What are the Statistics for Tinnitus Suffers Worldwide?

It is often said that around 20% of the population got some mild T and 1-2% got it severe.

That adds up to around 70 million sever sufferers around the world. That also means that it should be around 1 million new severe sufferers per year or almost 3000 per day.

If this should be true, (which I think thank god it isn’t) there should be a lot more members on sites like Tinnitus Talk. We are only about 4 000 members here, almost equal to as many new sufferers it's supposed to be per day.

 

I'm english and i live in France. I don't participate in my local expats community, maybe they are thinking: where are all the english people living in France ?

I think it's hard to compare internet and real world statistics

 

I think the number of sufferers is overblown by a medical community and tinnitus "therapy" community that wants to downplay the tragic nature of a real condition for which there are no effective pallative treatments, only psuedo-psychological coping strategies--- a watered down version of "everyone has tinnitus its only a problem when people have anxiety around their tinnitus"... hogwash- the few unlucky souls on this board have a problem because their tinnitus is simply worse

 

I also notice that a disproportionate number of the active participants on this forum are people who have only suffered with T for a relatively short time. What I suspect is that people who have suffered from T for many years will be very likely to reach a point where they get bored with discussing it either verbally or in on-line communities.

For the first few months of T, I was unable to accept that it was going to be a permanent thing. That led me to search the internet for encouraging news of possible treatments and therapies. I also searched for anecdotal evidence that T might disappear with time. Gradually, I have become resigned to T as a permanent condition and started to reduce the amount of time I spend on forums like this one. I suspect that my own gradual lessening of interest in T might be a common pattern and may explain why there are not so many long-term T sufferers participating here. Also T is more prevalent in older people who tend not to be such heavy internet users as the younger generation.

 

@PhilB it was the same for me as onset....in 2007, I did a lot of research and as the habituation process went on, I started checking less and less the forums and website that talked about T. In fact, I made no such research in 7 years.

I'm starting to think that to complete this new habituation process, I will have to quit the forums entirely, which sucks, because I like to help people. As I have been a somewhat long-time sufferer and was able to fully habituate the first time, I think I can share my experience.

Time will tell!