly the herpes family) cause at least some forms of cancer and herpes is super transmissible and most people have some form (in particular familial herpes but also chicken pox). Can you catch it from riding a bus? Probably not. But I don’t think you were talking about literally from riding a bus but we don’t know if it’s a viral infection that’s untreated and has flare ups or if you can treat the viral infection and get reinfected. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s both - typically it’s a flare up but even if you cured the viral infection you could get reinfected and get cancer expressed again.
          • noirbot 3y ago
            Yea, no shit. That's not the question I was asking. You can choose to be an annoying literalist, or you can be informative, or you can be quiet. You've chosen the least socially reasonable of them.
        • mlyle 3y ago
          We're mostly talking about it coming back. A treatment might eliminate the vast amount of cancer cells, but some can be lying dormant and wake back up at some later time (and since they survived, the ones that are more resistant to treatment have been selected-- prognosis is then much worse the second time around). Or sometimes those "seeds" of recurrent cancer never awake. Of course, people who get one cancer are, on average, more genetically and environmentally exposed to cancer risk. Cancer treatments themselves can even increase the risk of new cancer in some cases. So getting an entirely independent cancer is possible, too.
          • noirbot 3y ago
            That was mostly what I had in mind. There's plenty of diseases where you're cured in the sense that your body can passively take care of it from here, but there's a chance it flares up again. I was unclear if most cancers were a "you got rid of it, but a different part of your kidney developed a cancer now" as compared to "that cancer you had before is back"
      • mlyle 3y ago
        I don't think we have very many treatments that are 100% efficacious and durable for most conditions, even ones that are generally considered curative. If you take antibiotics-- sometimes it doesn't seem to work at all, and some other times the infection comes back after the cessation of treatment. This is true because of some reasons that are well-understood, and others that aren't. Yes, most cancers are worse on these metrics than most uses of antibiotics, but not always ridiculously so. There are cancers with 5 year survival rates of >95%, and with very low recurrence rates after 5 years.
  • _factor 3y ago
    Diseases without the possibility of animal testing are going to take a long time.
    • anonymouskimmer 3y ago
      You could study auditory nerve regeneration in animals, it would just be difficult to determine whether or not it cures any tinnitus that they have.
    • petra 3y ago
      You could probably be possible to create an animal model by destroying some hearing cells/sensors in the ear. As for creating a device to detect what the animal "hears", similar to how there's some research that used fmri with machine learning to "see dreams",it might be possible to do that for animal hearing.
  • __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    I don't think that's a very good comparison. Cancer strikes at the very heart of what we are (a bunch of cells which are expected to cooperate and sometimes don't). Compared with that, tinnitus seems pretty hackable.
    • labster 3y ago
      Baldness seems like a good comparison, though, given how hearing involves hair in the inner ear. Cancer is thousands of different disorders so it’s unlikely there will ever be a single cure; making hair grow where we want it is a simpler task.
      • anonymouskimmer 3y ago
        It's cilia, not hair, growing from the hair cells in the inner ear. Other than that nitpick, sure.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• jacquesm 3y ago
  Can't wait. With me it is ups-and-downs, at times it's great for months at a stretch and sometimes it is so bad I can't listen to music (or play). There are many different forms of tinnitus and usually some mechanism or cure operates only on a fraction of all cases so I'm hoping that this is as broad as possible. Note to younger self: stay away from loud concerts.
  • nzoschke 3y ago
    Sorry to hear. You’re not alone and I’m constantly surprised to learn how many people I know are dealing with hearing concerns once I started talking about mine more. My note to younger self is similar: get great earplugs and use them diligently.
    • strogonoff 3y ago
      A note of caution regarding earplugs: they can introduce infection, which in turn (I suspect) may play a role in triggering or causing tinnitus. It probably depends on individual predisposition and climate (to me it happened in hot humid environment), but I recommend caution. I wish I could use earplugs (or IEM headphones with good sound isolation) a lot of the time, but I found out the hard way (after infection subsided I have intermittent tinnitus as well).
    • monkpit 3y ago
      > Sorry to hear. Phrasing…
      • jacquesm 3y ago
        I thought it was funny.
  • hanniabu 3y ago
    Have you been on antibiotics since you had it? If so, did it make it any worse? I have a slight case of tinnitus and need to do a 2 week round of neomycin. Doctor says it shouldn't make it worse since it's a short course, but I'm still concerned/anxious about it.
• beeman45 3y ago
  [flagged]
• lemper 3y ago
  good stuff, mate. it's been 8 goddamn years since my right ear ngiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiings all the time. I'm fine with waiting for another or two 8 years, but please, show some result. pretty please with cherry on top.
• spacebacon 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • spacebacon 3y ago
    What I am saying is that know-it-all types, who have come full circle with this and demonstrate full spectrum brainwave mastery, may have developed tinnitus as a result of experiencing too much fight or flight while fervently enumerating their existential understanding of who they exactly are. But by all means downvote the statement for sloppy writing or your inability to draw the correlation.
    • spacebacon 3y ago
      Maybe they struggle with understanding inward facing hyper vigilance vs outward facing hyper vigilance and feel it is too dangerous of a word for a reasonable person to associate with.
• nomy99 3y ago
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  • nonethewiser 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • nomy99 3y ago
      I don't know. I feel he left me too early to explain since he died prematurely of cancer..
      • xdor9291 3y ago
        [flagged]
        • nomy99 3y ago
          no, but im interested in your curiousity
        • nomy99 3y ago
          do you think it had to do with earing because of the tinniuts? in this case you are disrespecting many americans who have cancers that are not ear based...
        • nomy99 3y ago
          [flagged]
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • nomy99 3y ago
      also..is this a HN worthy statement of questioning???
    • nomy99 3y ago
      so i lost a few points because of your comment... why would you think my dad trickd me?
• localghost3000 3y ago
  I've got multiple tones in both ears. Most of the time I don't notice it but sometimes... well it's hard not to panic when you realize you can't escape it. I would very much like to experience life without the ringing again before I kick the bucket. I'd honestly probably cry.
  • m3kw9 3y ago
    Makes me realize I should not take even the most mundane things for granted
    • hanniabu 3y ago
      Facts. I used to take a lot for granted. Now I not only have tinnitus, but also muscularskeletal and digestion issues. I'd love to go back to being healthy again, but sometimes you're dealt a shit hand. And you never know what will happen tomorrow that will change the rest of your life.
  • jimmaswell 3y ago
    It's almost always been there for me if a room is too quiet, but somehow it just doesn't bother me no matter how much I notice or think about it. It's just there.
  • cmehdy 3y ago
    Have you ever tried the back of the head tap thing? https://lifehacker.com/this-weird-trick-might-give-you-brief-relief-from-your-1794093023 https://lifehacker.com/this-weird-trick-might-give-you-brief...
    • fermentation 3y ago
      I wish all of these weird tricks worked. I’m sure all of us tried them during our initial panic
  • LoganDark 3y ago
    I don't think I have tinnitus, but I made a bad choice of power supply for some of my audio equipment, and it emits an annoying whine from one of its fans. Which is bad because this is supposed to be audio equipment. I may simply remove that fan in the future.
• doodlebugging 3y ago
  I recently bought a couple of audiomoths for monitoring or tracking birds passing through my area. It records up to 192kHz I think so it can pick up ultrasonic chirps from bats. Anyway while passing the recorded data into Audacity to search for bird calls I was able to finally nail down the bandwidth where my tinnitus overwhelms all other signal and to begin to understand the depth of my work-related hearing loss. I use the low and high pass filters to extract the signals across discrete frequencies and then track the level of gain I need to apply in order to be able to hear the calls that are in each extracted band. This is quite useful for me as before I knew that there are sounds I cannot hear unless there is almost no background noise but I had no idea where they were spectrally or just how much hearing loss I had in each band. I could potentially use this information to design a hearing aid that boosts sounds in the affected bands so that I can hear them. I am not sure I can inverse filter the tinnitus-related noise since it is random intensity though a notch filter could be an option since it is narrow band. I hope the tinnitus discovery thing in this article ends up being useful.
  • thibaut_barrere 3y ago
    It's a great idea - and a more detailed diagnosis compared to what some professionals do. I had no idea audiomoths were a thing by the way! Will look into that.
    • doodlebugging 3y ago
      I'm really liking these audiomoths. Broadband recording at high fidelity with long, unattended recording possible. I'm trying to see whether I can identify individual crows among a family of pecan-stealers active in my area. I almost have them accustomed to checking my porch for raw peanuts as part of their regular rotation. I probably need cameras to be able match the bird to the call and identify individual birds and I don't yet have that but I will in time. For now I am getting familiar with all the normal noises out here and the frequencies they occupy so that I can visually separate bird calls at various frequencies from ambulances, airplanes, helicopters, automobiles, barking dogs, etc so I can spend more time analyzing interesting signals from the birds out here. If you have time to acquire a new hobby, an audiomoth is a great tool.
• idontwantthis 3y ago
  Tinnitus is so strange. It’s like depression. You can’t will it away, but if you start to feel better it also gets better. And if you feel worse it gets worse. And both reinforce each other. It’s not just perception and it’s not just physical. Physical symptoms make it seem worse and when it seems worse it actually gets worse. The best thing to do is accept that you have it and try to never hear it, so that you don’t think about it. Then it might actually (not just psycholgicy) get better. It won’t be cured, but it can have a huge improvement.
• deleted 3y ago
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• ohm 3y ago
  Mine has gotten pretty bad it’s constant now. Before hitting the back of skull worked for a bit and listening to YouTube tinnitus scrubber worked but not anymore. Hoping this can be fixed one day.
• adamddev1 3y ago
  Here's a very interesting study about how manual osteopathy on the temporal bones could help the auditory nerve/tinnitus. It's been a huge relief for me. https://norcaloa.com/CAOT/articles-in-press/CAOT-101018 https://norcaloa.com/CAOT/articles-in-press/CAOT-101018 I've suffered from tinnitus that's gotten worse at times, and for me it definitely feels like there's some sort of nerve that's pinched or damaged because my hearing is totally fine but when certain muscles are tight in the area it gets louder, when I yawn it squeezes something and I get this loud tone, and sometimes it gets worse with pressure or impact. I had a very nasty and loud lower tone but I found physiotherapy around the neck and especially osteopathy around the temporal bone very, very effective in reducing/eliminating that lower tone. Osteopaths will talk about how if the temporal bone is stuck in rotation it can pinch/damage the auditory nerve. I don't fully understand the mechanics but whatever they do WORKS for me in taking away the loudest tone of tinnitus.
  • htamas 3y ago
    I told my doctor about this effect of yawning and he said that’s just a reflex, unrelated. However my tinnitus started when they removed my wisdom teeth and that’s also when my TMJ started, so I’m pretty sure they are somehow related, and my tinnitus is generated by some kind of a bone/ligament alignment issue. It’s very interesting what you said about ostheopathy, I would try it out except I’m afraid it can just as well make it worse as it can make it better if the ostheopath doesn’t know what they’re doing. At least that’s what dentists told me when I asked about if fixing my TMJ would fix my tinnitus.
    • adamddev1 3y ago
      Ya I also have had wisdom teeth removed and TMJ issues for a long time, and it also seems related. The nice thing about Osteopathy is that it's very gentle so it shouldn't be as dangerous as more aggressive or invasive treatments. Some Osteopaths are especially experienced with ear-related things. I've had very, very good results from it personally. For me the biggest help has been that as well as general physio/exercises (especially eccentric neck muscle exercises with a exercise band) around the neck getting all hose muscles healthy and relaxed.
• mongol 3y ago
  I got tinnitus in one ear after a fall where I hit my face hard on a table. After being careful with loud music my entire life this feels like a bummer. But accidents happen and it could have been worse. I also got some numbness in other parts of my face that slowly got better so I have some hope the tinnitus may improve.
• janmo 3y ago
  Most people having a peeep tone tinnitus including myself can experience complete silence for a few seconds (up to 30) by listening to a tone at the specific frequency of their Tinnitus. For example listen to the following, at a level that it isn't uncomfortable and your Tinnitus might be gone for a short time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNf9nzvnd1k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNf9nzvnd1k This is called residual inhibition. You can Google "tinnitus residual inhibition" and find many papers about it. Benzodiazepines work also very well in some cases, when taking them I have no Tinnitus at all, but that's ABSOLUTELY NOT a viable long term solution because of the long term negative effects. I am not sure about this paper, but what I've read and believe the most is that the Tinnitus is caused by neurons in the brain, that have lost nerve input signals from the ear (due to hearing loss, nerve damage etc..), and start to emit parasite signals. Benzodiazepines reduce the brain activity thus reducing/silencing the tinnitus. Residual inhibition seems to work by stimulating the region where the hearing loss has occurred, the neurons responsible for the Tinnitus all the sudden get stimulated and stop emitting noise signals for a few dozens of seconds then resume. But so far there is still a lot of research to be done and we are decades away from a cure that is SAFE enough. Benzos work but are just not worth it, this is like fighting back pain with opoids. Until then I think it is best to protect our hearing, you can buy custom made earplugs which are comfortable to wear, last about 5 years and cost around 200 USD. I use them when I am in loud environments like on an air plane, train, at a bar etc... Also it is best not be in completely silent environment as this is where you will notice the Tinnitus. When listening to music with headphones it is important to take regular breaks and not to push the volume too high to give your ears some rest. Edit: Last advice, don't try to listen to your tinnitus, but focus on other noises/sounds, if you are listening to the Tinnitus you are telling your brain that the signal is important, when you should be telling it, that it isn't.
  • moribvndvs 3y ago
    My tinnitus has a very recent onset. So far it’s pretty mild but I expect it to get much worse. Your advise is the most practical, at least for mild cases: baby the ever living shit out of your hearing (I have spent decades in the underground metal scene and didn’t wear ear plugs until the past 5 or so years. What a colossally stupid thing to do. Please: if you’re young, remember you are not invincible, you’re merely borrowing heavily from future you) and avoid complete silence. I’ve also noticed that it will occasionally hit me hard in bursts. When that happens, I can make like I’m covering my ears with my palms and tap my finger tips on the back of my head for a few seconds and the roar will die down. Doesn’t go away permanently but so far it provides a little relief from those painful stabs.
• petersumskas 3y ago
  I have tinnitus. I had brain surgery to remove an acoustic schwannoma. The doctor said that I would lose all hearing in the ear due to the unavoidable damage to the acoustic nerve. Well, at least that will get rid of the tinnitus, I thought. No such luck! I still have tinnitus. As such I think there may be more to tinnitus than undetected nerve damage. It isn’t clear cut though: I have some hearing in that ear after all (to the surprise of the doctor). But the tinnitus came back (or never went away) before any hearing returned.
  • janmo 3y ago
    You are not the only one, in fact removing acoustic nerve is known not to fix the tinnitus / sometimes making it worse. The research has has shown so far that it appears the Tinnitus is coming from within the brain, neurons that have lost the input signal from the acoustic nerve aren't stimulated anymore and in response start to emit noise signals on their own.
    • 1letterunixname 3y ago
      This makes sense in a "phantom limb" way.
    • eecc 3y ago
      Makes me wonder if nervous transduction is based on PLL resonant circuits
  • dh3 3y ago
    I have the same tumor on the auditory nerve on both sides (NF2). Had surgery on one side. Lost full hearing on that side (so auditory nerve almost fully severed). Always had tinnitus but after surgery it's gotten much worse on that side. Not unbearable but a constant source of noise. I can see there being some sort of connection between the nerve and tinnitus.
  • 1letterunixname 3y ago
    My dad had one of those. They used to be called acoustic neuromas. He lost hearing in one ear because of the lack of microneurosurgey at the time and the way it was wrapped around CN 8.
• theonemind 3y ago
  I have tinnitus and strangely, I have no real idea when it started, much less what caused it. Maybe it just started softly and got louder. I think it appeared in my early 20s, couldn't swear that it didn't start way before then, and I'm pretty sure it was there when I was about 30. It seems strange somehow that I just don't actually know.
  • keithnz 3y ago
    mine just suddenly happened. It really bothered me to start with, now I barely notice it even though its actually kind of loud.
• timlod 3y ago
  I've had Tinnitus since I was 14 (when I went to a concert and stood in front of the speakers). A couple of pieces of advice to people who might be struggling with their tinnitus: 1. You need to learn to cope with it - once you're used to it, it will mostly fade into the background and be manageable. Accepting that it'll never be silent again was very difficult, but that's the only thing hat helped me feel better in the end. 2. Wear ear plugs when it gets too loud! It's too easy to get irreversible damage to your hearing, and that's the only thing you can really do - prevent it. Curiously, yesterday I woke up at night because the tinnitus had gotten louder again - stupidly, I played drums the other day at a jam session without earplugs. I could punch myself for that one, and see it as (yet another) wakeup call to be more careful.
  • jchook 3y ago
    Is tinnitus really just "freaker by the speaker" syndrome?
    • philjohn 3y ago
      No - I had tinnitus from when I was quite a young child. As OP said though - it's a case of, if you focus on it, it'll weigh you down.
    • Naijoko 3y ago
      No. Many people got it because of burn out stress for example.
    • Gare 3y ago
      Prolonged exposure to loud sounds, short extremely loud sounds (explosions), ototoxic drugs (some antibiotics, chemo..) and substances (toluene..) and viral infections that spread into inner ear can all cause cochlear damage and therefore tinnitus.
      • collyw 3y ago
        Covid vaccines as well. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8788157/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8788157/ I know, I am a heretic for drawing any negative attention to our savior from the deadly pandemic.
• iJohnDoe 3y ago
  Have Tinnitus. I had the ever common thinking it was caused by a visit to the dentist or the antibiotics that were prescribed. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. It was also possibly when I walked behind a server rack and the fans were blowing air and the sound from the fans were loud, both into my ears. This could could have caused the damage that caused the tinnitus. Took about two days to kick in fully. Tinnitus started, then stoped. Then started like it wanted to kick in fully and then stopped. Then started and never left. 99% of the time I never notice it. 1% of the time I do notice. I also think it has something to do with neck pain and the muscles behind the head and around the neck. If I sleep in the wrong position and get a sore neck, then the tinnitus is crazy loud. I remember thinking my life would never be the same. I was stuck with this forever. Pretty traumatic event. To anyone else out there, please find comfort that you’ll get used to it. You won’t notice it. It’s not the end of the world. Don’t stress. You’ll be fine.
  • talldrinkofwhat 3y ago
    The beauty of our race is it's absurd ability to accept uncomfortable situations as "normal". the obvious exceptions being chronic pain, and the jets' imperative to steal defeat from the jaws of victory.
  • bandola 3y ago
    Thank you. I needed to hear the last part.
• teh_infallible 3y ago
  I’m surprised no one has suggested noise canceling headphones as a possible cause. There was an HN post about this awhile back
• jomamasayknocku 3y ago
  I’m surprised more people haven’t mentioned noise canceling headphones as a possible cause. There was an HN thread about this awhile back. This has been mentioned on many forums, google it.
  • idonotknowwhy 3y ago
    We had tinnitus before anc was common
  • abdela 3y ago
    My tinnitus (from a single loud party), which I had before noise canceling headphones, gets worse with noise canceling headphones, but only temporarily, like 2 or 3 days. I found out as well that my headphones plays my own voice back to me so that I dont shout, but was able to turn that off in the settings (Jabra 2), which seems to help.
    • teh_infallible 3y ago
      I’m not saying it’s the only cause, but it may well aggravate it. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250886390 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250886390
• mrtksn 3y ago
  I have tinnitus which I managed to cure(almost. In complete silence I still can hear a teapot-like sound but the original single tone high volume sound is no more). Turns out it’s about my neck. I religiously paid attention to my neck position and fixed my posture, and as a result, my tinnitus gradually disappeared. If I sit in a bad position or sometimes do some weird move, my tinnitus can return but I immediately start a neck massage and fix my posture, and it goes away. Sometimes it can be very severe and lower volume version remains, but it goes away the next day. I think it happened because I used to move my head forward when sitting in front of a screen. There are chiropractors, who claim to fix tinnitus by fixing the head position and say that it’s associated with some nerve in the neck.
  • zelphirkalt 3y ago
    Can you describe in more detail how you adjust your position? You move your neck back, I guess, and anything else?
    • mrtksn 3y ago
      IIRC, when I was trying to mask the sound with the shower I noticed that it's not working when the water is cold or when I'm not comfortably under it. Then I had a few days of road trip without the laptop and noticed improvement when I was driving, sitting up straight. So I decided to work on this and bought a keyboard and a mouse and made myself a rule that I will always use the laptop with a stand or external display so I don't lean over the laptop and sit straight up the way it is ergonomically recommended, pretty much like it says on articles like this: https://healthandbalance.com.au/workstation-desk-posture-ergonomics/ https://healthandbalance.com.au/workstation-desk-posture-erg... I also begin doing neck exercises, recommended to me by an orthopedist(I got some neck pain for a few days, the orthopedist gave me a couple of movement I should do regularly to increase the straight of my neck muscles, I will leave links to the leaflets of the movements). I also did the push the chin to push your head back movement because although I didn't have clinically severe situation with my head moving forward I noticed that on my old photos my head wasn't leaning forward that much. After a week or so after I started sitting right, my tinnitus begin to improve rapidly. I even began sleeping the orthopedically correct way and avoiding any stress positions. After some time I tried experimenting stress positions, like using the laptop the way I used to and the tinnitus returned in full force until I fix the posture and do some massages. After a year or two the tinnitus was almost completely gone and stress positions don't immediately bring it back anymore so I can use laptop again but if I'm not careful and overdo it, get carried away and lean into the screen it returns. the leaflets: https://imgbb.com/XWnTZVB https://imgbb.com/XWnTZVB https://imgbb.com/r6PBbTK https://imgbb.com/r6PBbTK
• tom8opot8o 3y ago
  I had tinnitus my entire life and it’s really annoying. I always thought everyone had it too, until I found out they didn’t, which, in a way, was even more annoying. At the same, I can say my hearing is pretty sharp. I often hear sounds that are too subtle or far away for others to hear. So I’m not sure if in my case the ringing has to do with hearing loss. But I’d be so happy to give anything a shot
  • LoganDark 3y ago
    I can hear ringing in dead silence, and if I pay close attention I can hear it without silence, too. But some say that's just blood flowing, and real tinnitus is much more obvious. Regardless, I can't escape it either. If I focus on it, I can make myself dissociate from the pain.
• nomy99 3y ago
  its diabetes in disguise is what my doc said
  • JPLeRouzic 3y ago
    Hey, this is very interesting. Do you have any pointer?
    • nomy99 3y ago
      The inflammation in your body can be picked up by your ears if you are sensitive to it
      • JPLeRouzic 3y ago
        Yes, a quick search through Pubmed shows that 25% of Diabetes patients have Tinnitus. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35261656/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35261656/
• beltsazar 3y ago
  I have a relatively minor tinnitus, which I thought was caused by my drum lessons in my early twenties. But when I tried to remember it, I always heard something like a tinnitus sound (albeit quieter) whenever I closed my ears with my hands since my childhood, during which I was never exposed to any loud music or sound.
• LoganDark 3y ago
  I sometimes have a difficult time trying to tell if I actually have tinnitus, or if I can simply detect something that's there for everyone. Plenty of websites say that you will always be able to hear the blood flowing through your ears, and that doesn't count as tinnitus. It's just that most people subconsciously filter that out, to the point where it can't be detected even if they look for it, except while in a completely silent, noise-deadening room, such as an anechoic chamber. It's similar to how I don't have any issues with color in my vision, yet when I look at a completely solid and flat color, I can see noise in it. It's not visual snow, because it obstructs nothing and I can easily tell the difference between even very similar colors, but I don't seem to experience the "noise reduction effect" where if I stare at a solid color, it is completely and entirely solid and unchanging and has no noise at all. I believe I'm simply observing entropy, and that noise is supposed to be there, because it's impossible for light to always explore all possible paths instantaneously and exhaustively. But I'm not supposed to be able to notice or perceive it, I don't think. I think it has to do with me being autistic, but it's hard to find any descriptions of similar experiences online, and it's also hard to communicate about it with others. Exception: my right eye has significantly more noise, to the point where it's difficult to actually see and read through that eye, even though I can still see all colors and text perfectly sharply. If I close my left eye, I will see the darkness through my right, to the point where it's distracting. I think this was an error caused by me being cross-eyed at birth; my right eye just sorta deteriorated, and now it only exists for depth perception.
  • idonotknowwhy 3y ago
    I see the same noise, but I think it's along our nerves rather than the light it's self. High rest camera don't pick it up for example. There's a lot of filtering happening in the visual cortex all the time. Your nose for example is visible but gets ignored. (I hate it when I remember this and suddenly notice it lol) There's also the blind spot in each eye which gets covered by what the other eye can see. If I close one eye now, I can alway see exactly where that blind spot is now. After I had an eye test where they flashed a light in my eyes, I perceived the blood vessels. Now I can sometimes perceive them if I look at a white TV screen and pay attention.
• nostromo 3y ago
  A lot of us also spend too much time in quiet environments. When I’m outside, my tinnitus is barely noticeable. It’s only when I’m in my silent office does it drive me crazy.
• jader201 3y ago
  I don’t know if this is a clue, but I can do muscle movements in my head/face/jaw to make the tinnitus worse (only as I make the movements, immediately reverting back to “normal” tinnitus as soon as I relax). Some examples: - jutting my jaw forwards - moving my ears back with my face muscles - pushing downward on the top of my head with my hands Another possible clue: this has been true since I can remember — even as a child, well before I developed tinnitus. I always thought this was normal, until mentioning it to others, and it seems no one I know shares this experience. This, to me, suggests that (my flavor of tinnitus, at least) may be due to physical/muscle related causes, and not necessarily associated with hearing damage or neurological. Or that I was “destined” to get tinnitus at some point, as if I was born with some defect that others weren’t. Or, it could just be that there is something else unrelated with how my muscles are connected to my hearing that cause the same tinnitus (e.g. same frequency), and that the persistent tinnitus actually is hearing damage. I’ve not looked into it much, and have really only mentioned this to my doctor (who mostly blew it off as irrelevant), and others in my family. But thought I’d share here in case anybody experienced something similar, and may have insight into what causes this “muscle-related tinnitus”, and if it’s somehow connected or unrelated to the persistent tinnitus.
  • nsxwolf 3y ago
    Interesting. I can “play my eardrums”, which I describe as the ability to consciously control something in my ears that causes a loud fluttering, ringing sound that is something like wind entering my ear canals combined with a bell. After some research I’ve found some people can control something called the “tensor tympani” and generate sounds described as a “roar” but being a subjective experience I am not certain this is exactly what I am doing.
    • anonymousiam 3y ago
      I've always been able to do this, and I've always assumed that it's not unusual. It does not seem to be at all related to my tinnitus.
    • huytersd 3y ago
      That is interesting. I assumed everyone could hear that. I can hear the sound (roar, ocean, wind) when I move my jaw forward but I can also just directly control it without moving anything else. It’s a muscle I can feel myself controlling and contracting in my inner ear.
• nomy99 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • defrost 3y ago
    It's a community with individuals. One user in particular made a pretty racially insensitive comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38496195 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38496195 and they got downvoted for it. Hard. So, re: your proposition that HN is the most racist community - No. * 1. Some members are, for sure, and can be vocal about it, most aren't. * 2. You should see some of the other communities out there, some are explicitly dedicated to racial purity and being complete idiots about it.
    • nomy99 3y ago
      I will respond, but ill let the community first handle your comment.
    • nomy99 3y ago
      Ok.. that comment wasn't racially insensitve. So your point is mute.. can we move on plz?
    • nomy99 3y ago
      you seem to confuse logic with facts and benevolence..
• petra 3y ago
  This study uses fmri neurofeedback to teach people to control their auditory cortex, with impact on tinnitus : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381191930285X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381191...
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• speedylight 3y ago
  It isn’t just that I get tinnitus when my eras are plugged with ear wax if I don’t clean them a for a while, and when I do poof it’s magically gone. I figure tinnitus is the brains response to a lack of input in a specific frequency range, like filler noise.
• eecc 3y ago
  Well, this has always been my suspicion ever since I started being affected. All hearing tests I performed stop at 8k while I can easily hear into 15k and my ringing is way up there in the 13-14k range.
• dsco 3y ago
  Wow! Just tonight I had a dream that my mild tinnitus had worsened at later years. My brain has adjusted to ignoring the noise the past 20 years or so, especially when doing physical or mentally challenging work. But it’s always there as a companion in the background if I choose to “tune into it”.
• thomasfkk 3y ago
  Got mine very recently as a side effect of taking Bupropion (Wellbutrin). At 150mg I had no side effects and it was working well (for ~12 months). Then Doc upped it to 300mg and with in 2 weeks silence no longer existed. Went back down to 150mg but Tinnitus is still there after 2 months lets see. Kinda gotta say that if it doesn't get worse its worth the positive effects of Bupropion still annoying to be in that 1% group with the side effect
• protoman3000 3y ago
  I would like to share, that my tinnitus changes its pitch with the rate of breathing and tension on the muscles that help with diaphragm breathing
• zubairq 3y ago
  Lots of good tips here, thanks!
• phito 3y ago
  Badly fitting earbuds (Samsung Galaxy Buds) gave me tinnitus in one ear. I still am not sure how that's possible, but wearing them for more than 30mn was hurting my right ear, tinnitus appeared shortly after and kept getting worse. Once I stopped using the buds, the pain went away and the tinnitus decreased, but it's still there one year later.
  • slig 3y ago
    Do they have noise cancelling? There was a thread a while back about people blaming active noise cancelling as a possible cause.
• supriyo-biswas 3y ago
  Does this study bring anything new to the table? I suffer from tinnitus myself and a doctor determined that there was damage to the hair cells and auditory nerves after an ear infection. I assumed the cause of such issues was factor was pretty well known.
• 1letterunixname 3y ago
  Severe tinnitus 24/7 is the least of my problems that I mostly tune out. I have left SCDS. It was verified with audiology and CT (a tiny pit) after I correctly self-diagnosed it. A traditional approach surgery is possible, but it's brain surgery where one surgeon accesses the area by lifting your cerebellum out of the way. There is a lot to go wrong for something that isn't 100% debilitating. Just I can't eat croutons because they're way too loud, I always hear my voice like there's a microphone on permanent feedback, I can hear my left eye move most of the time, and music that's too loud makes my eyes jump off focus with a momentary wave of nausea (oculovestibular involvement).
• Naijoko 3y ago
  for all people who have tinnitus or the tinnitus is worse because of a visit by the dentist. I have tinnitus and it got much much worse when I got a filling. The reason is they have to make the filling the height of the teeth that was there bevore. even half a mm more can make your jaws clinch and you get tinnitus. My luck I fund another Dentist who took this seriously and took some of the filling away so my jaw didnt clinch anymore... and bam my tinnitus was back to normal. only a little anectode that could help. The first dentist did deny that it did came from the filling and the other one did say thats new to him and he will study on this and see me next week urgently. A week later he said it could be and we should try it ... many many many thanks to that doctor without him I would maybe killed myself
  • mrjh 3y ago
    The number of medical ‘professionals’ who just automatically dismiss possible connections like this is utterly depressing. I’m sure they must hear plenty of crackpot theories, but that’s no excuse for failing to help people who can be helped. I’m glad you managed to find a professional who was willing to take the time to actually consider your suggestions and help you.
• troll_v_bridge 3y ago
  Tinnitus and partial hearing loss is the largest personal pain in my life. Ruins my ability to listen to music for pleasure, hinders my focus, and overall disheartening. Hoping there is a cure in my lifetime, both for hearing loss and tinnitus.
• carlsagat 3y ago
  My tinnitus started in 2009 during an anxiety period (the worst period of my life) and basically due to an ototoxic drug for dizziness. I had already experienced it after going to a nightclub when I was a younger but I never thought that this problem would remain forever due to a doctor prescription drug. Not only that but in the next years I got two more ringings and now I (don't have anxiety anymore) I can live normally with tinnitus but I'm always hope to get a cure. I was a silence junkie previous to the tinnitus and now I miss the "sound" of the silence so much. I believe that once a year I can hear again the silence but it's my brain tricking me again.
  • aspaviento 3y ago
    Does it also sound stronger for you after a nap or intense exercise?
    • carlsagat 3y ago
      Nope, it only gets stronger after some use - or abuse- of headphones with medium-high volume.
• bradley13 3y ago
  Reading the comments, it seems pretty obvious that there are multiple causes. To add my own anecdote (because I don't see it mentioned otherwise): I have very specific hearing loss (40dB) in one frequency range frequency (4khz). That is also the frequency of my tinnitus. The cause is almost certainly bored neurons making stuff up: there is never input at that frequency, so they produce their own. Maybe fixing the auditory nerve will help some people. Other folk will need a different cure...
• Euphorbium 3y ago
  It seems like tinnitus is to hearing what migraine is to vision.
  • IAmGraydon 3y ago
    I think it’s closer to visual release hallucinations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_release_hallucinations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_release_hallucinations
• nurettin 3y ago
  I can induce a sleep paralysis while my consciousness is awake. Why? Well, as a child, I thought it was a cool superpower. As the paralysis sets in, I hear a loud wooshing sound. Then it gets louder and louder until full paralysis sets in. A few years ago I had a similar experience, but it left me with a permanent tinnitus. I guess you can hurt yourself by simply lying down doing nothing.
• bob1029 3y ago
  This has been highly-variable for me over the years. I have noticed changes with with caffeine intake and exercise. On many occasions I've felt my ears "pop" after an extensive cardio session. The result feels like I just took really weak earplugs out. Rowing is more prone to do this than other forms of exercise in my experience. I've also noticed that if I force myself to sit in total silence and remain as calm as possible, whatever ringing I can hear will start to diminish to ~imperceptible within a few minutes. When I'm on edge and anxious, the opposite appears to be true.
• austinjp 3y ago
  Some speculation in this thread about the causes of tinnitus. There are several, including hearing loss, which (as someone here points out) possibly produces tinnitus in a manner similar to how limb loss can cause phantom limb pain. The nervous system isn't like plumbing, it's a tangled web of self-adjusting feedback loops. Once an input is severed, an area of the tangled web may lose an important calibrating input. Neurons don't emit "noise signals" (or "pain signals" or whatever) they just depolarise in response to stimulation, and altered calibration alters which neurons depolarise and how often. The frequency and number of certain neurons depolarising is experienced as noise (or pain or whatever) by the conscious human they belong to. Good talk here[0] BUT BE WARNED, I recall* that there's a high-pitched squeal during this talk as a demonstration of what tinnitus is like for done people. It's extremely nasty especially if you're wearing headphones. Incidentally, the self-adjusting feedback loop model helps explain why things like wiggling your jaw can alter the experience of tinnitus. Due to wiring issues, sensory input from muscles and joints can get mixed in with the auditory inputs. A similar mechanism (which isn't fully understood) helps explain why, for example, people having a heart attack can experience pain in the left arm. There's nothing wrong with the arm, the normal sensory signals from the arm are mixing with those from the heart. [0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=XGq3MXQlRJs https://youtube.com/watch?v=XGq3MXQlRJs * Can't verify right now, trusting my memory.
• razodactyl 3y ago
  Not sure if tinnitus but I've heard a ringing in super-quiet environments since I was a kid. Mid-30s now and a few months back I had a case where the ringing was very noticeable and it lasted a few weeks. I think what set it off was some hearing damage from using high-frequency equipment without hearing protection but it was definitely an experience that I'm not keen on repeating. Once I noticed that the background ringing was louder than normal I couldn't un-hear it and it was starting to drive me nuts.
  • earthboundkid 3y ago
    That’s tinnitus.
• collyw 3y ago
  Also associated with rushed covid vaccines.Perhaps their is good reason that vaccines usually take around 10 years to develop. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8788157/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8788157/
• jFriedensreich 3y ago
  What i do not understand is why normal hearing tests were seen as a counter argument to the brain compensation for hering loss theory. If the brain compensated for the loss of nerve or hearing cells, the signal should be back to normal but with more noise, the failure of adaptation of the brain to the noise results in tinnitus. To have patients with normal or nearly normal hearing tests but tinnitus would be expected.
• nettsundere 3y ago
  https://uselullaby.com https://uselullaby.com "Lullaby can lower your Tinnitus' volume and improve your quality of life with an experimental treatment designed specifically for you." I'm just promoting this because I've tried this myself and it kind of helps. At least to relax when the noise gets too painful to bear My case is linked to the neurovascular conflict, but the tool is for the brain, so I hope it helps someone else too.
  • hackernewds 3y ago
    why do you need this paid service? seems they're monetizing 1 audio clip here's a YouTube video that does the same thing https://youtu.be/qNf9nzvnd1k?si=HCFBFkuTCeVd2d_9 https://youtu.be/qNf9nzvnd1k?si=HCFBFkuTCeVd2d_9
    • beefman 3y ago
      Lullaby is free. It's notched white noise, with an interactive test to help you find the notch frequency for your tinnitus. So not the same as this youtube clip, which is just an ascending sine tone.
    • nettsundere 3y ago
      It's free and opensource https://github.com/Aerolab/lullaby https://github.com/Aerolab/lullaby, like it should be
  • fierro 3y ago
    what is the neurovascular conflict?
    • nettsundere 3y ago
      Disclaimer - I’m not a doctor. Simply speaking, the vessel in my brain got too close to the nerve, causing me to become almost 100% deaf on one side, the whole thing took 1 day, probably as a result of a stressful day, combined with the overall setup of my brain. The lack of signals coming from the ear is now causing my brain to “hear” the sound based on what is happening in a vein, some false data coming (and also not coming) to the brain, that’s tinnitus. It’s something between the sound of an old tv and the sound they play in movies when a hero gets too close to an explosion.
• avsteele 3y ago
  I developed tinnitus during a bout of COVID last week. On about the third day I had an earache in one ear. Earache went away after about a day but now I have pretty strong tinnitus in that ear. COVID symptoms long gone now but tinnitus remains. 'Volume' is negligible when I wake up but increases over the day. I still feel some 'pressure' in that ear (maybe residual sinus infection?) so I'm hoping it will heal on its own. Anyone else experience this?
  • pier25 3y ago
    My tinnitus started days after my first covid shot. Plenty of people have reported tinnitus after covid or the shots. Mine is very mild but it's still annoying.
    • rogerkirkness 3y ago
      Same here, after my first Moderna shot it started and hasn't gone away.
    • kingTug 3y ago
      Has yours been improving at all? Mine started (just in the left ear) about 48hrs after my 3rd Pfizer shot and remained loud for ~8months. Several months of noticeable dissipation followed by true silence at about the 1-year mark. Thought I was in the clear but it's started again out of nowhere this fall. I'm optimistic it will improve again and can probably be controlled with better lifestyle habits but at this stage is something I feel I will be managing forever. I've seen ENT's and audiologists but they're unable to help past confirming my inner ear and hearing are fine. In 2022 John Stewart had some infectious disease experts on his podcast and one of the epidemiologists stated that he got tinnitus from his 2nd vaccine, and his 3rd exacerbated it. It was at that point that I realized it had to be somewhat common.
      • pier25 3y ago
        It got noticeably milder after consuming medicinal mushrooms (lion's mane etc) for some months but it never went completely away. I have days where it gets a bit worse. Maybe if I don't sleep well or recently I had some torticolis (neck pain) and had to take muscle relaxers. But then I go back to baseline.
• kgbcia 3y ago
  Found ringing in the air only occurs when I do inverted exercises, like when your upside down
• imtringued 3y ago
  I overslept today and I just woke up thirty minutes ago. A minute within waking up my brain feels under a lot of pressure and the accompanying tinnitus was very intensive. In fact I simultaneously have a headache. As more time passes the intensity of the headache and tinnitus get lower by the minute. The idea that tinnitus is caused by hearing loss alone sounds like a load of bullshit. Tinnitus gets worse when I wear very tight headphones or when I am ill or when I move my jaw to apply more pressure to the head. If I could engineer some sort of machine to control the pressure applied to my head, I am pretty sure I could control the tinnitus. Since I have built a mental model of when tinnitus is really bad and when it it is almost imperceptible, even the most intense tinnitus doesn't faze me and strikes me more as an annoyance like a mosquito buzzing around, because I know that it will go away. Weeks go by where I literally don't think a single thought about tinnitus, then suddenly, it strikes and can't be ignored, except I know it will go away so I ignore it regardless.
• bobse 3y ago
  [dead]
• calini 3y ago
  About 6 years ago I caught a bad flu which evolved into an ear infection that required antibiotics, my ears were in pain, really stuffed, popping etc. When I got that under control, I was left with what can only be described as tinnitus, a very high-pitched sound in my ears, almost undetectable in my right ear but quite annoying in my left. It was there for about 12-18 months, but it slowly started to go away to the point I had to pause for a minute to remember if the left/right one was more affected. After 9-12 months I was only able to hear it if I was wearing ear plugs, and now I need to wear ear plugs and really concentrate to realize that it's not 100% silence, but it's close to 1-5% of what it was and even the "tone" of the tinnitus is more muted. I'm not sure if they genuinely healed, if there even is such thing as temporary tinnitus (for more than a day/week), or if my brain just got better at filtering that out.
• robwwilliams 3y ago
  Summary of the science: 1. Hearing loss is usually caused by damage and death of the hair cells——the sensory receptor cells that respond directly to sound. The hairs on the upper face of these cells vibratethis physically opens ion channels that change the voltage across the cell membrane. This in turn causes these cell to releases neurotransmitters at their feet. The transmitter release then induces series of action potentials (spikes) in the axons of spiral ganglion cell; #2 below 2. But hearing loss can also be caused by damage to the spiral ganglion cells themselves. These cells and their axons conduct spikes between cochlea and brain. They cells are heavy workers and they are also fussy and metabolically demanding cells—-even by CNS standards. Revving them too high can blow their gaskets. In sum, two among several mechanisms that contribute to hearing loss and tinnitus. In a very similar way, blindness can also be caused by two major classes of cell damage and death—-1. the death of photoreceptors (called retinal degeneration) or 2. by damage to axons in the optic nerve (retinal ganglion cell axons). This is usually called glaucoma. This lovely study from Maison and colleagues is focused on the consequences of hearing loss caused primarily by damage to cochlear nerve fibers and their synapses in the cochlea, not the degeneration of hair cells per se. It is a systematic and rigorous study that supports the idea that tinnitus can be associated with nerve damage rather than hair cell loss. This is a surprisingly hard problem to nail down. If you want a good introduction to this work then read this review article by the same group. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5438769/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5438769/
• chakintosh 3y ago
  It can also be a symptom of brain cancer. My aunt passed away last year after suffering from severe tinnitus for two years, and not a single doctor suggested and MRI, they all pretty much gave her magnesium supplements and drugs to treat the symptom (tinnitus) rather than actually thinking outside the box and suggesting an MRI to be sure (which is almost free in my country). Even I nearly suggested she does it very early on but thought I wouldn't know better than doctors. Eventually, other symptoms started appearing and only then did they do an MRI, and lo and behold, a tumor was found at the base of her skull and right behind her sinus cavity, it was pressing against her auditory nerve and was the cause of all the tinnitus. The tumor was basically untreatable via surgery and it was too late for chemo.
  • pacomerh 3y ago
    That was my first thought when developed tinnitus, tumor or something pressing in there. In my case it was actually related to labyrinthitis, I did get an MRI and it was my first one, oh man did I get anxious inside the tube, I feel like it's good therapy for learning how to relax hehe. Anyways, Sometimes the tinnitus loudness gets worse and sometimes get's quiet, I still haven't detected what makes it change. However! recently after getting Covid It's been louder more often which tells me maybe my nervous system was affected, idk
  • rvba 3y ago
    Is there even chemo for brain cancer?
    • chakintosh 3y ago
      Apparently there is, it's uncommon but there are chemo drugs for brain tumors. temozolomide and PCV.
• mattgreenrocks 3y ago
  I’m trying to suss out whats my tinnitus. I’ve had persistent fullness in my head for about 2 years now that I can’t find an explanation for. Audiologist says I have better than average hearing for my age (41). The precipitating event in my mind was an Opeth concert in 2021. However, I never thought anything was too loud there, and wore earplugs for most of it. Additionally that was a very stressful time. Also, I have ehlers danlos. So might be TMJ, sinus pressure, EDS, and/or exposure to loud music. It sucks especially because Opeth weren’t great performers there. I suspect I don’t like most live metal shows because they seem to make them too loud.
  • raziel2p 3y ago
    Opeth are just a band more suitable for making studio albums than touring. You'll find other metal bands that are amazing live but boring when listening at home. Metal concerts are loud sure, but the loudest concerts I've gone to have been electronic or indie stuff with heavy electronic influences - they try to make you feel like you're in a night club I guess.
• tim333 3y ago
  >It’s been a longstanding idea that these symptoms, known as tinnitus, arise as a result of a maladaptive plasticity of the brain. In other words, the brain tries to compensate for the loss of hearing by increasing its activity, resulting in the perception of a phantom sound, tinnitus. I can't say I buy that. I've got tinnitus. Also sometimes my brain has a loss of input as I can't see, hear of feel something and it's nothing like tinnitus. It seems more likely to me that it's a problem with the gizmo that converts mechanical movement into electrical impulses. It consists of a string like thing, the tip link, between two hairs that pulls on an ion channel in a nerve cell wall to let ions in and trigger the nerve to give a sound signal. (pic here, fig 1 if you scroll down https://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674%2809%2901170-2 https://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674%2809%2901170-2) When you get an over loud sound it probably yanks that thing too hard leaving the ion channel stuck open some how or something along those lines. The whole thing is tiny - the tip link is about 150nm long. Another pic here (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2921850/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2921850/ fig 1)
  • skimojoe 3y ago
    The produced by the brain aspect as never washed with me too. My tinnitus started right after a severe sinus infection that spread to my ears. I was so blocked up an needing some sleep that I did a nasal wash and was to forceful in blowing my nose (my ears popped). Since then tinnitus has been there everyday, whereas 35 years before never even knew it was a thing.
    • Retric 3y ago
      The theory isn’t that it’s caused by the brain alone, but rather it’s like the fandom limb pain sensation after an amputation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb The difference is your auditory nerve doesn’t directly carry touch signals so you hear sounds instead of say an itch.
• ferd 3y ago
  For what it's worth, here's my case: I have tinnitus, a 4khz tone on both ears, one more than the other. I have hearing loss at high frequencies (the curve of my hearing tests drops abruptively right around 4khz). The side with the worst hearing is also the one with worse tinnitus. My loss probably comes from many many ear infections as a child (plus hearing to loud music on a basement, and just bad genetics). Things that make my tinnitus worse: - Basically, any kind of "hearing effort" stresses me out and makes my tinnitus worse (busy places, bars, parties, etc. are the worse, but even music on my headsets, which I enjoy, make it worse). Maybe this puts some doubts on the "phantom limb" theory? - Stress - Not sleeping well - After doing exercise. I play sports, run and lift light weights. After any of these exercises, it gets a bit worse - Driving a car: the humming noise of car drive is probably the worse for me - If I clinch my jaws (mimicking a strong bite) I hear another, surprisingly similar tone... However, I feel like it's a different thing, not related. I wished I had a similar list of things that lessen it... I don't :-) However: I started using prescription hearing aids. And although they don't really help with tinnitus directly, I do feel much better: general noise doesn't bother me as much, and of course I hear better :-). Recommendation: if you have some hearing loss, don't wait to use a hearing aid, just like you don't wait to wear glasses. They are expensive, but worth it. And no, they are not just simple "earbuds". Confession: I play the drums, although very occasionally. I have no proof but I'm sure I had hearing loss way before I started playing. Playing my drums of course makes my tinnitus worse: probably due to the combination of the sound + "exercise".
  • pacomerh 3y ago
    I have hearing loss in my left ear, from mid frequencies to higher. So basically I can only hear bass on my left hear. Do people usually get hearing aids when one ear is damaged? I went to the doc and they said it was optional since I could still have a normal conversation, so I'm not sure if that's what you're referring to.
    • ferd 3y ago
      I was told the same thing 20-or-so years ago: if you feel like you can have a "normal" life, you don't need to wear one... Now I regret not trying them earlier. As others said here: your nerves stop receiving stimulus... which over time might trigger tinnitus. And even without tinnitus, unused nerves become atrophied... so using hear aids too late might not help as much doing so now. It's a social thing... if it were about your eyes, you'd be wearing glasses for sure. Glasses are nowadays "fashionable". Hearing aids definitely aren't. Now, I do have a big doubt about aids: Couldn't they make your hearing loss even worse?! (since they amplify sound and inject it right into your ear, the exact same thing that ear doctors say that kill your hearing)
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• Zebfross 3y ago
  PSA: I thought I had tinnitus but it was just ear wax sitting against my eardrum. A doctor cleared it up in 15 minutes.
• figital 3y ago
  Some may be able to calibrate their hearing in this regard with something called Auditory Integration Training. I have done it. It worked. You might also want to read more about CAPD (Central Auditory Processing Disorder).
• criddell 3y ago
  Has anybody tried or know somebody who tried the Lenire device? It's been out for a little while now and is in the price range ($4k) where I think it might be worth a shot. https://www.lenire.com/what-is-lenire/ https://www.lenire.com/what-is-lenire/
  • hackernewds 3y ago
    intrigued but wondering if this is a shameless plug
  • pacomerh 3y ago
    Yeah I'd like to see what the results of that device are, I'd like to see someone actually try it and write about it
• rajin112 3y ago
  Mine started after taking antibiotics for Lymes. Not sure what caused it the antibiotics or lymes... this was in 2021 so other things were at play too. Anyone have any tips for healing? Really has hindered from doing deep thinking and just even day dreaming. I have been an avid meditator and I feel that has been taken away from me. What is good though is that I dont hear it when i am active in the day such as working or out with friends.
  • hackernewds 3y ago
    you learn to zone out your tinnitus. ironically, meditation helps me be more present and be WITH the tinnitus. it sucks. especially if you have an injury it might be permanent, however ENT doctors have told me it's all imagines which I refuse to believe
  • hackernewds 3y ago
    to add to my other comment: https://youtu.be/2yDCox-qKbk?si=eEjtlP97v8UiubX4 https://youtu.be/2yDCox-qKbk?si=eEjtlP97v8UiubX4 this trick helped me be in silence for the first time in decades. it was wonderful, to say the least
    • bosse 3y ago
      How long did this silence last for you?
  • pasc1878 3y ago
    I don't think there is any way to heal tinnitus. The best you can do is get habituated to it, that is get used to it. The only way is as you have found is to concentrate or do something else.
  • gfodor 3y ago
    Tobramycin at least can cause tinnitus. It happened to me.
• 6stringmerc 3y ago
  I just cleared a serious sinus infection that had impacted the base of my skull and neck spinal discs. 4 hospitalizations this year an not a single mention. I am on TRT and used a TENs machine to kick start my muscles again before hitting the gym and 1 session loosened enough to let my body pour out YEARS WORTH OF SCUM. I have photos and posted a video to JPS Hospital on my IG because seeing this stuff is really disturbing. Point being: My perspective is the US medical system at my disposal is utter shit and self-care is extremely important and these people sent me to collections and home with a potentially fatal respiratory suppression.
  • BobbyTables2 3y ago
    Can you elaborate a bit? The TENs machine loosened scum that came out of your nose? I’d like to know more… I do find that most specialists are incapable of diagnosing anything not blatantly obvious…
• Flatcircle 3y ago
  Just anecdotal, but I always noticed people I knew that had tinnitus had a history of using a lot of over the counter pain medication
  • mwint 3y ago
    fwiw, I have mild tinnitus and have never had anything stronger than child Tylenol syrup - and that maybe once every two years or so.
• anonymousiam 3y ago
  Maybe the article is on to something, but it mostly doesn't seem to apply in my case. As I sit here with my ears ringing, I can tell you that my hearing has recently been pronounced "perfect" by a doctor of audiology (not just an audiologist). So I apparently have no damage, but I still have the ringing. My ears don't ring all the time though -- often the ringing begins after I eat. I haven't narrowed down which foods could be responsible. It's possible that I have a mild food allergy that I'm unaware of.
• nshkr 3y ago
  T and H are major factors for ruining my life. Ruined dreams and suicidal.
• codesnik 3y ago
  For me it's an attention issue. I went for a checkup and it was a first time I've been in silenced cabin where doctor checks hearing. And I wasn't able to hear some of the frequencies, because of ringing in my ears, which was louder. And doctor expressed some concern about it. Before that I rarely ever noticed it. Now it is very loud and constant. Maybe it was like that for a long-long time, but now I just focus on it too much.
• jxramos 3y ago
  Does anyone know where the research went regarding cold sores on the lip at the virus which causes them? I heard a doctor once speak on the subject that HSV1 I think it is for the lips, goes and burrows in the nerves of the jaw and face and jumps over to the auditory nerve at some point. I was never able to verify any of those claims but it sounded feasible.
• derefr 3y ago
  I used to have tinnitus. I suppose I still technically do, but it appears much more rarely, and when it does, I can make it stop entirely in just a few seconds. So I'm basically "free" of it these days. Two things I learned over the years: 1. Tinnitus seems related to dopaminergic neurotransmission (or faults thereof.) I have ADHD, but I didn't know it until I was an adult. Growing up, I would often get episodes of tinnitus. After being medicated for ADHD, these episodes became much more rare, and also exclusively now only occur at the end of the day, when my meds are half worn-off already. I've seen many journal papers correlating tinnitus to various dopaminergic dysfunctions. For example, people who develop tinnitus in old age are apparently also more likely to develop parkinsonism, and vice-versa. If you've noticed that you're developing tinnitus, then you might want to raise the possibility with your GP that you could have some undiagnosed problem with dopamine. Get screened for ADHD if you haven't; get tested for Parkinson's if you're the right age; etc. If it turns out that you have one of these chronic diseases and didn't know it — well, treating it on its own will probably change your life, but it'll potentially also help your tinnitus! 2. However, tinnitus also seems related to some physical process in the ear. I've learned that, when the high-pitched ringing starts in one ear, I can instantly stop it — not just push it into the background, but literally silence it like pressing "stop" on an alarm — by using my finger to essentially plunge my ear: putting my finger into my ear canal just deeply enough and then twisting, resulting in a pressure seal like in-ear earbuds try to achieve; and then lightly — but quickly — pushing and pulling the trapped air-pressure in and out inside the ear canal, using the finger. After doing this for about 30 seconds (during which the tinnitus won't seem to change), my eardrum and ear canal both begin to feel warm. Once that happens, I then unplug the finger from my ear. At the moment I do, the tinnitus stops. Presumably, the "plunging" action is in turn flexing my eardrum inward and outward. Basically it's acting like high-amplitude 1Hz infrasound. I'm not sure what this does that helps, but it certainly does help, consistently. (If you're wondering: I've also had otitis media before, so I know what the sensation of my eustachian tube being blocked with fluid/crud, creating a pressure imbalance of the middle ear, feels like; and what unplugging the eustachian tube + rebalancing that pressure feels like. This isn't that! It's entirely an interaction between my finger, my eardrum, and maybe the bones of the middle ear. My ears are currently 100% clear of detritus on either side of the eardrum according to a recent ENT visit — and yet this procedure still works.)
• riwsky 3y ago
  Finally; I’d always wondered what the buzz is all about
• ewweezdsd 3y ago
  One lesson I've learned in life is to never fly when recovering from flu, even if you feel quite okay. I did that very painful mistake once a decade ago, and since then I've had permanent tinnitus in my left ear. It doesn't bother me much in daily life, but I would like to be be able to experience total silence in nature without that constant noise.
• gilloh 3y ago
  I’ll add my two cents, I have mild tinnitus on the left ear, like other readers I learned to ignore it and only really notice it when focusing or drawing attention to it. Luckily doesn’t affect my sleep or work. Stress and similar situations seem to intensify it a little and I become more aware. I’ll add a curious one to the discussion, I’m a big AirPods fan, as soon as Apple released the AirPods Pro I bought them, on the first week of use I started getting horrible headaches/nauseas which I associated (most likely wrongly) to having tinnitus and it causing some balance “imbalance”. Returned them and got back to regular AirPods.
  • mrjh 3y ago
    Hmmm, it was within a week or two of getting AirPods Pro (and heavily using the noise cancelling mode) that I developed a strange dull ache/pressure throughout my sinuses and upper jaw. Stopped using noise cancelling and it seems to have improved a lot but hasn’t completely gone away. Some googling suggests noise cancelling tech has negative side-effects for quite a lot of people. I strongly suspect that many others must be suffering from environment-/diet-/tech-induced ailments but are simply not inquisitive enough to experiment and identify the sources of discomfort.
• IAmGraydon 3y ago
  I’ve had mine for a very long time. It started when I was in loud rock bands in my late teens and early 20s. However, it eventually went away completely on its own. It came raging back several years ago (I’m in my early 40s now) and is now constant. I’m not sure what started it again, but it could have been a very intense course of gentamicin after a kidney surgery that had some complications. Honestly, it doesn’t bother me as much as some people. It’s just there. I would love for it to go away, but I kind of ignore it most of the time.
• plaidfuji 3y ago
  I’ve had tinnitus and its cousin hyperacusis for about 7 years. When I first got them from a particularly loud nightclub, I had rolling panic attacks and insomnia for about the first three weeks, but then they died down to a tolerable background level. Something brought it back in the past couple months and triggered the same reaction again.. it’s not clear what the trigger was this time, but it’s like my brain needs time to re-train itself to ignore it as background noise. It’s an emotionally exhausting process that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. The only advice I can offer to people here is to treat tinnitus like any other serious injury (which it is): take time to let your body heal, don’t push yourself too hard, don’t come down on yourself for how you got it, and don’t judge yourself for any feelings it might bring out. Get help if it’s making you depressed. There are definitely some helpful coping strategies that people have highlighted here, particularly white noise (look into notch filtering as well), and everyone needs to find the approach that works best for them. Allow yourself to grieve; you’ve lost something - the sound of silence (at least what you used to think of as silence - most humans never experience true -inf dB). It’s easier to move on if you come to terms with it from that angle, rather than continually trying to make it “go away”.
  • drewcon 3y ago
    Same exact story here. Happened when I was 17 at a concert. Too loud. Brain seemed to just stuff it away and emotionally I was fine (because I was young and dumb). “Came back” when I was in early 30s and devastated me for about 3-5 months with anxiety and insomnia. I used CBT to basically ignore it and my brain did its thing pushing it to the background and lowering the volume. Came back again at age 40…same deal (but not nearly as bad since I’d seen the movie before) and lo and behold…brain stuffed it away again. Now I just accept that it’s a part of life. Will come back probably and I’ll deal with it.
  • manjoh 3y ago
    When I had an episode of especially loud tinnitus, I discovered I could get some psychosocial relief by playing a song chorus in my head ( I can't hear much on that ear) over and over and imagining the tinnitus is part of the music.
• decafbad 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure mine is psychosomatic. It's only at left ear. When I pissed off about former mistakes or current annoying issues, I know it's coming.
• jjxw 3y ago
  Reminder for folks who go to concerts or other events / areas that regularly have loud sounds - invest in ear protection! It is probably not worth it to risk your hearing for a slightly "better" listening experience. You will also avoid that partially deaf feeling after being exposed to loud music / sounds. There are a ton of reusable ear plugs on the market that you can easily keep on your person.
• upghost 3y ago
  (*YMMV*) For some of you suffering for tinnitus, if you came here looking for a hack, I can offer a small tinnitus hack that worked for me, and may work for you if you find a noise that "cuts" the tinnitus sound. This summarizes what worked for me: I have bilateral tinnitus that sounds like people screaming in each ear at 15.5khz -- it's bad enough that w/o this hack, self-harm would seem like an attractive option, which was incentive enough to get creative and now I'm only in pain a few minutes/day. I'm on mobile so please forgive the AI assisted rewrite of a different post I made on HN [1]: I hope this message reaches those struggling with tinnitus. I understand the intensity of the condition – my own tinnitus was unbearable. But I've found an effective way to manage it, and I'd like to share the steps: 1. *Effective Sound Track*: First, use YouTube-dl to download a specific sound track from this link: [Sound Link](https://youtu.be/8indTo2ykPw?si=izyTOg4gYvnfsqZs https://youtu.be/8indTo2ykPw?si=izyTOg4gYvnfsqZs). I found it incredibly effective for cutting out tinnitus. It’s worth trying different sound prints if this one doesn’t work for you. Others with tinnitus have also found it helpful. You might want to edit out the initial dialogue using Audacity. 2. *Special Headphones*: Buy waterproof bone conduction headphones that are specifically designed for MP3 playback. Here's the link to the ones I use: [Headphones Link](https://a.co/d/aqqhPm9 https://a.co/d/aqqhPm9). 3. *Usage*: Load the MP3 onto these headphones. It’s been a life-changer for me, allowing me to experience what a normal life feels like again. I only really notice my tinnitus briefly each day when I wake up, before I sleep, and when I charge the headphones. (end AI assist) The reason this works (for me) is because I hear the tinnitus "inside my head" and the bone conduction headphones similarly make the noise print sound as if it originates from "inside your head". It does not interfere with normal hearing and you quickly become accustomed to the noise print and forget you even have it on your head. This particular model is NOT bluetooth-- it is an appliance that has one function only, play the scrubber noise. This reduces anxiety of dings and beeps and untethers your from your phone, and most of you know anxiety makes it worse. You can also wear these in the bath and the shower. I'm sure it won't work for everyone, but it's been a literal lifesaver for me, so I hope it helps. Good luck out there. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37852711#37858011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37852711#37858011
• goodbringsgood 3y ago
  My tinnitus completely disappeared when I visited chiropractor, I had some neck issues, after just a few visits, the inner sound completely disappeared, that was uncomfortably relaxing experience, but it just lasted for 2 months, now the sound is back. So my initial assumption that the reason is lack of blood supply, because after those treatments I literally felt the flood of blood going into my brain, it was like the tap was not fully opened before my visit to the doctor.
• jbd0 3y ago
  Tea tree oil is an ototoxin. I had what I thought was a wart on the backside of one of my ears, and when I put a cotton ball with one drop of tea tree oil on it, I immediately heard ringing and ripped it off. The ringing has remained. It's not severe, but I've read stories online where people have put tea tree oil directly in their ear canal and were badly affected. This has to be relatively common, with how popular tea tree oil is in products that you put on your head. I bet people don't realize their tinnitus is caused by the tea tree oil and continue using the products. Also, I have a friend who has severe tinnitus as a result of an ear infection. He really struggled with it in the beginning, but hasn't mentioned it in a while.
  • PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    for those like me, ototoxin literally means toxic to the ear.
  • manmal 3y ago
    Any ideas how the oil would have transpired from the back of the ear inside? Sounds unlikely to me.
    • jbd0 3y ago
      The skin absorbs the oil. Essential oils in particular are absorbed really fast. https://academic.oup.com/jpp/article/67/4/473/6128119?login=false https://academic.oup.com/jpp/article/67/4/473/6128119?login=...
• jrnichols 3y ago
  Experiencing tinnitus after years of working around saws, aircraft, and being in a band has been one of the reasons the past 4 years especially have been miserable. The proliferation of face masks suddenly made communicating with people extremely difficult where it was only a slight annoyance before. this article was fascinating and I hope they find a cure for this in my lifetime.
• aagha 3y ago
  I don't know how much of my Tinnitus is related to the "mind body connection" (Sarno), but I find that my tinnitus comes and goes, and is noticeable when I'm dealing with stress.