Ever Find It's Hard to Tell Your Tinnitus Apart from Background Noise?

My high pitched tinnitus is similar to sounds from electronics, office equipment, and some of my car sounds that I'm not always sure what I'm hearing.

Anyone else have that same experience?

 

Tom, my T never changes, I always hear what sounds like one of those tea kettles that has a built in whistle top. It varies in loudness from time to time, thankfully. Night time brings me the most relief and for that I am more than grateful.

My T also seems to have set up house in my left ear, only.

 

YES! My T sounds exactly like all the high pitched electronic noises that have always annoyed me. Chargers, monitors, lamps, even my keyboard makes a high pitched noise (probably the LEDs). It sucks (what about T doesn't) but I try to look at it positively if I can. I figure if I can't tell if it's my T or a real sound that's probably a good thing.

 

High pitched background sounds annoy me. I usually think it's my tinnitus. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. It can be difficult in the office. Tinnitus makes you more aware of irritating background sounds. I would never have noticed them in the past.

 

@Tom71 ,
My bilateral tinnitus sounds the same as a gas oven on full and I also have a added sound to go along with it that sounds like a generator and both never stop and hard to deal with unless my hearing aids are in due to Menieres.
Cooked a chicken dinner tonight for family coming to tea and my oven is a gas oven ...my tinnitus sounds the same.
Love glynis

 

Hi @emmalee I did an internet search on what you describe (tea kettle and whistle) and it's talked about on several forums. There's also some articles that discuss this. Listed the most - not enough sound therapy such as pink rain. The second most discuss reason is TMJ - joint and ear wax which are probably not issues for you.

 

Hi, Greg. Thank-you for taking the time to do a search, you are so thoughtful.

Turns out that I do suffer from TMJD. I am teeth grinder and a jaw clencher, something that I am working very hard on to control, especially since the onset of my tinnitus.

Pink rain? This sounds intriguing, going to do search for sure.

emma~

 

@Greg Sacramento

I found this pink noise video and although it is says to use for colicky baby, I actually like the sound a bit better than the videos that were specifically for tinnitus. All in all, it is pink noise and I like it.

Thanks again.

►10 hours of Baby Sleep Pink Noise ~ Tinnitus...

 

Yup, I actually love it when I can't tell. I sleep with talk radio on because it tricks my brain into thinking it is the hissing and ringing of AM radio. I also have a fan. Between those two my mild/moderate T is decently masked. My ear on my pillow is sometimes a bit ringy though. And if I happen to have a bad night for some reason I can focus on the conversation of the talk radio rather than think endlessly about my tinnitus. No drugs for me, I'd recommend trying everything before getting on sleep drugs because longterm use can make T worse.

 

Hi @Tom71. I have read your other threads so welcome to TT. This is an interesting question. My answer is yes.
Many times I have to search to find out the source of the noise. Many times for some strange reason I hear certain frequencies that no one else can sense. And my brain is loud all the time!!

For example I think I wrote about this here: One morning I heard this hissing type of sound. Very much like my other head noises. It was almost like I "felt" it rather than "heard" it. I asked my husband and he didn't hear anything. I out my ear to the wall and heard it louder and called our plumber. Our house has a crawl space underneath and it turned out we had a pin hole leak in our water supply pipe. Hisssssssssss sound.

Thankfully I guess I found it early so no damage happened. Otherwise the leak could have been much worse causing a lot of damage.

 

@Hi @emmalee I hope that you are having a good day. Here is something else that may help.

https://www.massagetherapy.com/articles/face-grace

I was paralyzed from the shoulders up due to delayed actions from whiplash and from ultrasound for my neck. I have many issues within my neck, some are also degenerative that's causing shoulder and jaw problems. I can't have injections or prolotherapy. I couldn't use a mouth guard when my face was paralyzed. I tried all kinds of facial/jaw exercises and nothing helped me until I tried the treatments in this link.

My face is now almost manageable and my TMJ clenching that is acutely related to my neck has improved. I will have to keep up the face and jaw exercises because my neck is boss. I hope to someday become boss over my neck, but because of a damaged c spine along with damaged nerves; turning my neck and some neck muscle therapy isn't helpful.

I was able to forget about my severe tinnitus from my first onset years ago. My goal now with more recent whiplash tinnitus is to find a path to be able to physically function.

I wish you the best. I like to read your heartful warm posts.

 

Greg, the article was extremely interesting, thank-you so much for bringing my attention to it. The exercises are exactly what I need and I have already done some of them this morning. I printed the page and put it in my yoga room. They will now be a part of my daily yoga routine.

I sincerely hope that you continue to improve and that your face becomes completely manageable. I can't imagine dealing with what you have to deal with.

 

Yep all the time. I have loud high pitched t in my left ear with slight hearing loss. I have to listen out for a noise around the same pitch as my t I really struggle.

 

Oh yes!
Since my tinnitus is low frequency drone I will get interference with anything of similar frequency.
ENT was completely ignorant and treated me like a lier!

 

Exact same.

 

Mine sounds like the noise emitted from an old school television and when those things are switched on near me it drives me insane