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Tinnitus

Cochise

Priest of the cult of the Dog with the Broken Paw
Joined
Jun 17, 2011
Messages
8,469
This link has some interesting information on tinnitus. Thanks for directing my attention to it. (You know who you are :) )

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32414876

The Fortean aspect being, of course, that people who hear strange sounds, especially 'The Hum', are often assumed to be suffering from tinnitus. As apparently they will before long be able to track the brain activity resulting from tinnitus then it should be possible - eventually - to get a more accurate idea of whether a noise someone hears is external or generated by their own brain.

I myself, as I have mentioned elsewhere, have been suffering from 'hissing in the ears' for a while now, and the medicos are currently evaluating me to find out whether I have tinnitus or something else. It might be interesting to find out what people who suffer from 'ringing in the ears' think it sounds like - mine is currently a steady loud hiss like escaping steam, but it seems to change over weeks.
 
I myself, as I have mentioned elsewhere, have been suffering from 'hissing in the ears' for a while now, and the medicos are currently evaluating me to find out whether I have tinnitus or something else. It might be interesting to find out what people who suffer from 'ringing in the ears' think it sounds like - mine is currently a steady loud hiss like escaping steam, but it seems to change over weeks.
I get that too.
I had my ears cleaned out at the hospital by a specialist recently, and they evaluated my hearing.
Cleaning improved my hearing massively, but I still have the hissing in the right ear. I don't think there is any cure for that. In my case, it's mild enough that I live with it.
My friend, who trained as a reflexologist, reckons that she had a measure of some success with reducing the severity of tinnitus in a few clients she had some years ago. She gave it up for financial reasons, so did not continue that line of work. Perhaps you might find such a therapist? Maybe there's another reflexologist out there near you who provides a tinnitus treatment?
 
I have tinnitus of the high pitched whistle variety due to an accumulation of events - loud music, an accident involving a bang on the head & a long term condition in my left ear. It's definitely got worse & more noticeable over the years. It's always there, never goes away & i have to take care not to aggravate it. Being a musician it's bloody annoying as I now can't take loud situations & things like drums & cymbals I really have to watch out for.

I got some musicians earplugs which are moulded to fit your individual ear canal & reduce sound level by a certain level of db depending on your choice of module. They claim to be flat frequency response so in theory you get reduced volume level without losing top or bottom frequencies.

I find I can often 'zone out' of it and mask with other sound like radio when I go to bed, which if you have on even very quietly gives your brain something else to focus in on.

I always been told there's no treatment for it other than masking techniques but maybe new developments will emerge. It would be a bloody joy as I've not heard complete silence for years.

I've never heard of reflexology as treatment - it sounds unlikely but will have to have a google.

Fellow sufferers - do you have an explanation for getting it - exposure to loud sounds, bang on head for example, or did it just come on for no apparent reason?
 
I've never heard of reflexology as treatment - it sounds unlikely but will have to have a google.

Fellow sufferers - do you have an explanation for getting it - exposure to loud sounds, bang on head for example, or did it just come on for no apparent reason?

I've never tried the reflexology myself as a treatment for tinnitus, but my friend claimed to have had some success with some clients. It was never a cure, she never made that claim, but it was able to reduce the effects and minimise associated stress.

My own tinnitus is entirely of my own making, I fear. I've tried to remove earwax and ended up making my ear canal sore, then it became infected. This happened twice, and I had to have antibiotics to clear it up. This has caused scar tissue to appear in the ear, and no doubt there is still some residual soreness (which may be what's causing the high pitched hiss).
 
I have occassional tinnitus in my right ear, the one that went deaf over just three days. The docs said, after their initial predictions that the deafness would clear up by itself proved wrong, that the deafness was probably caused by an inner ear infection that can't be treated with antibiotics - apparently these can't get into the inner ear.

Luckily the tinnitus only lasts a few minutes, and it doesn't happen every day, so it's not a major problem for me. It takes the form of white noise (hissing) which suddenly stops and is replaced by a pure tone, which then fades away.

The hissing reminds me of wind in the leaves, or the sound of the sea.
 
Mine is a constant ringing, it changes up and down, i honestly cant say when it came on, but i think it could be cause i listened to music with the headphones on full blast, and i worked in factories.
It would be interesting to find out if having my ears shringed help to clear it in any way.
I do not usually notice it until it is quiet, and as i have said in the 'explosion thread', it can relax you, or send you to the edge of insanity, if you allow it.
 
I have tinnitus, was involved in a near fatal car accident and sustained a head injury, mine is the high pitched whistle and occasionally I hear my own heart beat in one ear (very annoying). It doesn't keep my awake generally but the other night I drempt a bee was buzzing round my head, I woke up flapping my hands around my head. There was no bee and since the buzzing seems to have geared up a touch my guess is my brain had processed the buzz into my dream.
I get a bit fed up sometimes when I think about sweet silence, the fact the buzz will be with me now forever makes me feel quite sad :(
 
My hearings good touch wood and I've not worn earplugs at gigs and loudest gig I've Been to was machine head at london astoria way back in 2003 my hearing really muffled.
 
Fellow sufferers - do you have an explanation for getting it - exposure to loud sounds, bang on head for example, or did it just come on for no apparent reason?

Virus with very high temperature spike. Nerve damage. Almost 100% hearing loss and constant hissing type noise npw.

My awareness of it varies, especially with stress. So when I'm stressed it "feels" more like a real noise which is stopping me hearing speech for example.

It's actually been a blessing in some ways :) I have autism hyperacusis and now I can turn my deaf side to the problem sound! :D

My hearings good touch wood and I've not worn earplugs at gigs and loudest gig I've Been to was machine head at london astoria way back in 2003 my hearing really muffled.

Long may it stay so Megadeth1977! But that isn't long enough to find out if you've damaged your hearing.....
 
My first gig was back in 1996 so I'm surprised that I have not had any hearing issues
yet.
 
I find that sometimes it interferes with hearing speech too, but not general sounds/noise
 
My hearings good touch wood and I've not worn earplugs at gigs and loudest gig I've Been to was machine head at london astoria way back in 2003 my hearing really muffled.

Dont gamble with it mate. I went to a japanese punk band and heard ringing the next day and the next and after 8 years its never gone away.
I spent years going to gigs We never bothered with ear protection in those days.

Just try to imagine never being able to enjoy the simple pleasure of silence again.

Its a horrible horrible affliction.
 
Dont gamble with it mate. I went to a japanese punk band and heard ringing the next day and the next and after 8 years its never gone away.
I spent years going to gigs We never bothered with ear protection in those days.

Just try to imagine never being able to enjoy the simple pleasure of silence again.

Its a horrible horrible affliction.


I get it a bit as well, comes and goes.

Too many loud gigs are bad for yer ears I guess.
 
Well i asked about having my ears shringed, thinking it might be something to do with that, she checked and its all clear. I was thinking tho, i did have a head injury many years ago, had an iron bar fall on my head, left an impression on my head at the time, sooooo might have started then, couldnt have helped.
 
My tinnitus is playing up today. High pitched whining.

My sympathies. I'm ok right now.

Sometimes it comes back if I play punk music, even if the music is at a low level.

Maybe psychosomatic, bringing back memories of loud gigs.

I need trigger warnings!
 
I was thinking tho, i did have a head injury many years ago, had an iron bar fall on my head, left an impression on my head at the time, sooooo might have started then, couldnt have helped.

That could certainly have caused it. I had a bike accident & hit my head hard on the road - made my existing mild tinnitus worse.
 
May yours never get as bad as this:

Inspiral Carpets drummer killed himself after 20 years of 'unbearable' tinnitus

Wife of Manchester musician Craig Gill tells inquest her husband had long suffered from sleep deprivation and anxiety due to ear condition

Gill told a coroner how she discovered her 44-year-old husband dead at their home in Greenfield, Greater Manchester, after returning with their children from a day out.


She told the inquest in Heywood, Greater Manchester, that her husband’s death had baffled everyone who knew him and that her husband had no history of depression or suicidal thoughts. “That’s what’s shocking about it. I have no idea where this has come from,” she told the senior coroner for north Manchester, Joanne Kearsley.

In a statement issued after the hearing, she said her husband’s tinnitus became “so unbearable he felt there was no cure” and urged more awareness of the problem and men’s mental health.
 
As i said earlier, if you think about it too much it can tip you over the edge into insanity, sometimes i find myself falling, i have to drag myself back. Until you suffer it, you have no idea how it can be, there is never any silence, ever.
 
I have learned to screen it out (mostly). I guess I'm lucky that it's just in one ear. Otherwise, it probably would drive me round the bend.
 
Mine comes and goes can have it for days even weeks then it will go
and just when I have forgotten about it it's back.
Sounds just like a jet engine idling, that background whistling hissing
whine you hear at airports.
 
My sympathy to any with this condition.

I've an obstinate, blocked Eustachian tube at the moment but I am - fairly - confident it will pass, eventually. :huh:
 
Since my TIA in 2007 I have had a 'zizzing/hissing' sound in my head continuously. It's not particularly loud, but never actually goes away.

It is annoying , in an almost humorous way, when I watch 'Most Haunted' (yes, I know, I'm sad) and they all apparently hear some soft noise and all I can hear is this damned sizzling sound.

INT21
 
I've a constant background squeal. Loud noises in youth and blood pressure / medication as an old bugger. It's never been a source of auditory hallucination just makes conversation trickier.
 
Mine's occasional, only noticeable when it's late at night and very quiet, and it resembles an 80s keyboard band playing plinky-plonky cheap keyboards at the top of our garden (and no, there isn't an 80s pop duo playing there). Last night I woke with it louder than usual and just two notes. Hopefully not a portent of things to come as I hate extraneous noises... (my hearing is generally very, very good. I've been to loads of gigs but never at the front of loud ones and I've used ear plugs for the last couple of decades at louder events.)
 
A lifetime of loud gigs, trap shooting, motorcycles and heavy industry has left me with mild hearing loss and constant tinnitus. Mine is of the high pitched whistle variety, but even with background music, it is discernable.

There is a new treatment that claims a high degree of success but that, as yet, is not fully medically accepted, called neuromonics.

I've read extensively on this and I am still unconvinced as to whether it is snakeoil or not.
 
A lifetime of loud gigs, trap shooting, motorcycles and heavy industry has left me with mild hearing loss and constant tinnitus. Mine is of the high pitched whistle variety, but even with background music, it is discernable.

There is a new treatment that claims a high degree of success but that, as yet, is not fully medically accepted, called neuromonics.

I've read extensively on this and I am still unconvinced as to whether it is snakeoil or not.
I've skimmed a couple of papers on this - I don't see the words 'random' in some of the trials and numbers are quite absent. Any trial need to be randomised and include control groups and that's not completely clear.

Given this and the amount of one-to-one time assigned to those taking the treatment, something that ramps up the placebo effect, I'd be cautious myself about putting up the money, which is substantial . It seems especially high for what is essential a sound generating app, customized or otherwise.

https://www.ucsfhealth.org/treatments/neuromonics/

This might we worth a look:

http://lets-beat-tinnitus.co.uk/blog/free-tinnitus-pulse-therapy/

I'd like to see the outcome of this study:

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02829073
 
I was geting a check up at the doctor's and she did the tuning fork thing and asked me to say when the noise stopped. She said it took a long time and I probably had tinnitus.
'Or', I replied, 'I couldn't hear when it properly finished over the whine of the dodgy fan in your PC'.
 
I was geting a check up at the doctor's and she did the tuning fork thing and asked me to say when the noise stopped. She said it took a long time and I probably had tinnitus.
'Or', I replied, 'I couldn't hear when it properly finished over the whine of the dodgy fan in your PC'.

I had a similar experience with and audiologist and an acoustic booth - I was having my tinnitus assessed but the headset fitted so badly and the booth's extractor fans were squeaking I couldn't make out the tones.
When I pointed out the noise of the fans she said she'd never noticed it before - probably got worse over time.
When I went back the fans had been disconnected and the booth had just been used by someone with a serious body odour problem.
 
Last week I was at a presentation on hearing protection ( By 3M-very good, may be on line). They informed us that 30% of the population will experience tinnitus at some point and that 10% will have some degree of tinnitus more or less permanently. Speaker advised of "you tube" clip about Tinnitus and the link to suicide, I don't have my note book so cannot give the exact title something like "I have tinnitus and want to die", apparently its quite disturbing.

As of last week there was no credible treatment, the harsh truth is you have to learn to cope.

I have intermitent tinnitus, usually hisses and "mumbling". But if I get any kind of infection or excessive stress it gets really noisy- musical notes and dodgy plumbing spring to mind. I use background noise as " pink noise" for distraction, we have quite noisy aircon and some heavy handed typists at work which help distract from the noises in my head.

Oddly, many people with tinnitus have quite acute hearing for certain types of sound or discrepancy in noises, particularly when concentrating. Not surprised Mikfez could detect dodgy fan or JimV a noisy PC unit.
 
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