A Tinnitus Article ("1 in 10 Americans Has Experienced Tinnitus") on Medicine Net

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=197163

I was poking around looking up stuff. I was on the site and saw the article on tinnitus. I think most of us know this stuff, but if anyone wants to read the article and leave comments, (if comments are allowed) feel free! I think they need more information.

 

Yeah we pretty much know this stuff. However, the thing that ticks me off is that the 1 in 10 stat includes those that have "experienced" tinnitus before. Thus this includes people who have had temporary tinnitus. What I want is a stat that shows the percentage of people that have constant tinnitus.

 

my guess is that if you look at the population of people over the age of 35 or 40 and put them in a sound proof room, most of them have some amount of tinnitus, but may be barely aware of that.

 

Yeah i think you are right on. I had very partial awareness of my T over several years before it became a problem for me. I vaguely remember hearing a low level tone here and there, shutting the Tv off, still hearing it, thinking nothing of it, and turning the Tv right back on. It was only a few years later than my T suddenly erupted into my consciousness. The one bright spot in this understanding is that it can be put right back into the background, but damn it takes a lot of mental work and time ".

 

Who gives a shit. What percentage has real T, not the type that you don't even notice unless you sit and try to listen for it. I would imagine it is low, I don't know a single person, never even heard of it prior to my own situation.

 

I know around a dozen people in my day to day life who have tinnitus that they can hear in most/all environments, and that's just from the subset of people I've talked to about it.

When I was in my 20s, I only knew one or two.

 

I think what you're asking for is the % of folks that have debilitating T, and if I recall stats, it's about 1%-2%.

It is probably biased demographically towards older folks, which may explain why younger people don't generally know other folks with debilitating T. Also, it's not easy for "healthy others" to assess this situation. I doubt my friends would put me in that bucket because what they see of me is the social me (trying to not complain all the time), and I do end up surviving, day after day, breathing, taking showers, eating, etc... plus T isn't visible so they don't really know the extent of the suffering. So I'm not surprised it's an "invisible condition", unfortunately.

Still, 1%-2% is a very large amount of people.

 

I'm in my 20s, and almost everyone I know in my immediate family can hear T in a quiet room, and one of my friends can hear it everywhere. Levels of hearing loss and noise exposure vary, and don't seem to make a difference in who has T or not.

No one I know has T like mine, though. Even my grandfather, who is nearly deaf in one ear from severe noise exposure and a work accident where he hit his ear on a shelf so hard it was shorn off, has a single, tonal buzz.

I'd feel more hopeful for my life prospects if A. I had 100% flawless vision and B. I knew of ONE single famous mathematician (a profession requiring intense concentration) who was successful with loud, changing T.

 

@Vaba my vision is pretty fucked too, and I literally never think of it outside of these threads. Constant swirling noise / static on all surfaces, geometric patterns, prisms, etc. I've completely habituated to that and you probably can as well; my career and hobbies all involve extreme attention to visual details.

I can't think of any math people off the top of my head, but there are a number of composers who continued to create great works with severe tinnitus and hearing loss, and Darwin had severe tinnitus for most of his career. Music composition is not diff eq, but it's a pretty mathematical process.

I have high pitch, unstable T and it hasn't affected my career trajectory in software work. it's certainly challenging and I'd give a lot to be rid of it, sure, but it is what it is.

 

Do you have visual snow? Personally, I'd love to trade the floaters I have for static patterns, as long as the static stays constant and does not change randomly. I also perceive the blue field entopic phenomena, but the staticky white blobs randomly moving around don't bother me at all.

The problem with serious vitreous degeneration is that there's no threshold for decay... you don't get a floater and then have just that one for your whole life. Once the vitreous starts to liquefy, it never stops, and usually accelerates over time. I went from having one floater 6.5 years ago to having over 100 today. I never had them before that time, and no one I know has more than 3 or 4 clear ones, so I don't accept the fact that these large gray blobs are normal.

Also, they fly across your vision at random speeds changing into random shapes every time you move your eye at all. Even a little bit - so I have large swathes of perfect vision, which constantly have long stringy masses and clouds randomly obscuring them, like little moving cataracts. Check this out -

Eye Floaters Simulator

The reason I specifically chose applied mathematics as an example here is because it requires high capacity for abstract thought and concentration to be able to do. I used to enjoy these kinds of thought exercises - I can't maintain focus long enough to do so anymore.

 

Yes, I have floaters. I wouldn't say severely, but always there if I look for them.

The static is not constant. It changes constantly, and it's constantly in motion. The video you posted is somewhat different than my "normal" vision, but the overall impact to the clarity of the visual field is pretty similar.

That's a tremendous bummer, but it sounds like your only real choices are to put a lot of time and effort into regaining your ability to focus for longer periods of time, or accept defeat. The latter sounds shitty, and probably unnecessary - concentration is, to some extent, a muscle... with years of practice people have managed to do things like meditate while actually in the process of burning to death from self immolation. As distressed as I sometimes feel about my predicament, I'm not actually on fire so I have that going for me!

 

thats how ill describe my visual problems,
im also a in the visual field (graphic designer/artist) lol
did you problems started with tinnitus onset too?

 

Well, you've just diagnosed me with floaters Vaba. I started noticing about 18 years ago. Very slow progression it seems but happening nevertheless. I though floaters were more obvious than what I was seeing. Maybe its not a good thing to name them out loud, as I'd just accepted them as being there without really understanding what they were.