Young Person with Unilateral Tinnitus Caused by Loud Music

Hello all! I’ve been lingering around this website since getting my tinnitus in April of 2020, but I’ve finally decided to join in!

The beginning of COVID-19 quarantine was very difficult for me. It was my freshman year of high school (now a junior) and I coped with my boredom and sadness by absolutely blasting my ears with music in my headphones and dancing around my basement.

At the time, I did not realize how harmful this truly was. Looking back through the receipts (health app on my iPhone) I was recording over 100 dB through my headphones. Absolutely horrifying! I did not realize the true damage of this to my ears, and I always assumed I would be fine and nothing bad would happen to me, ignoring even my mom who told me I would destroy my hearing.

Flash forward 2 years, I’m now 16 who has been constantly suffering from tinnitus ever since. I have unilateral tinnitus, with (luckily) perfect hearing! I’m so grateful for my preserved hearing, despite my unfortunate condition. As stated before, my tinnitus is only in one ear, my left! (Although, sometimes it switches to my right? Or both? But it’s always in my left).

I’ve gone to the doctor for this, and an audiologist who tested my hearing and found some dipped responded in the highest of frequencies. despite this mysterious dip, I still have perfect hearing, my doctor even told me it was better than average! But I’m still very, very upset over my tinnitus. I’m pretty much habituated at this point, I don’t notice it most days, only when I use earbuds (which I’m trying to stop using them, I’m paranoid they’ll make it worse or I’ll never be cured if I keep using them), or if I’m lying in bed.

I get really discouraged by the fact I’m only 16 (no one my age has this condition or is even aware of it, it makes me jealous) and I basically have my whole life ahead of me with this annoying inconvenience. Luckily, it’s not super severe, I would describe it as mild. It only can become moderate if I focus on it.

Since it’s been 2 years, I’ve basically given up all hope on it going away since my condition hasn’t changed whatsoever. But, I’m sure I’ll be fine, right? They’ll probably develop some sort of cure in my lifetime...

 

It’s sad to read your story. Unfortunately there isn’t much education on tinnitus, I never heard of it until I got it. By then it was too late. It can hinder life, but hell sometimes I don’t even notice I have it. Habituation comes and goes sometimes. Mainly if you have a spike for a few days or so. But it usually goes back to baseline that your brain has learned to block out. The main thing is not worsening it, no loud events, cinemas, loud headphones etc, this does take away a few things you can do, but you can still do other things.

We all hold out hope for a cure one day, but don’t let that stop you from living in the now.

 

Welcome to the forum. Don't be discouraged. Young people seem to be able to recover and still do well better than adults. Here are some success stories of young people. So take it easy. Things will improve with time. Take good care. God bless your recovery.

Success story of 17-year-old Zach:

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/fake-it-until-you-make-it.7590/

Success story of Jari with tinnitus since 12 years old:

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/new.7670/

Lana got tinnitus at age 15 and getting better:

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/positivity.13050/

 

You are really young so I think you’ll be able make a lot of improvement. Work on improving your general health, lifestyle and diet, you can still do a lot of things you wish to do but one advice is to be careful of the noise exposure. Normal situations are fine but my personal preference is to try avoid prolonged loud noises to let the cochlea and nerves heal themselves in time to come.