Strange Hearing Distortion/Dysacusis?

Hi, I'm new here, I've had tinnitus for almost 5 months as of writing this, and I mostly got used to it. However just recently I noticed something odd, my tinnitus seems to overlay certain frequencies with a beep. For example, some sounds on the TV/radio are just overlaid with this strange beep like sound, whenever my fan is on I can hear some high pitch whistle/humming sound at the same time in the ear facing towards it, and as soon as I go somewhere silent or cover my ears it goes away.

It's like my tinnitus is actively playing some distorted whistle sound over anything I try to mask it with, it doesn't seem to be in my head, since this goes away when I cover my ears or sit in silence. I noticed this when I first got tinnitus, but it went away, but a few days ago it returned.

Anyone else have something like this?

 

I hear all kinds of crazy stuff. For awhile wind sounds made me hear crickets and I would randomly hear a big ass bird chirp. I've hallucinated loud screams and electrical explosion sounds when falling asleep. This morning at about 3 am I woke up and was falling back asleep and I heard this extremely loud zap sound like a transformer exploding and it scared the bejeezes out of me.

 

Yeah, sometimes I hear a fake microwave timer going off in my head, I seem to get some sound hallucinations too. Really weird stuff.

 

Same story here. How is it now?

 

Still there, fans and certain sounds still sound like strange distorted whistling to me, and my T has spiked up a bunch this past 10 days. I hope you're doing better though.

 

Wow I have exactly the same thing ! And it appears out of nowhere after 6 months of tinnitus, and actualy now I have other tinnitus sounds, that I didn't have before…

I have exactly what you describe, I thought I was alone and crazy.

At first I noticed it at work because the fan sound with distorted and sounds like a whistle like air going through Something. I thought it was just the fan making sound. But then I start hearing the distortion with water and other sounds.
And then I start hearing it with frequencies, because I have a frequencie app where I listen to frequencies, and on lot of it triggers the distorsions…
Now it have been like that for a month, even though when I took anxyolitique (lexomyl) during 5 days, it almost disappear, probably because I was not focusing on it.

Can I ask how your tinnitus appeared ?

 

That sounds exactly like what I've had for a while, the sound of whistles overlaying the vast majority of white noise I try. Also, I'm not exactly sure how my tinnitus appeared, I really don't know, it could be from noise, stress, TMJ, I really have no idea though sadly.

 

I'm experiencing some ringing among some noises, like water, motor etc... I guess I join the dysacusis club ?

That's rude.

 

I literally had that problem early on bad. I still have it but it's very mild. Dysacusis is a loose term to describe anything that causes hearing distortion.

 

Yeah I had that also in the early months. The first days/weeks of my tinnitus were the worst. My loudness hyperacusis was already gone, but I heard a high pitched tone over a lot of things like strong wind, rivers, and on the worst day even from passing cars or my PS4 fan. It was never my tinnitus that reacted, it sounded like a complete new tone amidst another sound. If I covered my ear I heard my normal tinnitus.

I think it was totally gone after around 6-7 months for me. On very rare occasions it pops back up but mostly I am not sure now if I rally heard it or if it was my imagination.

 

Yes I have been getting this on and off for 7 months now! Mine seems to be related to the amount of fluid/pressure build up inside my ear.

 

I had a couple of electrical zapping type sounds one morning just after I woke up. It's only happened the once (so far). No two days are the same on Planet Tinnitus for me!

 

Oh okay! Distortion come with mild hyperacusis and ear pain in my case (under the ear, close to the jaw bone). It happened a couple of times but today it last longer.

 

I've had this for two years. It progressively got a bit better (or I learned not to pay as much attention to it). Very recently it's come back a bit more. It might just be that I'm paying more attention to it. I can't tell. I recently had a couple of plane flights but I'm not sure what those flights would have done.

I've never seen/heard any real explanation for it either on the internet or from doctors. I do remember one thread on here where someone basically cured themselves of it with pink noise, so it might be hyperacusis related.

 

I will join this thread as my tinnitus seems similar.

 

Have any of you made a hearing test up to 16 kHz? Not sure it will explain anything really. I’m just curious.

 

Nope. Just the standard test. I suspect this distortion came along with a mild hyperacusis and pain. Maybe TTTS?

 

Well, I have no idea what this might be.

 

For me it start 6 months after the beggining of my tinnitus. It came from nowhere. I just noticed it one day because the sounds of the fan were "moving" like an air whistle kind of. But when I would put my finger on my ears I would only ear my normal tinnitus.

But I learnt something from test : I downloaded an app that made frequency sounds (I download it first to cover my original tinnitus and make it kind of disappear)
What I learnt is at low volume of sounds, on certains frequencies, I would heard distorted noise, or even another noise, but when I would put the volume up I only here the right frequencies. And this happens on lot of frequencies, like I think on 1800Khz 2000Khz etc and when I am moving up I can here different distortion for each frequencies.

For example 1800 1801 1802 1803 I can hear the distortion changing and not being the same.

But this tend to fade away some days, and I had it before realizing it with the fan at work, because I could hear a distortion at low volume but actually thought it was my earphones, but it wasn't.

I don't know where it could come from though. But for me it's all in the brain... my tinnitus started with me searching for a tinnitus sound, so basically, I created my tinnitus, and then I listened and listened to silence trying to analyse what I could hear, and I think and made appears tinnitus sounds, that was maybe filtered by my brain, but I infiltered it. And now I can't filtered it back and it's all weird.

Tinnitus is really a mistery, I hate it so much that it doesn't make sense.

By the way I don't have hyperacusis, I had it just once when i was listening to a movie on a tablet and the very high pitch sound was making my hear moving and hurting. But that's it.

 

I went to a mall this afternoon, I could hear "bip bip bip... bip bip..."
Distortion everywhere. Is that your famous alien noise? Haha it's cute, so it's okay! My usual tinnitus is mostly electrical noise today. No pure tone.

Let's stay positive

 

@Gabriel Your tinnitus onset is the weirdest thing I heard.

Do you hear just one tone? Can you describe your tinnitus?

 

My alien noise is not cute at all. It’s really intrusive. It is two of my sounds that mixes in with everything else, like the water tap, the shower, the fridge and so on. When I play white noise it mixes in with that too.

 

@Mymlan You think it's weird ? But you might have the same thing I think, you just didn't look in details like I did ! But well it's not worth it, doesn't bring anything good anyway.

My tinnitus evolve, first it was a normal long one. Like a biiiii that would not stop. Then I start hearing another one which I still have today, and is intermittent, like bibip, bip, bibibip at 2400Hz.
I also had super high tinnitus, like electrical, 12Khz or more. It came once, went off, came back, went off, came back, went off.

Also at the beggining, and still now, listening to fan noise (like white noise) make appear acute tinnitus, like high frequencie sound.
And also after 2 months I start hearing kind of whiss (like white noise sound) and it appears after I tried to make a high sound diseappear by listening to high sound (this is a method I was using at the beggining at that was working quite well).

This is what I had for 6 months.
Then after 6 month at work I start hearing this strange whistle like air going through little space. I thought it was the clim/fan. But after one week I start hearing other clim with same distortion, then I was in car and hearing it too, then it was the water etc.. that freaked me out and put me in depression tbh.

Anyway I start listening to frequencies, like sweep from 100 to 6000Khz lets stay, so 101,102,103 hz etc, and I could hear a lot of frequencies totally distorted. Like weird noise, robot noise kind of, and even at some frequencies, I would hear another frequencies.

So I came to the conclusion that actually when I hear these water/fan noise distorted, it's because some of the frequencies in these sounds are distorted.
I'll explain : fan noise, or water noise, is actually comparable to white noise, it's a sound with a very wide set of frequencies. For example lets say a fan noise is all frequencies from 200 to 8000 Hz. In these frequencies, some are distorted, and that's the one that actually make the sound distorted.

 

Owh, sorry to hear that. It mixes with the shower and fridge for me too. It's just easy to forget in my case, very mild. And I just pretend it was always there.

 

I’m sure tinnitus is a weird thing. My tinnitus is noise induced. A loud jackhammer brought it to life.

But why would you bother ”searching” for tinnitus? Are you sure you weren’t exposed to any loud sound, listening to loud music or something? TMJ? Anything?
How can you just switch tinnitus on?

 

Oh, I can’t pretend. I can’t accept this. That’s my main issue with this problem.

 

I had a very little ear wax build in my left ear. That made my ear crack when I was doing vaslava. I went to doctor, she told my I had infection (but I didnt) gave me drops. The drops made the ear wax bigger like a sponge. Then I lost a bit of hearing, because of the earwax being bigger. I went on internet, trying to understand why, I read that the medicine was ototoxic, and I read that the symptoms of ototoxicity were hearing loss and tinnitus.
So I listen if I had tinnitus, for 4 days, checking everyday in silent. Finally I could hear a really realy low tinnitus. Then it became on night bigger, the second night even bigger. Then I start hearing a second noise.

Then I got to see ENT, he told me my ear was fine, no infections, he spot my ear wax, got it off, I got my hearing back, but the tinnitus was still there.
I continued checking for it every single day multiple time a day, I tried to play with the frequencie app just trying to make it disappear.

And from then everything kind of went out of hand. I start hearing this "white noise" in top of normal tinnitus sounds, then last month I start hearing distorted noise, and other tinnitus sounds.
Now I lost count, I know I have two tinnitus sounds that are always there, but others can appears, moving ones. And also that white noise can make appear really high pitch tinnitus.

So yeah, I first created my tinnitus (no shock, no infection, nothing), and then it went crazy. That's why I know for me it's all in my brain...

 

@Gabriel I see. Yes, I read about a lot of members on this forum getting tinnitus from ear wax build up. What an idiot ENT giving you ototoxic meds! Incredible stupid. It’s like they know nothing about anything.

My tinnitus started the same way really. I worried about tinnitus after my loud noise exposure. And there it was, the next day. But I know this is for real. It’s not like an imaginary friend. Something is wrong in the auditory system.

 

I am not angry because of the ototoxic medicine, because all ear drops for ear inflammation ARE ototoxic, but only if it go behind the ear-drum. But my ear drum was fine, and I didn't get any side effect of ototoxicity.

I am angry that she didn't see the little earwax and just got it out. If she had did that, I would live a normal life right now.

 

I understand, and I know the feeling. Someone else also caused my tinnitus, I didn’t do this to myself. I’m so sorry.