Bluetooth Makes My Tinnitus Worse?

New guy here and poking around. I've had T a very long time from being close up and personal to an explosion while serving in the Navy. Like most, it get's worse with blood pressure spikes from illness, eating salty foods, not getting enough exercise or sleep. It's very annoying but I've learned to live with it. I've also got a significant hearing loss in both ears and nerve deafness pretty bad but I get by. I don't let it get me down.

I'm a musician and love music and listen to it all the time. I don't play it loud to protect what hearing I have left. I cannot use ear buds or anything that completely blocks my ear canals as they start to itch within a few minutes and it get's painful within 10 to 15. So usually I use on-ear cans (headphones) or speakers. I'm loving the digital streaming music and having so much variety at my disposal.

I'm a techy type of guy. I love Bluetooth and have embraced that technology whole heartedly. But I've seemed to notice that listening to anything via a Bluetooth signal seems to put my T into overdrive. I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed this. Listening to non-BT does not do this. So it weirds me out a little that there is some sort of 'wireless' frequency that I can't hear but my ears is reacting to. One weird thing about me is I can hear very high frequencies that no one else can, not even little kids. I've had that my whole life as well.

Anyway, just wondering if anyone else has noticed this phenomena.

 

I'd be very curious to know if you're able to pass a blinded test. Meaning, have someone else turning a BT device on or off, and see if you can tell whether or not it's on.

I think the idea that EMFs might interact with our physiology in some way is fascinating, but I also think the idea that EMFs are direct tinnitus triggers is a little unlikely.

 

I'm thinking the same thing. I wonder if it's just a 'reverse placebo effect' for want of a better term. I did a fair amount of Googling and searching here and found nothing which makes me think even more it might be just all in my mind.

 

If you go too far down the rabbit hole of Google you can find a lot of people who think EMFs are hurting their health, and some of them even say they feel much better after going to extreme lengths to upend their lives and move miles and miles into the wilderness... but if there's anything to it, no one has ever been able to figure out what, despite some quasi-serious scientific inquiry.

My own T generally gets much much much better within 24 hours of getting way out into the woods and away from all that stuff, but, I try not to read much into that besides "well there's one more thing to like about the woods"....

 

Hi have you seen my thread on wifi and cellular transmitter making my T worst.

At moment I have not be able to have concrete conclusion to confirm that but my gut feeling seems to show it affect my T intensity.

 

I have lived in a place with no internet or Bluetooth for 6 months. Also lived in India for 4 months where nothing of this kind was. The T was as bothersome there as anywhere else. So I`m not sure how much it does affect us but I don`t think it is so significant as to providing massive relief.

 

I don't think there is a connection. No living thing on earth can hear 2.4 GIGAhertz I think some animals can hear 50khz orso, not sure if this is even compare to hearing noise though.

 

There is no connection. Your mind may trick you to think that there is, which is a so called 'nocebo' effect - the opposite of placebo effect.

 

I'm not discounting the possibility of Bluetooth being a potential factor, but have you thought of the fidelity of the headphones? Most Bluetooth headphones I've had have a much lower sound quality than wired alternatives.

I've found that low quality music aggravates my tinnitus pretty bad, be it either by a low quality stream or bad quality speakers.

My guess is this could relate to my ears/brain trying to overcompensate.

Before I got tinnitus I would happily stream music on a low quality and couldn't tell, and the only reason I can determine quality now is whether my tinnitus peaks (with low quality) or fades to the background (high quality)

 

'Nocebo' - I like that!

I doubt it's anything directly from the BT. I wonder thought if it's more from the recording they do today. Way back when fidelity was actually important, if you looked at a wave file of a song's recording you would see it has peaks and valleys. But if you look at today's wave forms they are mostly just all pegged to the max. I sometimes wonder if that doesn't cause much quicker ear fatigue and aggravation to the tinnitus than older music. I'll have to try some experimenting with that!

 

I have noticed this as well. It took me awhile to figure it out. I never had a problem with tinnitis but within the last year I purchased a bluetooth over the ear headset. I used it very infrequently because I already had a possible issue with Bluetooth in the past.

Many years ago, I owned the Motorola S9 Bluetooth headset, then eventually bought the S10. This was the type of headset was in the ear with a band around the back of the neck. The Bluetooth transmitter was right at the back of the neck against the spine. I was getting pain in the back of my neck not ever thinking it had anything to do with the bluetooth. Over the course of 1 year it finally dawned on me that the pain usually occurred when I was using that headset. It's not like I would put the thing on and all of a sudden I would have pain. The pain would appear later in the day or the next day, so I wasn't quick to make the association. The pain would exist as i used it somewhat daily with some breaks. I stopped using it for a while to see if the pain went away, and it did. I would use it again, and the pain would come back. I stopped using that headset because it was so close to all the nerves in my spine. The thought was a little scary even if there was no actual harm being done. A few years later I started using bluetooth again but the dongle type so that I could attach any stereo headset and keep it away from my body or move it to different parts of my body if I wanted to.

In an effort to preserve my hearing for the long term, I wanted to be able to listen to my headphones at an even lower volume so I started looking into noise cancelling headphones. Even in a quiet home there is background humming or noises that we don't really pay attention to but they are there and I tend to turn the volume up slightly to hear the details better. Liking the ability to be wireless over the course of two months I started using my wireless Bluetooth headset more frequently. I went on a mission to find the best noise cancelling Bluetooth headset and started buying different ones and using them several times a day. The original one I purchased over a year ago, the Phiaton ms 530 didn't have the sound quality I wanted and figured I'd get something better if I was going to use them more often. I purchased the Beats Studio wireless, then purchased the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless. I started noticing a much stronger constant ringing. I originally started thinking that it might have something to do with the noise cancelling Technology. As of now I do notice the tinnitus more in my right ear, which happens to be the same ear the Bluetooth transmitter is on. It became more apparent after a while. I have been very resistant to believing that is the cause but at this point I'd be stupid to ignore it. I am currently discontinuing the use of those headsets to see if the tinnitus goes away.

There isn't much information on this yet. If you have a similar problem to what I have, then we are in the minority. They say it only affects about 3 to 6% of the population. other people may be having some sort of damage but it isn't manifesting as tinnitus. It doesn't necessarily have to do with frequencies of sound you can't hear but more towards the radiation that the bluetooth is giving off. You may also have issues with Wi-Fi, etcetera. Everybody is different and you have to figure out what is causing your problem or exacerbates it. Some people are allergic to peanuts. Some are not. It doesn't mean because a majority of the population doesn't have a problem with this, that the few that do are imagining it. If you notice a problem and found an association, then I would test it yourself. It's been a while since your original post. Have you come to any type of conclusion?

 

Methos,
I have tinnitus associated with Menieres. In the past, T would be present in one ear or the other, for a period of days or weeks. I was fitted with two bluetooth hearing devices about 7 weeks ago, and my T has spiked and become persistently bi-lateral, with the return of some mild-moderate vertigo. The professional that fitted me called this a "bobber effect," the opposite of a placebo, and that it could last 4-6 weeks. At 4 weeks, he said 6-12 months. It doesn't make sense (to me) that bluetooth devices could spike tinnitus, but I'm considering going a week without them to see what happens.

 

You’re not imagining things. It is all in your head, but not from your imagination. I’ve noticed that my T gets worse with prolonged use of Bluetooth headsets, having a fever, holding an active cell phone to my ear for more than a moment or two, and any sound that matches the frequencies that damaged me to begin with.

I can swear wires headphones for hours and feel nothing different. Bluetooth headphones cause my hearing to become more sensitive in my left ear - to the point that sounds like running water in the sink or flushing the toilet hurt. It sounds like there is some reverberation happening. It’s very discomforting.

Short term usage of 1-2 hours per day don’t seem to cause the issue. Anything beyond that will. I’m concerned that chronic exposure to small yeild EMR causes accumulative harm in some folks.

In my observation, I believe it is related to how much radiation is absorbed into the head and neck area with prolonged and chronic exposure.

The more powerful the EMR source, the less time it takes for me to notice the stanage audio anomalies in my left ear.

Getting out in nature and/or wearing earplugs and relaxing helps me get back to normal more quickly.

You’re not the only person that suspects BT headphones exasperates T symptoms. I trust my judgment and instincts, and this isn’t a nocebo. Unfortunately, I doubt I’ll ever have solid proof.

 

It absolutely causes my T to spike and I would be more than happy to do any double blind study or test regarding the matter. The causes of our T are somewhat individual and are triggers are too. For example, I usually know I am late for taking my BP med if my T kicks in. An audiologist told me that this is not so uncommon. Mt T also kicks in when I have an infection. Again, an audiologist told me this is not uncommon. However, I would guess that this stuff does not happen for everyone. As to why specifically Buetooth would do this. I don't know. Seems some of out ears are "more sensitive" than others.... maybe it's a dog whistle phenomenon and I am a doggie.