Buy a Stethoscope and Self-Check for Objective Tinnitus?

one audiologist checked for 'otoacoustic emissions', which I suppose are for objective tinnitus. He didn't find anything. BUT, when I saw him, I could almost hear no tinnitus at all, and I was without masker and in a soundproofed room. I do not remember hearing any T.

But what about spikes? No one has an audiologist around to check for otoacoustic emissions, of course, which means that your tinnitus can be objective and you'll never know!

So I am thinking to buy a stethoscope and use it on myself, and either listen through it, or even record the results through a high sensitivity microphone.

Any thoughts?

 

Otoacoustic emissions are not objective tinnitus.

Otoacoustic emissions are a normal part of the process of hearing; the test is looking for certain kinds of hearing problems which may show up in this test, which will not show up in a pure-tone audiometric test (which is what we think of as a "normal" hearing exam).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otoacoustic_emission

 

thank you my friend. I spoke with the audiologist at the time and it was obviously my misunderstanding. I thought he checked for objective tinnitus. It only shows how little I still know. Thanks

 

I'm not sure that I've been checked for objective T, either -- even after all these years! As far as I know, though, it's almost unheard of for the kind of tinnitus I have to be caused objectively (and I may actually have had the stethoscope test at one point, I just don't remember for sure).

I do know that when I had my emissions test done, I believe it's called a DPOE, there was a difference between my ears, and the ear where my tinnitus is worse, showed more abnormality. So, in my case, I think my ringing is pretty cut and dry, I have some degree of very high frequency damage on the left, and a brain which is in general bad at filtering out noise / bogus sensory data (I have similar problems with my vision, as I do with my hearing -- lots of constant input even in perfect darkness).

Meditation and all that hasn't done very much for the nature of my tinnitus, I wouldn't say, but it's helped me learn how to calm my brain down in general. Tinnitus is the major source of distress in my life now, but before I had tinnitus I'd say I was overall more distressed from other sources, than I am right now.