drshock

I was born with partial deafness, and my hearing ear had congenital defects resulting in no hearing below 150Hz or above 9.2KHz since birth. I also have a cookie bite in the hearing ear of 70dB between 550Hz and 1.1KHz. Otherwise my working frequencies are "normal range" at around 10dB. My deaf ear also lacks any vestibular functionality due to the same genetic birth defect that caused the deafness.

I noticed Tinnitus for the first time in the Winter of 2008. It started as a steady tone. After a few years it was joined by a pulsatile tone of higher frequency. After seeing three ENTs with no changes in audiogram over a ten year period I accepted the conclusion that it was due to presbycusis in conjunction with the inherent genetic defects triggering changes. No doctors have had any other ideas given I have never been exposed to unsafe sound levels.

In last ten year period the steady tone has permanently increased several times recently due to exposure to what would be considered safe noise levels. In 2016 once after walking down a busy city street, and four times in 2017 (at a tradeshow, at a tour of the US capitol, at a restaurant, and on a 10 hour drive even with earplugs). The pulsatile tone has remained baseline since inception.