I've got tinnitus, 38 male.<p>Got it randomly one day this summer.<p>It's impossible to describe how depressing it is to hear a sound non stop in your ears, night and day, wherever I go or whatever I do, it just never stops.<p>The brain started filtering it out a bit after months, but it's always there and you're often reminded of it when you're in a slightly more silent environment.<p>There are days where it becomes especially loud and falling asleep you'd just like to cry or something.<p>Don't wish it on anybody.
I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember, so I've never had any negative feelings associated with it. As a kid I just thought it was natural that everyone's ears would ring all the time and would get louder when it was quiet. My ears are ringing right now as I write this.<p>Then I developed pulsatile tinnitus in my early 30s, which means I can hear my heartbeat in my (right) ear at all hours of the day as well. When I tell people about it, I like to describe it like the heartbeat from Poe's <i>The Tell-Tale Heart</i>.<p>Developing pulsatile tinnitus really affected my mental health for a while, despite living my whole life with a constant buzzing and ringing in my ears. I couldn't get over the fact that there was now this loud whooshing sound in my right ear, 60+ times per second, and my doctors couldn't even tell me why after several MRIs. I thought I was going crazy, or that I'd developed some kind of brain tumor invisible to scans.<p>I don't have any great advice except to say that eventually (maybe six months to a year) my brain just adapted to the sound and I hardly ever think of it anymore. It's as much a part of my life as the buzzing and ringing I've had since I was a kid. It can be annoying when I'm trying to listen intently for something (my wife is a birder and it's hard to hear things she points out), but it thankfully doesn't affect my mental health anymore.
I always had problems with sinuses. I've had a few surgeries and while it's better, it's not good either. I literally had a drill up my nose, in my forehead. They still hurt and pop on their own, many times a day.<p>One day my kid brought a nasty flu from the kindergarten. My otolaryngologist recommended the strongest irrigation stream I can find to clean my sinuses.<p>Not only did it not help, but it also pushed some goo to the end of my sinuses, which resulted in pulsatile tinnitus.<p>After about 6 months my kid got sick again, so we all got sick, and I got rid of this tinnitus where I was hearing my heartbeat, by casually blowing my nose. The trick was having a stiff blockage, I guess, so the pressure builds up.<p>It sounds stupid and probably won't help you, but I wanted to share my story. I had no support from the people close to me and the heartbeat was driving me insane.<p>I'm sorry you have to go through this. Even though it's not a life-treating condition, it might be a life changing condition (QoL).
You sound like me! I have had sinus issues all my life before 17. I even had a surgery at 16 but I honestly don’t think it helped. Now I have the sinus problem a bit under control, aka I still have occasional infections during allergy and cold season. I use NielMed to wash my sinus and I think it helps a lot. Besides that I really don’t know what it would take to fix it permanently. I constantly can feel the mucus dripping down my throat everyday.
That story about your Otolaryngologist is insane. It's sad how many times doctors don't really listen to their patients and throw out there generic advice that is harmful.
Scary story on multiple levels. (Ask your otolaryngologist if <i>Naegleria Fowleri</i> is right for you!)
I do hear my heartbeat from my left ear. The ear doctor said that the ear can be sensitive to the blood flowing from nearby arteries, and that there's nothing to do. Stress affects the heartbeat volume. I just got used to it, but it can be annoying sometimes, especially when you're trying to enjoy the silence.<p>The doctor also told me that it's not an ear problem, but rather a brain problem. The brain is supposed to filter out this noise, in the same sense that it filters out the sounds from a (normal) digestion, our breathing, etc. I do have some (undiagnosed) hypersensitivity, so that sounds consistent to me.<p>nozzlegear: it gets better with time, the less you think about it. I know it's not a great consolation, but trust me, train yourself not to think about it, and it will go away for extended periods of time (and will come back from time to time)
<i>I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember, so I've never had any negative feelings associated with it. As a kid I just thought it was natural that everyone's ears would ring all the time and would get louder when it was quiet. My ears are ringing right now as I write this.</i><p>I don't know if I have tinnitus. I had strong ringing in my ears every now and then as a kid. I once told a classmate about this, who said I should see a doctor, but I've had it as come up every now and then as long as I can remember.<p>I now have a continuous beep, but only really hear it when I intentionally tune into it. E.g. I can hear it now because I'm writing about it, but most of the day I simply don't hear it, because I don't tune in to it. Not sure if it was always there or just starting at some age. It is sometimes more present when I'm e.g. sick.<p>I have no idea if other people have this kind of permanent beep as well, because I never asked anyone.<p>(I just asked my wife and she doesn't have it.)
> I have no idea if other people have this kind of permanent beep as well, because I never asked anyone.<p>We do. I've had tinnitus all my life, or at least I can remember it as far back as about four years old or so. It sounds to me like the whine of an old CRT. I thought it was just normal until I learned it wasn't. I used to think as a kid that it was what the Simon and Garfunkel song "The Sound of Silence" was talking about. Luckily for me it's just something that's always been, so it doesn't really bother me. I have no idea what it would be like to not actually hear anything at all. The one time I was in a sound isolation chamber, it just made my tinnitus scream.<p>My neighbor developed tinnitus later in his life and it drives him crazy. I definitely feel bad for him, and others who are similarly afflicted by it.
You have tinnitus.
That's not really tinnitus, I used to have that before I got tinnitus.<p>Tinnitus is like 30-50 times the volume of that, depending on how rundown I am or whether I have a cold. For me it's predominantly in one ear, though does sometimes change.<p>What he's describing is fairly normal and is just to do with blood pressure in your ears, from what I've subsequently read.
> What he's describing is fairly normal and is just to do with blood pressure in your ears, from what I've subsequently read.<p>That’s called tinnitus. And I agree, it isn’t rare. From TFA, roughly 15% of people have it (that report it).<p>Sounds like you may have <i>severe</i> tinnitus, which is more rare, limited to 1-2% of people.
A clear example of the No True Tinnitus fallacy.<p>> Tinnitus is a condition when a person hears a ringing sound or a different variety of sounds when no corresponding external sound is present and that other people cannot hear.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus</a>
Eye floaters are like that. They don't go away but you get used to them being there.
I'd say i'm sorry to hear about your 60 beat per second heart rate but by the time you read this you are surely dead. RIP
My dad had tinnitus and it bothered him relentlessly. He was constantly following potential new treatments, talking to doctors about it, etc.<p>I have it too. I've taken the approach of truly accepting it: "I will hear these sounds the rest of my life, and I'm truly okay with that". As a result it doesn't give me anxiety or bother me, and I find it helps it fade into the background. The more you focus on it (and let it bother you) the more it stays in the foreground.<p>I know the advice of "just learn to be okay with it" is easy to communicate but very hard to actually do. I found mindfulness meditation helped me learn to accept things without judgement, including the presence of my tinnitus.
I got a high-pitch ringing tinnitus when I was about 18-20. I went from being a person that falls asleep in <5 min to needing at least 1h + needing a background radio/white noise/stream to fall asleep. I sympathize and recognize everything that you reflect on here. I felt kind of "depressed" the first year.<p>But no matter how cliché it sounds, it does get better with time. The brain does get better and better with filtering it.
I also discovered that my tinnitus gets worse with caffeine, stress and lack of sleep. In periods when I live a overall "healthy" lifestyle in respect to sleep, stress, food, working out etc. I forget that I have tinnitus. When I sleep to little and/or when I'm stressed, it comes back full force.
I have totally cut out caffeine, which also happened to help with my migraine.<p>Now ~15 years later I'm in my early thirties and I rarely think about it tbh. However, after a bad cold about 5 years ago I got a secondary tinnitus which is a low-frequency humming. This set me back and cased me some sleepless nights but I have adapted to this as well.<p>The thing I miss the most is the concept of "total silence". I do envy my fiancé sometimes if we're out in the woods or whatever and I know that she can just relax while "hearing nothing".<p>Let time do its work and experiment with your body/health to find what makes it lessen. Chances are that de-stressing, sleeping well and eating and working out does make it better.
> But no matter how cliché it sounds, it does get better with time.<p>For some, perhaps, but mine (25+ years) has not improved one jot. At best I've learnt to manage it with masking sounds (thanks to MyNoise) but it's always there waiting for a quiet moment.<p>Might be to do with how well your general auditory circuitry was working in the first place, mind - e.g. I've always had the "two noises at once tend toward garbage in my brain" problem (which made most social conversations almost impossible. FUN TIMES.) Given that implies my brain was already fairly borked for auditory processing, that might have an impact on whether it can eventually cope with tinnitus and/or whether it is more susceptible in the first place[0].<p>[0] Although I am 99% sure it's due to a large amount of loud gigs in small venues without any ear protection causing "mechanical damage" tinnitus.
WRT “mechanical damage” — I feel you. Standing in front of the stage feeling your organs vibrate in time to the music is fucking magic. I won’t say that it’s worth the tinnitus, but I am happy I have some memories of a trade-off, you know?<p>FWIW I still go to shows sometimes, and stand right in front of the stage to feel my eyeballs vibrating. I wear good ear protection, though, and feel no pain. Even though the music isn’t quite the same.
I got it about ten years ago and it drove me absolutely insane for a few months until I just accepted that I would have it. Then a weird thing happened: my brain stopped paying attention to it. Now I mostly only hear it when I think to myself, “do I still have tinnitus?” and try to listen for it. It’s still there, I just don’t care anymore. I had no idea that even what you hear can be such a subjective experience until I went through this, but it makes sense. You do this all the time when you tune out ambient sounds and conversations to focus on something.
This is my experience. It normally doesn't bother me, and I didn't think about it until I read this article, so now it is driving me crazy. Please let's stop posting articles about Tinnitus unless the article describes a CURE. Thanks.
Just wondering do you think you got tinnitus or was it there and you suddenly started noticing? I don't know I got it around 20y ago but I'm honestly unsure if it was one or the other because it became worse and worse the more I started focusing on it. Eventually it subsided. I can still hear it if I listen for it (as I just did now and I can hear a distinct 'bruising' kind of sound) but there's literally months between I even think of it or notice it. There have been studies that lots of 'normal' people notice tinnitus when they enter a sound-proof room.
What helped me was just taking long showers - I literally couldn't hear a thing during the shower and some time after. And it seems the 'drown out' period would last longer. And just knowing something would stop it somehow made me ease more into it and maybe reduced the fear that had been programmed into my brain. I also did omega 3 and gingo biloba (just low doses) and felt like it had some effect.
Was there any trigger and how 'loud' do you perceive it?
I've always had tinnitus, but it used to be that I could only hear it in absolute silence, but it was a medication that triggered mine to go from barely there to screaming banshees in my ears 24x7x365. It sucks to know that I will never truly experience silence again, but my brain does tune it out most of the time. But it's mostly noticeable at night. Mostly.
I think I got it.<p>I also recall the days before I listening to music a lot with earplugs at rather high volume, like, 6/7 hours per day multiple days.<p>That's the only out-of-the-ordinary thing I did leading to it, it might be related or completely unrelated, who knows.
Similar, I went past an event that was playing unusually loud music last may. I ended up with tinnitus and hyperacusis.<p>I don't know which is worse, but the combination has me contemplating euthanasia on a regular basis
I'm really sorry to hear that.<p>I once read something about the prevalence of depression in people with tinnitus. I was surprised by it, but I didn't really consider how disruptive it must be when you're accustomed to not having it. By contrast, I've had it basically my whole life. I remember laying awake at night, listening to the deafening ringing, thinking about how weird it was that silence isn't silent. It wasn't until later that I knew my experience isn't the norm.<p>I'd love to have a treatment or cure. Especially for folks like you that truly suffer from it.
> silence isn't silent<p>Blindness isn’t “no sight” or pitch black, there’s visual snow.<p>If you pay attention, you can always feel your muscles/joints. Sometimes I smell burnt popcorn, but not usually, but maybe that’s because smell is always present. Similarly always taste saliva.<p>Also see sensory deprivation experiments. We don’t seem able to experience “absence of sensation”.
Oh, that blows, I’m so sorry. I’ve had it 40 years; I hear it now, louder than anything else in the room.<p>But mostly I don’t. You do really get used to it. It won’t get better, but you will.
Also got tinnitus here. Woke up with it about 5 years ago. I'd recently had COVID and was also on a strong medication. But I've been a lifelong insomniac so this article has me wondering.<p>I can only sleep when there's another noise in the room for frame of reference, otherwise the tinnitus feels like the loudest sound in the universe. My current solution is an air purifier on its audible middle setting (basically white noise with a use), and a humidifier in winter.
I’ve had tinnitus since I was maybe 5 years old, maybe from my frequent ear infections at the time? I remember discovering it during nap time and noting that silence had a high-pitched, discordant set of tones to it. But I thought it receded when normal sounds, like people talking, tv or music, or wind occurred. It was just the sound of silence.<p>I still have it, and now I know what it is. I think it’s worse now, but I can still unconsciously ignore it most of the time, although knowing what it is and that it’s aberrant and not something everyone hears has made it psychologically more irritating than when I was young.
Avoid complete silence (a bit of white noise or other background sound helps to mask it for some people), and try to avoid threads like this. Anything that makes me actively think about tinnitus is the absolute worst trigger, suddenly making it seem really loud after barely noticing it for weeks/months.<p>The brain definitely seems to get better at filtering it out over months/years though, at least until something makes you focus on it
You'll get used to it. 42 male here. Started at 12-13 years of age. Barely notice it anymore. Some things (lack of sleep, extreme stress, some medicines/drugs) accentuate it a bit, but it's annoying at best, not interfering. I also produce music, so I don't think it has affected my hearing. So you'll be good. Stop worrying.<p>Oh, use a fan based white noise machine (or a loud fan) during sleeping, really drowns it out.
Don't worry: you will get used to it in a couple years and won't even notice it.
I don't have tinnitus, but I live about a mile from a major highway. Depending on the time of day, the wind, the temperature, etc, it can carry the road noise directly to my yard. It doesn't bother my wife or my kids, but I <i>hate</i> it.<p>When it gets to be too much, though, I can just go inside, and that's not something that you can do with tinnitus.<p>I'm sorry that you're going through that, that must be terrible. Have you tried adding white noise?
I got it late Feb 2020. Wasn't great to have that sound haunt me through the rest of the isolation.
I've had it for a few years now. One time I got a throat infection and it amplified to a slightly louder volume. It went down to its original level a few months later, but the time when it was slightly louder was scarier than when it first appeared. I was worried it was going to keep increasing.
i have it for more than 12 years. 8 years ago, I began to dont give a f“““ anymore. I now can go days and weeks without hearing it. Even when reading in silence.
Sometimes, when my brain decides to losten to it again, I immediately start to distract myself. Sometimes for hours, until „I forget“
A lot of people hear a slight hiss. Is that tinnitus? Faint enough that it's not noticable 90% of the time.
Any noise you hear that is not a real sound that others can hear is tinnitus. The actual experience for people with the condition varies, for some it's a hiss, for some it's a tone, for me it's a really loud, multi-tonal, warbling sound between 11khz and 15khz. If anyone has tinnitus and wants to know what frequency it is that you your brain is perceiving just go online and find a tone generator and start increasing the frequency until the sound from the speakers suddenly disappears. That's the frequency of your tinnitus.<p>e: btw tinnitus is considered hearing damage.
How does this work in combination with age related hearing loss? At some point you will lose high frequency sensitivity in that 11-15Khz range. Would be nice to get some benefit from that, but I assume the tinnitus itself will not go away even if it hangs out at that frequency?<p>It also means the above experiment will not work since you lose the signal before you reach your tinnitus frequency.
I'm on the exact same boat. Same age and got it randomly this Summer. Are you able to modulate the pitch by moving your jaw sideways or wide opening it? Would be great to bounce off some ideas. I'll drop you an email if that's OK.
Just moving my jaw doesn’t affect mine, but moving it to the side and flexing whatever muscles involved in that motion are definitely makes mine louder, just for a second.<p>I’ve always wondered if that implied there must theoretically be a way to cure or reduce it by reducing pressure in there through surgery or stretching or something. I’ve done a bunch of neck stretches in the past that I think mostly relieved my anxiety about it, but may have helped. My motivation to fix it has gone down a lot though as I’ve gotten used to it.
Yeah I wanted to take action before I get used to it. But it seems chances are slim of getting it fixed. I think I never read about anyone who came out of it.<p>Anyways, I've been to the oto doctor and after a few visits, tests and ct scan he believes it might be due to my jaw and bruxism I have at night. Not ear related. Next stop for me will be to visit a maxilo facial doctor.
It gets better,I promise. It becomes an annoying companion,but you develop ways to forget about it
Same thing here , but triggered by tiredness/stress. If I sleep a lot and well, then it somehow fades until I’m tired again.<p>I assume my brain is somehow able to filter it out, unless it’s too tired/busy.
I've had tinnitus longer than I can remember (33m) and I also have moderate visual snow also as long as I can remember. Sadly, I have no tips on tuning it out, but I'd do anything for a cure
Don’t let it get to you like this.
I have had it since I was 13 (60 now). The base noise is filtered out unless I listen for it, but ion occasion I get a temporary deafness, followed by almost a popping sound, then a LOUD tinnitus at a different frequency which slowly fades.<p>Sometimes I get a new frequency. Since 2000 it has gotten worse, since 2020, much worse. But changing my environment seems to effect it for better and worse.<p>No doubt mine is connected to my mental illness and probably temporal lobe seizures.
Fellow tinnitus haver here.<p>The worst thing you can do is fixate on it. To avoid that, you want to make it so that you never hear it. Play some noise whenever you need it especially when sleeping. Then, over time, learn to accept it. And then the craziest thing happens: it does actually get better. You don’t just get used to it, it actually improves. It’s a profound connection of mind and body.
Got it similarly. 7-8 years ago. Probably from ANC. It used to feel loud, now I have to remind myself to hear it. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
Mine started when I was 12 for no apparent reason. A visit to the pediatrician, a hearing test that found my hearing was normal, and that was that. 65 years later (I'm 77) it's EXACTLY the same in pitch and volume, a loud high-pitched whine that doesn't bother me in the least. Once I got used to it and realized it was a permanent thing, it ceased to be annoying or a problem, probably when I was in high school. In my case ANC was most definitely NOT the cause (in 1960). Unless the Russians were already testing their Havana Syndrome weapon in Milwaukee.... One more thing: aspirin and/or caffeine make mine significantly louder for a few hours, though it's still not bothersome.
From ANC? Active Noise Cancelling?<p>Doesn't seem to be a thing?
I developed tinnitus a year ago (I'm in my early 30s). I was living in an environment where it was noisy in the morning so I took to wearing sound cancelling headphones and earplugs to sleep.<p>A few weeks into it I noticed a persistent ringing and I thought it was some sort of electrical wine in an old house. A week later I realized it was permanent so I cut out my sound cancelling sleep routine, but the tinnitus has stayed.
Apparently, there is no scientific evidence that ANC is or is not causing tinnitus.<p>ANC reduces background noise, which typically allows users to listen at lower volumes, thereby reducing total sound exposure to the ear. So if the user adapts their volume, that would lead to less risk of tinnitus. This works for me :)<p>But there are lots of people on forums suggesting that there is a link between tinnitus and ANC. One reason could be that ANC headphones allow you to listen very accurately to inner auditory signals, and if you already had some tinnitus, you might start to notice it.
I got tinnitus before ANC was a thing, and I've <i>never</i> been able to comfortably use it for more than a short period of time.<p>Whenever I do, I swear I feel increased pressure on my ears and my tinnitus temporarily gets worse. I've often wondered if I imagine it, but hearing from others here makes me think it isn't so strange.
I personally believe active noise cancelling is a direct cause of tinnitus. This is just a personal belief though and I have no direct evidence. I've heard a lot of anecdotes corroborating this.
Yes it feels like I got it from ANC. Might not "be a thing", just coincided with my ANC use. It is my data point.
You're killing me with your acronym. That's a recurring thing here, so don't feel bad.
I wont call it anecdotal evidence but i am told, in "traditional" Greek medicine,tinnitus is a symptom of constipation.<p>Its told you fix constipation, your ringing ears will get fixed.<p>I know its not 100% but try to fix your bowel movement if it isn't working properly already.