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A message of hope. I got mine in my 30's too. The first week I thought I was going crazy, and this was the end of my life. I was shocked, I couldn't go to work

A message of hope. I got mine in my 30's too. The first week I thought I was going crazy, and this was the end of my life. I was shocked, I couldn't go to work for a whole week. I then saw a doctor who said to me: "Man, I've got tinnitus since 20 years and I barely hear it anymore. The more you accept it, the more it'll fade." A decade later, my own experience is exactly this. I accepted it as one of the body malfunctions that comes with age for everybody. I barely hear it anymore except in extremely low noise situations and it doesn't bother me at all. I wish you well.

glimshe 1y ago
It's very much like eye floaters. They are always there, but you can tune them out most of the time.
- typpilol 1y ago
  Brains crazy I had a slight crack in my windshield right at eye level view. And after a minute of driving I don't notice it at all anymore
  - ricardobeat 1y ago
    We have a projector instead of TV in the living room, and there is a small outlet inside the projection area, top right corner. We can go months without realizing/remembering it's there, until it accidentally matches a shadow or object in a scene... the brain just deletes it.
  - BobbyTables2 1y ago
    The fact we don’t notice our nose is crazy! It’s right in front of us!
- Alejandro9R 1y ago
  Completely agree. I've had some light/moderate floaters in my left eye which were very noticeable under a white screen, clean walls, or full bright sky in the evening. It came pretty sure because of a very stressful period at 27. Here I am, 31. I have to look for them really really hard to see if they are still there. Only when I have a streak of stressful days and bad night sleep, they will be visible again. It comes without saying that I had to change my life in many, many aspects, not only due to these floaters. A much calmer life, better food, gym, financial security, better friends and people around me, and cultivate a spiritual being in some sense. The mind can be shaped in many many ways it's fascinating.
- a-dub 1y ago
  my floaters showed up when i was 14- it was kinda shocking and scary at the time to be a freshman in high school and suddenly there were massive sensory disturbances in my eyes. ophthalmologists would just say to ignore them. apparently there's a pretty crazy surgery where they remove all the vitreous fluid from your eyeballs, but instead i decided to follow the ophthalmologist advice and they pretty much stopped bothering me. tinnitus seems similar. maybe in the future there could be some kind of functionally guided high intensity focused ultrasound ablation procedure that could dull out some of the malfunctioning percept, but for now probably the best bet is to ignore it. on a related note in interesting auditory neurotechnology, vestibular implants seem pretty cool!
- golem14 1y ago
  Do check your eye pressure regularly -- if high, you have a higher chance of detached retina, and in that case more floaters all of a sudden warrant an immediate drive to the ER. This can apparently happen when youi fall or hit yhour head. Once that happens, up only have so much time to reattach the retina before it dies off. According to my eye doctor. [Of course this is not be used as medical advice, as your LLM for that ;)]
- pasc1878 1y ago
  I have both, No you can't tune them out. They are always there, sometimes if you are very lucky you can get engrossed enough not to have them as the first or second thing on your mind But it is always in the top five you never can tune them out you have always be aware as not to to certainn things.
  - thfuran 1y ago
    I have tinnitus, and this thread is probably the first time I've thought about it this week.
    - pasc1878 1y ago
      Lucky you
radium3d 1y ago
Yeah, it just blends into the background for me, I've had it for decades. I blame the loud music as a kid.
gblargg 1y ago
I also thought I would go crazy when mine started after some ear infections in my 20s. It's gotten a lot worse over time but I mostly only notice if I think about it, and when I'm laying down to sleep, and when I wake up (it seems so strong). I've slept with white noise all my life, and without that I the tinnitus would definitely disturb my sleep.
bsimpson 1y ago
I've always been someone who hears high pitched noises that "normal" people don't. I'm also in my 30s, and I'm sure those "teenage alarms" in Japan would work on me. I was the one who would walk up to a CRT and turn it off when everyone else thought it already was. What helped me accept (and ignore) tinnitus was realizing that I had already grown accustomed to tolerating that sound indoors. When's it's something you have no agency over (like "it's an old house and the wires just make that sound sometimes"), you learn it's part of the environment. Accepting it as part of the environment gets you past the "OMG my body is ruined forever" anxieties and back to normal life.
- lucaslazarus 1y ago
  This is so relatable, though it has a strange downside. I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember and always thought I was some superhuman child who could hear electricity. Didn't actually realize it was tinnitus until I heard it at the top of a mountain I was hiking in remote New Mexico a few years ago. I probably got it from chronic sinusitis as a child, but I'm still not sure what to make of it.
- NBJack 1y ago
  I heard older TVs being turned on and off as well as CRT monitors. Now, its that very range I 'hear' all the time. Part of me wonders if it was sensitivity to that spectrum that damaged my hearing when I was around multiple CRTs so much. I have known people that have it much worse than I face daily.
  - tombert 1y ago
    Yeah, for me it sounds almost exactly like the squeal that CRT TVs make. Like, it's basically indistinguishable from that for me.
  - BobbyTables2 1y ago
    Me too! I genuinely could hear CRTs when I was 5. Tinnitus sound now is very similar for me too. Hearing test showed high frequency hearing loss in that range which is well above human speech and a lot of music.
otherme123 1y ago
For me, after 20'ish years with tinnitus, the only thing that brings the buzz to the foreground is reading/hearing the word "tinnitus".
- jay_kyburz 1y ago
  Haha, its funny you say that because I've been reading a novel at the moment where the main character has debilitating tinnitus, and every time the author describes it, I can hear my own.
- piva00 1y ago
  Almost the exact thing to me, 20+ years of tinnitus which sits calmly in the background most of the time except when I read the word tinnitus, or I'm feeling anxious for some reason: when I can't fall asleep when I need a good rest, life stresses, and those moments when a different pitch shows up in one ear and louder. In those occasions I can clearly hear the tone of mine. It's mildly annoying but I've definitely learnt to live with it pretty ok.
- patricklewis 1y ago
  Same here! Just reading the title of this post made me aware of mine for the first time all day.
drewcon 1y ago
Same exact story for me. Audiologist suggested treating it like a rock in your shoe. At the time seemed like impossible advice but now I just live with it and it’s 100% fine. Also the idea that it is actually made worse by anxiety was a game changer for me. Literally, “don’t worry about it” is the exact right advice.
Crontab 1y ago
I've had it for four years and I don't notice it most of the time anymore. But for reason just reading about it makes me notice it.
senectus1 1y ago
same here. now 51. I reckon i got it in my early 20's.
HippyTed 1y ago
I have had it since I was a teenager like 30 years ago. Honestly, I do not notice it unless someone points it out. Yes it is always there but there is nothing I can do about it so I don't worry about it.
spoiler 1y ago
I've had tinnitus since... At least my early 20s. Or that's the first time I found out about the concept. Until that point I assumed it's background noises everyone experiences. I only notice it when it changes abruptly (very rare), but otherwise I just tune it out

glimshe 1y ago

It's very much like eye floaters. They are always there, but you can tune them out most of the time.

typpilol 1y ago
Brains crazy I had a slight crack in my windshield right at eye level view. And after a minute of driving I don't notice it at all anymore
- ricardobeat 1y ago
  We have a projector instead of TV in the living room, and there is a small outlet inside the projection area, top right corner. We can go months without realizing/remembering it's there, until it accidentally matches a shadow or object in a scene... the brain just deletes it.
- BobbyTables2 1y ago
  The fact we don’t notice our nose is crazy! It’s right in front of us!
Alejandro9R 1y ago
Completely agree. I've had some light/moderate floaters in my left eye which were very noticeable under a white screen, clean walls, or full bright sky in the evening. It came pretty sure because of a very stressful period at 27. Here I am, 31. I have to look for them really really hard to see if they are still there. Only when I have a streak of stressful days and bad night sleep, they will be visible again. It comes without saying that I had to change my life in many, many aspects, not only due to these floaters. A much calmer life, better food, gym, financial security, better friends and people around me, and cultivate a spiritual being in some sense. The mind can be shaped in many many ways it's fascinating.
a-dub 1y ago
my floaters showed up when i was 14- it was kinda shocking and scary at the time to be a freshman in high school and suddenly there were massive sensory disturbances in my eyes. ophthalmologists would just say to ignore them. apparently there's a pretty crazy surgery where they remove all the vitreous fluid from your eyeballs, but instead i decided to follow the ophthalmologist advice and they pretty much stopped bothering me. tinnitus seems similar. maybe in the future there could be some kind of functionally guided high intensity focused ultrasound ablation procedure that could dull out some of the malfunctioning percept, but for now probably the best bet is to ignore it. on a related note in interesting auditory neurotechnology, vestibular implants seem pretty cool!
golem14 1y ago
Do check your eye pressure regularly -- if high, you have a higher chance of detached retina, and in that case more floaters all of a sudden warrant an immediate drive to the ER. This can apparently happen when youi fall or hit yhour head. Once that happens, up only have so much time to reattach the retina before it dies off. According to my eye doctor. [Of course this is not be used as medical advice, as your LLM for that ;)]
pasc1878 1y ago
I have both, No you can't tune them out. They are always there, sometimes if you are very lucky you can get engrossed enough not to have them as the first or second thing on your mind But it is always in the top five you never can tune them out you have always be aware as not to to certainn things.
- thfuran 1y ago
  I have tinnitus, and this thread is probably the first time I've thought about it this week.
  - pasc1878 1y ago
    Lucky you

radium3d 1y ago

Yeah, it just blends into the background for me, I've had it for decades. I blame the loud music as a kid.

gblargg 1y ago

I also thought I would go crazy when mine started after some ear infections in my 20s. It's gotten a lot worse over time but I mostly only notice if I think about it, and when I'm laying down to sleep, and when I wake up (it seems so strong). I've slept with white noise all my life, and without that I the tinnitus would definitely disturb my sleep.

bsimpson 1y ago

I've always been someone who hears high pitched noises that "normal" people don't. I'm also in my 30s, and I'm sure those "teenage alarms" in Japan would work on me. I was the one who would walk up to a CRT and turn it off when everyone else thought it already was. What helped me accept (and ignore) tinnitus was realizing that I had already grown accustomed to tolerating that sound indoors. When's it's something you have no agency over (like "it's an old house and the wires just make that sound sometimes"), you learn it's part of the environment. Accepting it as part of the environment gets you past the "OMG my body is ruined forever" anxieties and back to normal life.

lucaslazarus 1y ago
This is so relatable, though it has a strange downside. I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember and always thought I was some superhuman child who could hear electricity. Didn't actually realize it was tinnitus until I heard it at the top of a mountain I was hiking in remote New Mexico a few years ago. I probably got it from chronic sinusitis as a child, but I'm still not sure what to make of it.
NBJack 1y ago
I heard older TVs being turned on and off as well as CRT monitors. Now, its that very range I 'hear' all the time. Part of me wonders if it was sensitivity to that spectrum that damaged my hearing when I was around multiple CRTs so much. I have known people that have it much worse than I face daily.
- tombert 1y ago
  Yeah, for me it sounds almost exactly like the squeal that CRT TVs make. Like, it's basically indistinguishable from that for me.
- BobbyTables2 1y ago
  Me too! I genuinely could hear CRTs when I was 5. Tinnitus sound now is very similar for me too. Hearing test showed high frequency hearing loss in that range which is well above human speech and a lot of music.

otherme123 1y ago

For me, after 20'ish years with tinnitus, the only thing that brings the buzz to the foreground is reading/hearing the word "tinnitus".

jay_kyburz 1y ago
Haha, its funny you say that because I've been reading a novel at the moment where the main character has debilitating tinnitus, and every time the author describes it, I can hear my own.
piva00 1y ago
Almost the exact thing to me, 20+ years of tinnitus which sits calmly in the background most of the time except when I read the word tinnitus, or I'm feeling anxious for some reason: when I can't fall asleep when I need a good rest, life stresses, and those moments when a different pitch shows up in one ear and louder. In those occasions I can clearly hear the tone of mine. It's mildly annoying but I've definitely learnt to live with it pretty ok.
patricklewis 1y ago
Same here! Just reading the title of this post made me aware of mine for the first time all day.

drewcon 1y ago

Same exact story for me. Audiologist suggested treating it like a rock in your shoe. At the time seemed like impossible advice but now I just live with it and it’s 100% fine. Also the idea that it is actually made worse by anxiety was a game changer for me. Literally, “don’t worry about it” is the exact right advice.

Crontab 1y ago

I've had it for four years and I don't notice it most of the time anymore. But for reason just reading about it makes me notice it.

senectus1 1y ago

same here. now 51. I reckon i got it in my early 20's.

HippyTed 1y ago

I have had it since I was a teenager like 30 years ago. Honestly, I do not notice it unless someone points it out. Yes it is always there but there is nothing I can do about it so I don't worry about it.

spoiler 1y ago

I've had tinnitus since... At least my early 20s. Or that's the first time I found out about the concept. Until that point I assumed it's background noises everyone experiences. I only notice it when it changes abruptly (very rare), but otherwise I just tune it out