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I have tinnitus. I don't recommend it
- ggm 1y agoWelcome to your new life. This upgrade is not optional and a reboot will not clear it. Tinnitus has many causes. Most of them are avoidable but some (antibiotics) less so. People's ability to internalise a coping mechanism also varies. My own ability rises and sets like the tide. Some days it's all encompassing and some days it's just the liveness check for the nuclear storage tank alarm which reassures me I'm not dead yet. White noise can help. Tuned noise can help. Other sounds can help. Apple ipods are said to help. It's all subjective. Do you want to test a rather odd mouth fitted electrode plate and a series of tuned sounds? It might help, and is being licenced with Food and Drugs. Seeing "the Who" live in Glasgow twice in the 70s probably triggered mine. Or a number of other over-amped gigs. But my GP assured me the drugs for blood pressure, or antibiotics, or any number of situations were just as likely or what is known as "idiopathic" which is Latin for "who knows" My partners tinnitus is much more intrusive and causes her more grief, since she now misses much ambient bird song lost in the ear soup. Beyond commiserations there isn't much I can say, inside my own kilohertz whine sound bath.
- inverted_flag 1y agoI pray every day for a cure.
- Spivak 1y agoThe bilateral stimulation devices aren't a cure, but they do meaningfully help. My tinnitus is much quieter after using it.
- inverted_flag 1y agoDid you use the Lenire? I was hoping the Susan Shore device would be available by now since it supposedly had a much better study backing it but it seems to be stuck in limbo. I’m not even sure if it’s been submitted to the FDA yet.
- Spivak 1y agoYep, I used Lenire. Based on the the comments on the internet I expect the other device to work better but Lenire was what was available and it did the job for me.
- inverted_flag 1y agoI’ve been reluctant to seek out the Lenire since a number of people claim it made their tinnitus worse
- rendx 1y ago"Complex trauma opens up another possible pathway between tinnitus and trauma -- one similar to that proposed for the connection between tinnitus and traditional trauma. Let’s say, for example, that my parents belittled me constantly and that as a result I never felt myself competent in handling challenges. Instead, I was made to feel powerless in the face of adverse circumstances and carried this insecurity into my adult life. Hence, when I am faced with the challenge of responding to tinnitus, my sense of helplessness as a child reemerges and blocks my ability to adequately deal with it. As the authors of the EMDR studies propose, this would mean that to treat the tinnitus we would need to treat the trauma." https://therapistwithtinnitus.com/2023/01/31/is-tinnitus-trauma/ https://therapistwithtinnitus.com/2023/01/31/is-tinnitus-tra... Phillips JS, Erskine S, Moore T, Nunney I, Wright C. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing as a treatment for tinnitus. Laryngoscope. 2019 Oct;129(10):2384-2390. doi: 10.1002/lary.27841. Epub 2019 Jan 28. PMID: 30693546. Rikkert M, van Rood Y, de Roos C, Ratter J, van den Hout M. A trauma-focused approach for patients with tinnitus: the effectiveness of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing - a multicentre pilot trial. Eur J Psychotraumatol. 2018 Sep 11;9(1):1512248 Moore, Tal & Phillips, John & Erskine, Sally & Nunney, Ian. (2020). What Has EMDR Taught Us About the Psychological Characteristics of Tinnitus Patients?. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research. 14. 229-240. 10.1891/EMDR-D-19-00055. "This brief summary considered literature from both the hearing and trauma disciplines, with the goal of reviewing mechanisms shared between tinnitus and PTSD, as well as clinical reports supporting mutual reinforcement of both their symptoms and the effects of therapeutic approaches." https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/12/11/1585 https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/12/11/1585 "clinicians who offer tinnitus and hyperacusis rehabilitation should screen for suicidal and self-harm ideations among patients with symptoms of depression and a childhood history of parental mental illness" https://tinnitustherapy.org.uk/adverse-childhood-experiences-and-tinnitus-disability/ https://tinnitustherapy.org.uk/adverse-childhood-experiences... "Good mental health/EMDR treatment with tinnitus includes a comprehensive phase 1 history taking, targeting any precipitating trauma experiences, and “float back,” targeting the negative cognitions about the present experience of tinnitus." https://www.emdria.org/blog/emdr-therapy-and-tinnitus/ https://www.emdria.org/blog/emdr-therapy-and-tinnitus/
- ttoinou 1y agoThanks for the reminder. Do you remember if it was mainly the mid and trebles that were too high ? Do you also get hurt when hearing loud bass / infra bass ?
- cheema33 1y agoShit. I have never been to a loud concert. And I think I’ll go without for the rest of my life. I do love my Bose noise cancelling headphones. I listen to music at a low volume. I am now wondering if the noise cancellation part that generates its own frequencies helps or hurts.
- missedthecue 1y agoWhy is the new style to avoid capitalization when writing? I see it everywhere now. I can only imagine the annoyance of fighting autocorrect just to format your content like this.
- kayodelycaon 1y agoIt's clearly a deliberate choice by the author, not a grammatical error. They do use capitals for proper nouns. And for the record, you can disable automatic capitalization.
- hooverd 1y agoI don't know, but I find it quite unpleasant to read.
- grg0 1y agoI hate it too. If you want to avoid capitalization, then at least go all caps like the Romans.
- alabastervlog 1y agoKids doing weird shit to stand out, like every generation. It makes reading harder, and with modern tools it certainly isn't any easier to write—with both those things working against it I doubt it'll stick around.
- forgotoldacc 1y agoit's not to stand out when every person types like this the real reason is it's conversational. it's casual. it removes the gap between the reader and the writer it's how people talk in a chat with their friends in pretty much every language across the world, writing was always "formal" and lacked the voice of a couple of people having a chat. at some points, writing was even a separate language. east asian people did lots of their correspondence in classical chinese instead of using their own languages. the catholic church hated the idea of people reading the bible in anything but latin then people chilled out and realized writing how we speak makes it more accessible to everyone. and that's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. novels started taking a more conversational style and some people looked down on that decades ago. now those novels are considered classics, and honestly, i'd attribute half of that to their writing seeming "formal" in retrospect because formal speech today is yesterday's casual speech. now people will revolt against modern writing and think it's below them. in 5 decades people will think this kind of writing is very formal basically, it doesn't make it harder. it makes it easier. people write how they think and they don't worry about being perfect. and as another commenter said, autoformatting and autocorrecting tools just break shit more than they fix it these days. i can't even type "i have 5 pennies" without my phone correcting it to "I have 5 Pennie's" for some reason.
- hyencomper 1y agoThere was an earlier thread on tinnitus https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21572827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21572827 where people had some techniques for relief. Maybe this could be useful.
- mickelsen 1y agoSeveral! In this one I shared what I did to deal with my case: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33905368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33905368 For those with unilateral tinnitus that seems influenced by neck stretches or TMJ issues, try sleeping on your back or on the opposite side to avoid pressure on the affected ear. Also, consider getting an MRI to check for possible causes; in my case, a vascular loop was found contacting the vestibulocochlear nerve inside the internal auditory canal. While I consider my case largely managed, it still flares up a few times per month, usually triggered by irritation or inflammation (allergens, getting sick, poor neck posture, loud music for hours)
- mickelsen 1y agoOh! Before this thread disappears into the void (or until the next tinnitus thread), one more trick that really helped back then: Percussion massage gun with the sharp tip, aimed at the trapezius and levator scapulae. Those muscles can refer tension right around the ears. Targeting them can calm things down fast, especially if your tinnitus is posture or tension-related. Not medical advice.
- Gualdrapo 1y agoI have it since I can remember, but got aggravated by two events: (1) One time when I was going to setup the drums to play for a band, walked front of a tall speaker and precisely when I stepped in front of it a loud boom scaped from it; and (2) covid-19. It's kind of in "stereo", in the right ear is a bit louder and with a higher pitch than in the left ear. I can't imagine how terrible it is for people with worse cases but in my case I can live with it despite sometimes I have trouble hearing some stuff - but it's kind of uncanny sometimes I even forget about it until I remember I have it, like now reading "tinnitus" in the title of this article. Something like the yawn effect.
- le-mark 1y agoMost veterans have it, I sure do although relatively mild. Besides being issued defective ear plugs, the CVC helmets we used were garbage at protecting your ears. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/08/29/business/3m-settlement-military-earplugs-lawsuits https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/08/29/business/3m-settlement-mi...
- deepsun 1y agoIn some ex-soviet countries college students may go to introductory military training, and they never even tell students that they need earplugs when giving them an AK to shoot at a shooting range.
- snovymgodym 1y agoEarpro in military & law enforcement is a relatively new phenomenon and much of the world still doesn't do it.
- MarkMarine 1y agoI used double protection my entire time in as a Huey Crew Chief and my hearing is smoked. It’s ringing hard right now as I type this, the people closest to me can’t seem to understand because it’s invisible. Sometimes I wish I couldn’t hear at all so it was obvious
- AStonesThrow 1y agoI sang in choirs for nearly 25 years. The scariest thing about it was that everyone thought that the way to test a microphone was to tap firmly & directly on the diaphragm. They also thought they could adjust or move equipment without muting the channel on the mixer. It is absolutely crazy to tap your mic when you know that booms are bound to reverberate from your powered-up PA system. Microphones amplify human speech. They are not drums. Why not test them by speaking or singing in front of them? I kept telling them that one day they would damage either a speaker, an amp, or someone’s perfectly good hearing.
- anonzzzies 1y agoI have it from being a death metal singer/guitarist 30 years ago, but it gets much worse when tired or higher blood pressure (handy though ; most people don't have an actual audible alarm for that). It's indeed not recommended, it is, however very clever how the brain mostly filters it out unless I actively think about it. I am in my 50s and the most notable 'side effect' is that I must avoid conference calls; it seems unconsciously I got good at reading lips in person, even in groups, but video calls and especially audio calls are just too hard. I tell people now I'm handicapped, which is indeed true I guess; we either meet in person or they will have to write it down. Captions sometimes work, but we work with people from around the world and some English accents just generate mostly random words as captions. Not sure why a discussion about a payment api is mostly about rain, goats, [laughter], [music] and such...
- rzmnr 1y agoI'm in my 30s and I have tinnitus since my 16 caused by playing drums with my first band. From that day on I always wear earplugs to minimize extra damage. I really recognize the conference call thing. When i'm in group and I can't see people well or there are a lot of people talking at the same time I also noticed I lip read more than I thought.
- harvey9 1y agoFrom this I extrapolate people at risk of high blood pressure should be offered death metal concerts on prescription.
- khaoohs 1y agoWhat band?
- jorgesborges 1y agoI’ve played drums and loud music for a long time. When I pay close enough attention there’s this persistent, aggravating noise — which I sometimes call “silence”, and other times call “tinnitus”.
- technothrasher 1y ago> which I sometimes call “silence” I've had mild tinnitus as long as I can remember; my earliest memory of it must have been when I was about four years old. I suspect I've had it my entire life. When I was a child, I thought it was just something normal that everybody had. When I heard the Simon and Garfunkel song, "The Sound of Silence", I thought that was what they were talking about.
- grg0 1y agoAre we talking about that thing you hear when in absolute silence in the dead of night? Is absolute silence even a thing?
- technothrasher 1y agoI don't know what anybody else hears in absolute silence, but I hear a high pitched ringing. I can hear it any time I think about it. Like the other poster said though, my brain filters it out typically when other noise is around and I'm not paying attention to it.
- davidivadavid 1y ago
- obloid 1y agoI have had tinnitus for years, I suspect partly genetic and exacerbated by spending a lot of my 20s and 30s at loud concerts. But just recently I noticed I now have deafness to certain frequencies in one ear. I had an air leak a tire and realized I could hear the hiss of air escaping with one ear but not the other. Protect your ears, folks.
- pier25 1y agoBoth my wife and I started experiencing tinnitus days after the first covid shots. I will never be able to prove the shots were the cause but there was really nothing else happening in our lives back then. In my case it was never severe but I've heard of people woken up by their tinnitus. Thankfully it has mostly subsided. These days I barely notice it unless I'm in a very quiet environment.
- Tsarp 1y agoVery interesting, I started noticing it around the whole covid time too. Somehow I associated it with excess headphone use from WFH, combined with lesser general mobility(bed to desk commute).
- instagib 1y agoI got mine from Covid. I’ve read that some medicines may have a side effect of tinnitus and stopping them can make it disappear.
- OutOfHere 1y agoSome medicines cause permanent tinnitus too by killing of hearing cells. Stopping them medicines then does not make the tinnitus disappear; it is permanent. One such medicine is valproate.
- instagib 1y agoValproic Acid is such a unique drug. They did studies which included it and found using only that substance instead of a compound with it led to the benefit without other significant side effects. It’s on my list. Great news, 11% chance of tinnitus reported in one study and 7% in another. Tinnitus > Migraines any day. https://reference.medscape.com/drug/valproic-acid-343024 https://reference.medscape.com/drug/valproic-acid-343024
- OutOfHere 1y agoI hsd used it briefly for pressure migraine. It gave me permanent tinnitus.
- neilv 1y ago> so now, i am one of those people that plucks their ears when an emergency vehicle goes by with the siren blaring. You might get one of those low-end decibel meters that supposedly are calibrated at the factory (around $25 in the US), to measure how loud the sirens are. Maybe they're louder than they need to be, and you can request for them to be adjusted, as a public health improvement. I've been meaning to do something like this. My city has sirens throughout the day, but one particular ambulance company's seems much louder to me than any other company or other emergency vehicle -- dangerously louder. As someone who walks miles every day, on major streets and near hospitals, the near-daily potential hearing damage risk has started to get a bit concerning. I'd like to have data (and make sure it's not just a frequency sensitivity specific to me), before I ask them respectfully if the volume can be adjusted.
- lukan 1y agoI feel you, but I also think you don't need to buy special equipment, they might ignore anyway. To get a rough reading, your smartphone can provide that data via app. Then you would have some numbers you can tell official people - and then they can measure again with calibrated eqipment if in doubt.
- neilv 1y agoIs there an app you'd recommend? (PhyPhox on my phone says it wants to be "calibrated" against one of those meters, but I haven't checked how accurate it is without that.)
- deleted 1y ago
- 1970-01-01 1y agoThere is lots of active research: https://www.tinnitustreatmentreport.com/ https://www.tinnitustreatmentreport.com/
- freen 1y agoMost, if not all, of that funding has been cut.
- saltcod 1y agoHad a huge scare after a concert a few years ago. My ears hurt and were very poor for a few days after. Very scary. Luckily it went away. I wear ear protection all the time now. agree that there should be laws governing sound volume.
- msephton 1y agoI also have tinnitus, as well as hearing loss related to loud music from nightclubs and concerts, and of course natural aging. AirPods Pro and the ability to adjust the audio to be personalised to my audiogram (hearing test results) is a huge quality of life increase. All done on device, no need to go anywhere or see any specialists.
- richwater 1y agoHey there...could you expand on "the ability to adjust the audio to be personalised to my audiogram"? Sorry i'm not familiar with AirPods pro but suffer from tinnitus.
- turnsout 1y agoAirPods Pro 2 are now FDA approved to act as hearing aids, and during the setup, you will take a hearing test that generates an audiogram (essentially a personalized EQ adjustment). [0] I have pretty mild hearing loss, but it was very wild to turn it on for the first time. It’s like taking OFF a filter. With that said, I don’t think it would lessen tinnitus, and I don’t think the parent comment was suggesting it would. [0]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/120992 https://support.apple.com/en-us/120992
- msephton 1y agoHeadphone Accommodations (what I was referring to, adjust to audiogram), Hearing Aid (boosts speech, reduces background noise, and perhaps also audiogram) and Personalised Audio (measure your ears, and other features) are separate but related features.
- turnsout 1y agoYeah, Apple has made it as confusing as possible. But bottom line, if you do the hearing test you'll get an audiogram, which is great.
- msephton 1y ago
- rietta 1y agoI have had a touch of it for a few years. I have been very careful to protect my hearing. Always listening to headphones on the lowest setting. Always wearing hearing protection while operating lawn equipment. I have been an amateur competitive shooter and always double up with plugs and muffs. Then in 2022, I had a terrible double ear infection the same week I competed in a local USPSA (IPSC) match and boom that was it. Ironically the ear doctor thinks it was the infection. I showed him the system I use for shooting. It doesn’t bother me anymore though it is always there when there is silence.
- mlconnor 1y agoIt’s really tough, my heart goes out to you. I have tinnitus too but mine is much better than it used to be. Carry high quality earplugs on your keychain everywhere you go. And believe it or not, diet and especially sodium play a big part. Take care of your ears and they may heal and dial back the high sodium foods.
- VladVladikoff 1y agoI have been to a lot of very loud electronic music shows in my life. For most of it I was young and foolish and did not wear hearing protection. Later in life I started to wear earplugs. I occasionally get waves of tinnitus in one ear. It comes on randomly and only lasts about one minute. I’m always afraid it will not go away. One day the wave will decide to just stay? I haven’t been to any loud shows in over a decade. I have no idea what triggers the waves, I can just be sitting in a quiet room and suddenly it will hit. And then nothing for a few weeks. Ears are strange.
- dexwiz 1y agoI've been told that sometimes this is one of the nerve endings in your ear dying. Your brain doesn't know what to do with the signal and you interpret this as a steady tone for 10 seconds to a minute. I have taken pretty good care of my hearing and I still get them occasionally.
- camtarn 1y agoAs another commenter posted above, this seems to be known as 'sudden brief unilateral tapering tinnitus'. It seems fairly normal. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21970850/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21970850/
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- atum47 1y agoMy dad also has it. Tinnitus is one of the topics on HN that I always click to see if there was any progress. That and Alzheimer.
- rubitxxx10 1y agoI can hear the high frequencies of cathode ray tubes, and generally feel like I hear much higher frequencies than others. That’s just normal, but when I’m tired or stressed, my blood pressure is up, or I’m sick, it’s what most people probably classify as tinnitus and is at a much lower frequency, more of a high pitched tone.
- acjohnson55 1y agoI also used to be able to hear CRTs. I didn't know what it was for a long time, and then I figured out I could "hear when the TV is on".
- EvanAnderson 1y agoOh, yeah. 15 kHz whine from NTSC CRTs did used to be a thing for me. Eventually I lost that range of my hearing. A few years ago I fired-up a 15 kHz monitor for my Apple II and my then 5 y/o daughter held her ears and complained that there was a terrible screeching sound that hurt her ears. Between losing the top-end of my hearing with age and the end of CRTs being mainstream display technology I'd forgotten about tube whine.
- AStonesThrow 1y agoThe whine you hear is not actually from the tube itself, but generated by the flyback transformer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyback_transformer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyback_transformer
- labadal 1y agoI feel terrible because I never did anything wrong. I never went to a concert. I never worked around loud things for prolonged periods. I never listened to music too loud. I have tinnitus. It seems to go up in intensity when my TMD acts up, but it never goes completely away. Mine isn't nearly debilitating, but I worry that it's going to get worse with time.
- blackguardx 1y agoI have tinnitus from an inner ear injury from snorkeling/free diving. Tinnitus can be caused by clenching your jaw or otherwise stimulating your jaw muscles. My ENT told me the nerves for the muscles are extremely close to the nerves for hearing. One thing I try when my tinnitus acts up is making sure to keep my jaw relaxed.
- labadal 1y agoI've started wearing a night guard/TMJ splint, by the recommendation of a dentist. It helps a lot in preventing my jaw from locking up during the day. Have you given that a show to try and alleviate some pressure from the area?
- DontchaKnowit 1y agoI have had tinnitus for as long as I have been forming memories. As a child I called it "the sound of silence" and thought everyone heard it. Never bothered me much. Its much worse now at times. Still doesnt bother me much
- lbourdages 1y agoI'm in the same boat for the most part. Always had tinnitus, for as long as I can remember. Doesn't bother me at all. However, for the past 3 or 4 years, during spring, I get much worse tinnitus in my right ear for a couple weeks. It appears to be caused by some kind of blockage in my inner ear due to the inevitable viruses we catch during the winter. It's louder and a lower pitch (around 3 kHz, unlike my 10+ kHz normal one), and even though it's not the first time this happens by now, it's still extremely annoying. It's harder to just ignore, and my mind immediately starts thinking "what if this lasts forever?" So I can imagine that for those who develop tinnitus at adulthood, it can cause a lot more distress, because they lived the "before".
- mirawelner 1y agoBlogs like these remind me of the time I was riding my scooter without a helmet. A lady in a wheelchair yelled “wear a helmet it’s how I ended up in this chair” So now I wear a helmet
- senectus1 1y agoyeah, me too. Got it from as a 16yr old being shown how to shoot a 3030 without hearing protection. I'm sure its more than that, but thats when i first noticed it. Hate it, but have learned to just accept it.
- poink 1y agoI got tinnitus as a baby from ear infections and it sucks enough I’m very thankful I cannot remember life without it. That would be torture
- HocusLocus 1y agoTinitus is misfiring nerves firing along the path somewhere from ear cochlea to cortex. From your description there is pain and discomfort for high frequencies also, it's not just a pure ringing that might even favor 1 ear? I did some research for a novel ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtxgpaXp9vA&t=4697s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtxgpaXp9vA&t=4697s ) and learned that hearing is not too hard to understand, but it's mysterious in its perfection and a Job Well Done in evolution, the most complicated thing that comes already hard-wired. Some 30,000 nerves along the path from ear to cortex in 4 neuronal stages. An awful lot. That would make pain and discomfort after hearing damage (and slowness of healing) a sort of canary that there might be some systemic problem with myelin or nutrition. (try "Key Nutrients for Myelin Support") and try to binge on those items if you are ready to try anything.) I've had temporary damage with effects lasting a week. I was a sound guy and have at times troubleshooted crossover networks that peaked around 3kHz and it wasbad, but the very worst was dropping a 60lb steel theater weight onto a pile of other weights. Didn't even hear the sound but hearing went silent for 5 minutes and took a week to all come back! Also ultrasonics that were felt as pressure not sound. I recovered completely and have a rolloff beyond 13k that is probably age. But it's scary, I hope you heal! This greg.technology gent is not just any ear blaster, he brought us Sonic Garbage ( https://sonicgarbage.greg.technology/ https://sonicgarbage.greg.technology/ ) that has been featured here on HN. And check out his cheerleading offer at ( https://blog.greg.technology/ https://blog.greg.technology/ ). It looks like a good deal because I've exchanged emails with him and he is a plain spoken cheerful guy... the offer is not satire in any way.
- xtracto 1y ago>Tinitus is misfiring nerves firing along the path somewhere from ear cochlea to cortex I've had tinnitus in both my ears for 25 years. Knowing that tidbit you mention, I've always wo dered if it would be possible to invent a "switch" that completely "cuts" the communication between the ears and the brain (making you temporarily deaf . So that you can turn it on at nights while in bed, and turn it on in the morning. That would be a huge relief. And can be "rougher" than trying to stop the specific misfiring nerves
- jsphweid 1y agoTook 1-2 years before I went a single day without thinking about tinnitus after I gave it to myself playing drums. I was so happy to be smashing those punk drums in the first rehearsal of this band. I remember exclaiming afterwards to one of my bandmates, "Wow my ears are ringing! That was awesome!" He said, "Ya, mine have been ringing for 30 years." My heart immediately sank knowing what I had just done. I spent a lot of days/months totally devastated about it. I remember reading this story about some woman in a scandinavian country who chose medical-assisted suicide because hers was so bad. I thought that was going to be my story. I thought it was inevitable. But I met a lot of people who lived completely normal lives and described their tinnitus as so much worse than mine. I eventually got used to it. I wouldn't say the actual ringing is better or worse than it was. I have no idea how to measure it anyways. But life has gotten so much better. And I almost never think about it any more -- maybe once every few weeks I'll have the thought, "Oh ya, I have ringing in my ears" and a few seconds later I forget about it again. I think it gets better for most people, thankfully. But it'd be cool to hear complete silence again.
- mlinhares 1y agoWhen I'm very focused I can be in complete silence, but these moments are very few, once I notice the silence the ringing comes back again. Mostly I'm at a point i don't hear it at all unless I get very distracted or see anything that mentions it. Like right now reading this post and the comments LOL.
- BuckRogers 1y agoThat's how it is for me too. I don't hear it until someone mentions it. Then it's pretty noticeable. I went to an audiologist thinking I gave myself hearing loss at a point but he said my hearing is beyond exceptional, and that I should be very careful with it to preserve it. So I think I have an infection induced, or neurological cause.
- jay_kyburz 1y ago> I remember reading this story about some woman in a scandinavian country who chose medical-assisted suicide because hers was so bad. I'm surprised there is not some method to surgically disconnect the brain from the ear.
- nozzlegear 1y agoI've got the typical high-pitched ringing kind that I've had for as long as I can remember, along with pulsatile tinnitus that developed several years ago, meaning I can hear a whooshing sound in my ears to the rhythm of my heartbeat. When I tell people about the pulsatile tinnitus, I like to joke and compare it to the heartbeat from Edgar Allen Poe's story "The Tell-Tale Heart." Luckily neither of these tinnituses bothers me as much as the subject of that story. In fact they don't bother me much at all anymore, although the pulsatile one did cause a great deal of anxiety when it first developed seemingly out of nowhere. My brain has learned to adapt and ignore the sounds pretty easily unless I'm in a quiet room and have nothing else to focus on. And a tip for anyone suffering: I've found that those "8 hours of brown noise" loops on YouTube work wonders for drowning out the sound of both regular and pulsatile tinnitus.
- telchior 1y agoHere's a better alternative to YouTube noise loops: https://mynoise.net/noiseMachines.php https://mynoise.net/noiseMachines.php
- nozzlegear 1y agoNeat, thanks for the link!
- Kivern7 1y ago[dead]
- ehrjfjrjrfjn77 1y agoI'm embarrassed to say I spent the first week or two with my pulsatile tinnitus fascinated by how rhythmically the wind was gushing through the trees outside my bedroom window. At some point I must have rolled over, the whooshing noise switching sides along with my left ear, and realised the noise was not coming from outside at all. About 6 months after onset it disappeared as quickly and mysteriously as it first appeared.
- nozzlegear 1y ago
- plaidfuji 1y agoI “got over” mine after many months of “tinnitus meditation” (there’s a short book on this written by a guy who has some crazy disease that causes extra-bad tinnitus). Basically, you meditate by purposefully focusing on your tinnitus. It starts to flip your brain’s response from one of fear to one of relaxation. Even within the first session, you’ll find that when you try to focus on the noise for as long as you can (use a timer and start with 5 mins), you eventually get distracted and think about something else, even if just for a moment. Then you realize that your brain isn’t “forced” to notice it - and the more you practice this, the better you’ll get at noticing it and gently pivoting your attention back to.. the rest of the world. The noise never goes away, your ability to ignore it just improves over time. The book is a quick read and helpful: https://a.co/d/ckOzbSq https://a.co/d/ckOzbSq I no longer meditate as often, but when I do, it’s actually still quite effective. I now see it more as a “retreat” of sorts - I can just kind of dissociate and let the ringing take over. Reading this article brought it back, incidentally.. but I’m ok with it. Once you fully surrender to the noise, you can start to let go of it. It’s the mental resistance that makes it hard to deal with.
- sepositus 1y agoI've recently developed tinnitus within the last few months, so I'm still early in my researching. However, I've found a lot of people that discount this approach and swear it only makes things worse. That's why I've been hesitant to try it. Do you think a lot of it has to do with having the right mindset?
- plaidfuji 1y agoIt honestly may depend on how bad it is and how you react to it. For me, it was causing almost a constant panic-level reaction for weeks. I couldn’t sleep without heavy drugs, and I would wake up sweating and on edge. Just non-stop. I took a fair bit of time off work because of how hard it was to focus. So suffice to say I was willing to try anything.. and the meditation aspect was necessary for me beyond just reducing tinnitus. But I can’t see how it would make things worse, at least not in a permanent way.
- emeril 1y ago
- vladdrak 1y agoTinnitus may be a symptom of hearing loss. I recommend you get checked by an Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) specialist.
- mattmaroon 1y agoThink you mean plugging, not plucking, your ears, unless sirens make you remove hair, in which case they did you a favor. I got some nice ear plugs designed for concerts (Loop) because I go to a concert and I already have mild tinnitus and don't want it to get worse. I do not know why concerts have to be SO LOUD. Loud, sure. Permanent ear damage loud, why? It should tell you something that the guys on stage wear ear plugs. That's a really good point about hearing damage vs eye damage, the only thing I can think of is it's a lot harder to measure and people don't care as much. It would be really hard to prove you had hearing loss in a court of law, let alone that it came from one specific event, and you'd have a much easier time proving that a high powered laser blinded several people, perhaps. And nearly 100% of people would choose "deaf" if they were forced to pick between that and blind.
- teruakohatu 1y ago> I do not know why concerts have to be SO LOUD. Loud, sure. Permanent ear damage loud, why I have often wondered this. So it’s non-deafening loud at the back? I was at a concert recently that was way too loud. A sound guy came to check and stood in front of the speakers. I thought finally it’s going to be turned down … nope … clearly his hearing had already gone which would explain why it was so loud. I think my hearing has been damaged in the past and so I now always have either AirPods at the very least or earplugs on hand. If anything loud, like heavy construction next to a bus stop, is happening I put them in. I can’t undo the past but I can prevent future damage.
- jay_kyburz 1y agoI went to a metal concert for the first time in err. 25-30 years and I don't remember them being so loud. It was physically painful. I also had to go have a nap in the car waiting for the main act to come on.
- presentation 1y agoYoung people like intense experiences, blasting your ears out is fun when you're 18-24.
- tangoalpha 1y agoGot permanent tinnitus due to damage to auditory nerve from an accident back in 2010. Coping was hard. Distracting yourself with various things so you dont think about it was key. Things to try - 1) Keeping yourself distracted or occupied and trying to not be conscious about it for 50% of the day to start with, gradually improving to 90% of the day 2) White noise apps for sleep 3) Carry ear plugs at all times. Plug them in if watching a movie in a theatre or attending to an Indian wedding. Prevents worsening of the situation. To those out there: you're not alone. The journey is different for everyone, and what helps one person might not help another — but with patience and experimentation, many find ways to manage and live fully despite it.
- DidYaWipe 1y ago[flagged]
- timmytokyo 1y agoI'm sorry to hear you're suffering from tinnitus, but what science is there to support the claim that the COVID vaccines cause it? Anecdotes are not science.
- instagib 1y agohttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11150672/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11150672/ Some reporting in there, Facebook group survey, and Tinnitus (12,532) is the 44th complaint among nearly 700,000 reported in the Vaccine Adverse Effect Reporting System.
- DidYaWipe 1y agoThanks for that. I've added that to my list. It's been exhausting to respond to (reasonable) questions about non-anecdotal evidence... or outright scorn, with personally-scraped-up evidence that should have been public knowledge. Everyone should have been armed with this information before making a risk/reward decision about the vaccine, especially as it became less effective and/or critical. Now I have a degraded life for a nearly-useless second booster.
- DidYaWipe 1y agoThe first specialist I went to, a top audiology lab in L.A. (the House Clinic), asked about COVID vaccine as the first diagnostic question. Their office noticed so many new patients coming in after just having the vaccine that they published a paper about it: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8443418/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8443418/ Also, National Geographic (paywalled): https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/covid-vaccine-trigger-tinnitus https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/covid-va... https://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/can-the-covid-19-vaccine-lead-to-hearing-issues https://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/can-the... https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/03/health/covid-vaccines-side-effects.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/03/health/covid-vaccines-sid... And I have more, and I'm sure there are many more since. This one discusses the fact that even scientists have been reluctant to report this harm, for fear of being "canceled:" https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/tinnitus-rare-side-effect-covid-vaccines-rcna20613 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/tinnitus-rare-sid... A specialist I saw at UCLA came right out and said "this is a true agent" (pretty sure that was the terminology he used) and that information on it has been actively suppressed. Aside from suppression, there's a huge under-reporting problem here. I had to spend a lot of time seeking out specialists for this issue, time that I happened to have and the insurance and money to pursue it. That is not MOST people. General practitioners and even first-level ENTs pretty much shrugged and suggested known-to-be-ineffective treatment like steroids. Do you think these guys reported my complaint as vaccine-related to some central database? Of course I did, but again... I'm sure that puts me in a small minority. Also I had good hearing and immediately noticed the problem. In fact, I have diligently protected my hearing my whole life, wearing ear plugs even in loud pubs. So I submit that this is a way bigger problem than the "stats" show... stats that (even so) DO indicate a problem.
- th3o6a1d 1y agoI have tinnitus from going to loud concerts. I want to evangelize the importance of wearing ear plugs. It’s just not worth having hearing damage.
- specproc 1y agoYep. Had a DJ mate who religiously wore plugs to every night, wise dude. Wear ear plugs at gigs, kids. Older you will thank you.
- medhir 1y agoI got tinnitus in my right ear after the second round of mRNA vaccines for Covid in May 2021 that never went away, equally do not recommend. If you’re going to concerts / loud venues regularly, please for the love of god invest in some decent earplugs. They go for $15-30 on amazon and come with a carrying case usually, it’s a simple habit that will save you lots of heartache down the line.
- aerodog 1y ago[flagged]
- gitroom 1y ago[dead]
- justmedep 1y agoBest way for me to get rid of my tinnitus was to get a hearing aid. In my specific case I got the Lyric hearing aid which is a totally invisible hearing aid positioned deep inside the ear canal and it is worn 24/7. It is known to reliably eliminate a tinnitus that is caused by hearing loss in the high frequency range.
- JayDustheadz 1y agoSadly not everyone is able to keep anything in their ears for a longer period of time. For me, it quickly gets very tiresome to the point where my ears start to hurt.
- acjohnson55 1y agoI get a weird transient tinnitus where my hearing drops out in one ear or the other for about 15 seconds, and is replace by a tone, which slowly fades as my hearing comes back. It sometimes happens multiple times per day, and sometimes not for weeks at a time. I've seen a couple specialists about it, but no known cause. I also notice a low-level tinnitus when I'm in very quiet places. I keep white noise machines around to cover it.
- packetlost 1y agoI have this too. My theory is the random "drops" are caused by the inner ear hairs attuned to that frequency get disturbed by something (like a shift in fluid) and overloading their respective nerves, similar to the afterimages that come from staring at a bright light. The low level tinitus in a quiet room seems pretty normal to me, it's your brain looking for really quiet noises that are at the limit of what your ears can pick up. Or something, I'm no expert on it.
- acjohnson55 1y ago> I have this too. My theory is the random "drops" are caused by the inner ear hairs attuned to that frequency get disturbed by something (like a shift in fluid) and overloading their respective nerves, similar to the afterimages that come from staring at a bright light. Interesting theory. Yeah, for me, it often happens when I'm sitting still working. I have never noticed it in response to sound. But, yeah, I can imagine it being some innocuous physical thing in the fluid. > The low level tinitus in a quiet room seems pretty normal to me, it's your brain looking for really quiet noises that are at the limit of what your ears can pick up. Or something, I'm no expert on it. Yeah, might be somewhat like the hum when the gain is turned up on a guitar amp and nothing's playing. Basically just amplifying the noise floor. I'm not sure if it's true tinnitus, or just my brain filling in for the white noise I normally have in the background.
- D13Fd 1y agoI have this. It’s pretty uncommon for me but happens every once in a while. I have heard it’s no big deal. My imagined explanation is that it is a muscle that spasms and temporarily blocks sound to the ear, but actually I have no idea.
- m3kw9 1y agoWent to a jazz club and could not believe why the music had to be so loud. My ears were numb coming out of there for an hour
- RIMR 1y agoI was very miserable when my chronic tinnitus showed up, but my life improved greatly after my doctor got me in the right cognitive behavioral therapy to learn to ignore it. After plenty of practice, it's now hard for me to hear it without actively listening for it, even though it is quite loud. My advice to anyone struggling with tinnitus is to avoid silence for a while. Focus on anything but the tinnitus. Never give yourself the chance to focus on it. Buy bone conductor headphones and listen to ambient music instead of sitting in silence. Buy a white noise machine for when you go to bed, or run a fan. Then spend a few minutes every waking hour of your day actively listening to the sounds around you Eventually you'll have trained yourself to listen to something else. As long as there's something else to listen to, even if it is very quiet, you'll default to listening to that instead of your tinnitus until it becomes something you do passively. I might as well not have tinnitus anymore. I can't speak for everyone, especially not in regards to hypersensitivity to noise like the author here has, but I went from mourning the loss of my daily comfort to completely forgetting about the problem in a couple of months.
- wiseowise 1y agoI have a “mild” tinnitus that I only hear in complete silence. Last time I went to a party, I pulled out an AirPods when we were (practically) standing in front of the speakers. Still remember puzzled and “not cool, dude” looks, lol. I’m not taking chances with this tinnitus crap after what I read online.
- wellthisisgreat 1y agoCan it somehow be related to having tight neck / jaw muscles?
- PretzelPirate 1y agoWhen I got tinnitus after months of high stress, the ENT told me that all of my jaw clenching may have changed the pressure on the muscle that's connected to the inner ear, and that could be the cause. I never got a definitive answer about the cause, and that seems pretty common. I've heard that TMJ can cause it as well.
- ku1ik 1y agoYes, that’s often pointed by doctors as either a potential cause or an amplifier.
- memsom 1y agoI have had tinnitus for most of my life. When I was a child I had a massive ear infection that burst my eardrum on the left side and that is the worse side. Honestly I can just tune it out and it seems normal. It mainly causes issues in louder environments because it can be difficult to hear what people are saying. And it doesn’t need to be very loud. A bar with music and lots of people talking around me can be enough. It is totally possible to exist with it though.
- whatevermom 1y agoI have tinnitus, and the only way of not hearing it is to not think about it. I am hearing it again after reading this article.
- anotherevan 1y agoThe hypersensitivity to noise is also known as hyperacusis[1] which is defined as, “an abnormal sound sensitivity or decreased sound tolerance, with a heightened sense of volume and physical discomfort from many everyday sounds that other people can comfortably tolerate.” [1] https://www.dwmaudiology.com.au/services/hyperacusis/ https://www.dwmaudiology.com.au/services/hyperacusis/
- fexed 1y agoI've had tinnitus since birth, or at least for as long as I can remember. I learned to live with it, and now it's nothing more than a conversational topic for me.
- yuriks 1y agoAnother bonus of wearing ear protection in concerts: The music will actually sound way better when it's not saturating your eardrums. I got a decent pair of silicone plugs and it's a huge difference, everything sounds clearer and there's none of the sibilance and distortion I hear without them on, which I previously had always just attributed to the speakers/bad venue acoustics.
- PeterStuer 1y agoI got mine from a worn out bearing on a Toshiba 2.5" drive in a Toshiba laptop in the 90's. As this was a gradual thing, the machine getting louder every day over a year or more, you don't notice until too late.
- tim333 1y agoThat must have been a very loud drive.
- PeterStuer 1y agoIn the laptop under the palmrest is relatively close to the ear.
- tim333 1y agoI've got mild tinnitus from noisy clubs and find one thing that helps a bit is to carry earplugs 247 (cheap wax ones) and stick them in if the noise gets over 90 db or so (free phone app). The absence of further ear strain seems to let the ears gradually recover a little.
- splendicious 1y agoI've heard that even mentioning the word Tinnitus can onset it again for people who have managed to get rid of it.
- JayDustheadz 1y agoWasn't there a research where they put very sensitive microphones in the ears of a tinnitus-affected woman and they actually were able to record something (noise/sound)? I wonder what came out of that.
- mrbigbob 1y agoFor those who have tinnitus there are two sites i like to visit. one is a site that tracks new/experimental treatments for tinnitus (gives me a little hope on bad days) https://www.tinnitustreatmentreport.com/ https://www.tinnitustreatmentreport.com/ the other is tinnitustalk support https://www.tinnitustalk.com/ https://www.tinnitustalk.com/. it also covers upcoming possible tinnitus treatments and ways of coping with it
- OutOfHere 1y agoI keep foam ear plugs in my backpack. You never know when you might need them. They can be useful in the office too with noisy coworkers. ANC is good too, but sometimes it's not enough. Of course it takes much stronger events to cause tinnitus.
- firemelt 1y agoI have it for 3 years already, I feel so sad, I got this after my middle ear have infection because I cleaned my ear with cotton bud. I think the doctor have done some malpractice to my ear. I cleaned my ear because my sony xm4 in ear keep clogged and dirty if I know, I would change the eartips to silicon since beginning instead foam, fuck the redditard who ridicule me for asking about tips to reduce the dirtyness of sony eartips
- MoonGhost 1y agoAnd what is the right way of cleaning ears? There are a lot of things on amazon, like endoscopes with silicon tips. These are new development.
- hirvi74 1y agoI have always been extremely sensitive to sounds. I can't even vacuum without ear plugs. While annoying, I feel like it has always been a blessing in disguise because I still have great hearing and no issues with tinnitus. People used to laugh at me/question me when I would wear earplugs at concerts when I was younger. I don't want to be one of those, "I told you so" people; however, if I could talk to many of them again, I would tell them, "I told you so."
- MarkusWandel 1y agoIf I understand the ear correctly, you actually hear in the frequency domain (spectrum) rather than in the time domain (waveform) where a large number of "hair cells" are each sensitive to a particular frequency and once damaged they don't regenerate. Thus older folks lose high-frequency hearing because those hair cells deteriorate first; thus you may lose hearing at certain frequencies and... why not, the cells can be damaged in a way that causes them to hear things that are not there, with the frequency spectrum of the tinnitus "tone" mapping onto the damage. Comments? I don't see a single reference to "hair cell" in this comment stream so far. As for broad spectrum hearing damage, and how young people think all parts of their body are immortal. I once in my early 20s spent a single afternoon playing ping pong in a basement in which a very loud amateur rock band was also practicing. They were to my right. It was so loud it physically hurt. A few years later, I happened to have a hearing test as part of the induction into my workplace, and... would you believe it... my right ear is about 3dB less sensitive than my left. The brain makes up for the imbalance, but threshold-of-hearing tests don't lie. So I got to be stupid once. No tinnitus, no obvious disability. But ever since then the rule has applied: If it hurts, it's causing permanent damage, so avoid. Ear plugs, at least the wax type (Ohropax, from Germany) can be fairly discreetly worn if you must be cool and party near the big loudspeakers.
- MoonGhost 1y ago> Comments? I don't see a single reference to "hair cell" in this comment stream so far Hairs can mess up from loud sound. there was a story a few year back, a man killed himself a month after a loud concert. This is only one possible reason.
- egberts 1y agoWhat is amazing about my spinal-meningitis-induced-by-high-body-temperature partial hearing loss is tinnitus is more there. Decades later, after taking one pill of Zyban (to help quit smoking, Wellburtin-class), I lost the rest of my hearing in less than 30 minutes … permanently, but tinnitus went like mind-deafening. 7 years later, I opted for cochlear implants: and what do you know, tinnitus is barely there, almost gone. not sure how to explain this, but it is largely gone, this tinnitus. I suspected that natural background noise is keeping this feedback loops (tinnitus) from mainfesting in my auditorial part of the brain. Hearing largely restored in terms of jumpy crescendo yet fuller-spectrum, but dang, I hear farther than ever did before, like in Jamie Sommers of Bionic Woman. I still operate in a high-stress environment of frontline cybersecurity, yet am more calmer and more responsive. Highly recommended, unless you value your musical skill over tinnitus.
- hoppp 1y agoSounds like a ruptured eardrum if it physically hurts. I had tinnitus and hearing loss due to rock concerts, but not pain. Get it checked
- -__---____-ZXyw 1y agoTitle is "i have tinnitus. i don't recommend it." Does it get automatically uppercased, I wonder?
- thedudeabides5 1y agolift your hand to your hear and cover you ear with your fingers placed on the spot between the base of your skull and neck then start drumming thump thump thump thump a couple of times will quiet it down a bit then white noise machines at night if it's getting to you, until it doesn't
- jaketheweasel 1y agoWill someone please turn off the cathode ray tube Sylvania television? That high pitched whining is irritating!
- Padriac 1y agoI have permanent continuous tinnitus as a result of being exposed to high intensity noise and concussion association with 155 mm artillery in my work with Army. Although it never stops I can mentally block it out somehow but whenever I think about it it is always there, a loud, high pitched continuous tone. If I'm tired, sick or stressed it can be worse.
- gettingoverit 1y agoI have tinnitus for a couple decades for completely random medical reasons. Except for occupational hazard of being reminded of it once a year in IT newsletter by people spreading awareness, it's mostly fine. It only takes a couple of weeks to forget about it again. Probably I should make an IT blog that brings awareness to the process of breathing.
- vldr 1y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNjDBOJfMfY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNjDBOJfMfY changed and possibly saved my life. I still have Tinnitus but it hardly bothers me anymore
- k310 1y agoI didn't notice it all day until I read this thread. :-(
- man2vec 1y agoYou will get used to it. You are not alone.