How Loud Is Your Tinnitus?

Is there times during the day in which you do not notice it at all? As we know there are many levels of tinnitus, how loud is yours?

 

When mine started it was so loud not even the trains could mask it. Nothing.

Now its not that loud. If I don't take any meds. I can hear it all the time. If I take Sobril or Stilnoct. It goes completely away.

 

You are truly a remarkable being if you able to tough-out a noise of that magnitude before you were able to find a solution. I feel like a bit of a drama queen now considering my noise doesn't even come close to that. The way I'd describe mine is it's like hearing crickets, though it doesn't sound like them, in a quite environment.

 

Hmm. The first days I did not quite understand what was happening. I was just thinking this is something that will go away after some time. Luckily, the mad loud tinnitus went away slowly. Now its like white noise. But if I go out in traffic, it changes to a more high pitch sound. Lucky, I have more and more moments with silent. I hope this will heal.

 

If I'm gonna notice it outside, it has to be very quiet.

Also, if I listen to white noise a lot, somewhat loud, I hear my tinnitus VERY clearly straight after, but I suspect this has nothing to do with tinnitus, but is kind of the same thing as when a flash goes off in your eyes, you still "see" the flash when you close your eyes.

 

Over TV: check, in car driving on a bad road windows open: check, over busy mall: check ... not in the shower though.

 

Take the attached mp3 file, which is a tinnitus sound very similar to mine, put it on an iPad or iPhone with headphones, and put volume at 12 bars, and this is about the minimum volume I get. Since I have hearing loss, tinnitus is pretty much the only thing I hear through my ear.

 

Very loud, I hear it all the time. Above all normal living sounds, constant... I thought everyone experienced it like this.

 

Mine is at 4090 Hz and roughly about 52 dB. Before a few weeks ago it was at 48 dB, but some noise from dental crown work with the dentist grinder working on my teeth very loud, made it go worse.

 

Mine was so loud yesterday that the neighbors called the cops.

 

Louder the more depressed I feel or the more I focus on it obviously. At night it's almost unbearable, but like other users white/pink/brown noise seems to almost increase the pitch of my tinnitus.

 

I can hear mine in a quiet room, but I (usually) only mask it (with some cricket sounds), if I'm sleeping. I can't really hear it in the office unless I really focus on it - luckily for me, my desk is next to a printer! haha

 

http://www.audiologyonline.com/articles/clinical-management-of-tinnitus-12558

The determination of loudness is going to be the match for tinnitus loudness at the frequency that best matches their tinnitus minus the threshold at that frequency. For example, my patient reported that tinnitus was closest to 4000 Hz in nature. Their loudness match was 70 dB and their audiometric threshold at 4000 Hz was 60 dB. Their tinnitus loudness sensation level is equivalent to 10 dB. It is interesting to note that most researchers have identified that in the majority of patients presenting with tinnitus, their loudness match is 10 dB or less above their hearing threshold level. This is going to be important in your counseling.

 

When I become distressed about my ringing for a period of days, it gets louder and then I can hear it pretty clarity in most situations.

When I relax about it again, it gets quieter and I have to really try hard to hear it over normal room sounds.

This is not entirely a matter of perception. When I may myself freak out and obsess over this for weeks, it becomes dramatically louder. My masking threshold shifts. This always gets better and goes away once I convince myself it's a boring sound and not a threat.

If it just stayed as loud as it gets when I'm stressed out, I don't know how I'd handle that.

 

Shower masks mine, most of the time. Sometimes though, driving in my car, at 50 mph, with the windows down, doesn't even come close, to masking it. Depends on the day. Anyplace quiet, is like a torture chamber to me. I rarely sit in my house anymore, unless there's a noise maker running on full blast. I have 100 angry, buzzing, high pitched insects, screwing with my wits, all day and night. Tinnitus more than sucks! It's killer!

Sailboardman

 

LOUD enough to suck the life out of me.

 

Mine was mild and tolerable for a number of years. I could actually sleep in silence, although usually I used a small radio on low volume to mask it and that was enough to mask it.

But a few years back it started to get worse and worse, don't know why or how, but now it's so bad that in silence it ramps up to impossible volumes, impossible to sleep. And it seems to be just getting worse by the day. The milder tinnitus I've had for years was just a single tones and bit of hissing. Now it's multiple tones, loud reactive hissing in both ears, multiple volumes and just horrible. I'm on vacation, though that relaxing would help my tinnitus just a little bit. But no such luck, it's gotten even worse and my vacation is mostly ruined.

 

Thank you for this interesting survey. My tinnitus is really variable, so it is hard for me to fit it into any one category. It can be so quiet one day that it is practically silent, and the next day be so intrusive that even a shower nozzle aimed at the back of my head doesn't mask the noise. I think my baseline is moderate, but the high pitched whine I hear inside my head is pretty impossible to mask. I am moderately deaf in my upper ranges, and the tinnitus was unleashed by a prescribed combination of sleep medications and wellbutrin.

I hope this is helpful. I am six months into my tinnitus journey and, while I don't think I can say it has improved notably, my attitude towards it has. On my loud days I now no longer panic, but just muddle my way through it, one step at a time. I guess that is what's meant by habituation.

All very best wishes to everyone. Hang in there!

 

My tinnitus is intrusive, not maskable by anything but shower or traffic noise.

 

I hope you don't care about me unearthing this post and asking you how it is for you nowadays. Does this description still apply? Thanks!

 

When I first wake up in the morning is the first indication of how loud it will be for the day. Sometimes I will wake up to very loud Tinnitus, nothing can really mask it, it cuts into my mind and sometimes I even get pain in my ears as if its a physical thing.

Other days I can wake up and there is almost not Tinnitus at all. On those days I try to be careful not to spike it, but sometimes it will spike easily, other times I might do something that would normally spike it and it doesn't spike. Once it spikes though it will normally run until the next sleep cycle and then we throw the dice again.

 

To SteveO:

That is precisely what happens to me.
When this is aggravated, it will usually take until the next morning to change; the whole day will be undermined by this no matter what I do. "Then we throw the dice again" is particularly apt.

The unpredictable nature of this is sometimes more maddening and less accommodatable than a "reliable" constant sound. When it is very reduced, I begin the fool's errand of believing that this entails the road to permanent quietude.

It will then "ambush" me when my coping structure is relaxed and dismantled.
When it is aggravated I find myself rationalizing that I am "paying out" the nearly incapacitating day so that the next one will (relatively speaking) leave me alone. I even find myself attempting to schedule hiking outings at the forest preserve with my wife on this basis (which shows how it has become the determining factor in my decision making).

This cyclic roller coaster of punishment then relaxation is similar to the torture methods that the great journalist Jacobo Timerman described when he was incarcerated by the Argentinian Police for 30 months during the Dirty War. My overwhelming fear is that survivors who have been subjected to this all report that even the strongest personalities cannot indefinitely resist such a psychological siege.

 

Yeah it's true when it's a good day or a couple of good days you tend to think it's permanent. I found that really hard in the beginning. On the other hand when its bad you at least have the hope of a good day in the future.

And yes it can rule your life, avoiding triggers.

 

Unbearably loud to the point of wanting suicide isn't there.

 

My tinnitus is weird.
It's not necessarily super loud, but it also doesn't mask easily at all because it's so incredibly internalized. It really just feels as if I'm hearing my head so very little drowns it out even if my noises aren't loud.

It also depends on my posture and general state of mind.

 

Mostly moderate for 4 or 5 days out of 7, and mostly severe the rest of the time. I selected Moderate on an aspirational basis.

 

Haha. Even if I had only 1 severe day a week, I'm voting severe. I probably have more severe days than moderate though.

 

My tinnitus is extremely loud. I have a Honda Civic and when I'm driving on the freeway there's a lot of road noise from the tires, but I can still hear the tinnitus over the road noise. I can even hear it over the water when I'm in the shower. It's frustrating there's no way to show someone how loud your tinnitus is. I mean, if you had a broken arm that's something that can be seen. Many conditions, even if they can't be seen with the naked eye, can be seen through imaging techniques. Or you can find evidence of them using a blood test or some other. Tinnitus is totally invisible. Before this happened to me one of my goals in life was to learn to play piano. I can hardly enjoy listening to music anymore. I no longer have any desire to learn piano. I imagine it's kind of like losing the ability to taste food. My stepmom lost the ability to taste food. She used to love to cook. Now she has no interest in food anymore.

 

Mine has gotten higher pitch over time that now it is not easily maskable, I think volume has remained the same. I don't really have "quiet" moments anymore, or as many different sounds. I do hear it over TV since it is high pitch, but it has become a bit like fridge hum (except high pitch). I don't hear it in heavy traffic or in the metro/subway, but do hear it if I am walking down a quiet street. I've been in quarantine for six weeks so my tinnitus seems louder than usual. I got rid of most of my pulsatile/whooshing tinnitus by taking iron pills (I was anemic and my red blood/hemoglobin counts were below the range, didn't realize it until I got some serious symptoms).