Has Anyone Habituated to Ultra High Frequency Tinnitus That Can't Be Masked?

It's also a gathering place for people who are very sad and disappointed with their life. So don't take it too personally when people sometimes lash out in different ways (not saying that's what happened in this case).

Even for me, it can be hard to read people being able to "mask" their tinnitus. It just tells me my tinnitus is much worse than those people, and there's a sense of "why me" and so on...

Back to topic: my high frequency tones are completely unmaskable and I hear them over absolutely everything regardless of volume. For me, what works best is to listen to birdsong and other nature sounds that don't compete with my tinnitus in the frequency domain. I also have an air purifier with a low whooshing sound that helps way more than white or pink noise.

Every night, I listen to podcasts and try to focus on them and not my tinnitus.

 

High pitch chime sound tracks usually give me some relief as well. If I'm also sitting outside, it helps me enjoy being outside too because it takes the edge off the reactivity and even at times makes me notice it a little less.

 

I'm so happy to hear that I've read a lot of your posts and feel for your situation. Do you feel the wind sometimes helps? I've noticed that in the car. Otherwise continual soft noise like the AC etc aggravates the shit out of my reactive tinnitus.

 

Dude, the rushing water thing really resonates with me. I see you’re still somewhat active. Did your tinnitus eventually become more maskable? I’ve recently undergone incident(s?) which has rendered mine unmaskable. After 15-30 seconds or so the tinnitus will pierce through anything, which is chiefly a problem for sleeping.

Ive been through this rodeo once. If I could safely mask it I know I could make it through. Wearing headphones (on low volume) worked for about 30 minutes before it reacted/spiked (? the verbiage is important but it’s difficult to determine which is more apt) to be louder than the violet + brown noise.

 

Were these new developments post-COVID-19? Or has it always been this bad?

 

This latest worsening came randomly it seems. Got the new tone previously, but it went away, then came back and seems to be persistent this time.

 

@mrbrightside614, have you tried any water sound therapy? Curious what would work for you because the shower and faucets running just spike mine. What about rain? Rivers etc?

 

It can’t be artificial. Also, I’m pretty sure that if I were to try to sleep to ANY sound, within 15-30 seconds I’d be able to hear my tinnitus through it.

 

Which is why I've rarely masked since my onset 2013.

I was advised to mask but I just couldn’t fall zzz.

I turned off the white noise, lay there experiencing panic and anxiety, which eventually led to my mind wandering onto other things and eventually I fell asleep...

These days I lay my head down and imagine my friend is a cosy cap enveloping my head, helping me to sleep. Sounds crazy but this reduces my anxiety, which in turn allows me to get some rest.

 

Honestly an inspiration. Do you take anything to sleep? Also, over the years, did your perception or the magnitude of the tinnitus ever reduce? I understand you’re experiencing a relapse currently, and for that I am very sorry.

 

I have two different high frequency pitches. They have become so familiar to me that I can almost meditate to the noise. With time, anything is possible.

 

Do you hear your tones in all environments? Or are they maskable?

 

I've had high frequency tinnitus in both ears for around 20 years that luckily COULD be masked. The first year was rough but then things got better. As of a month ago, my left ear developed a 15,000 Hz zing sound that cuts in and out at weird random intervals. Not only can I not mask it, but it's reactive particularly to masking sounds. This is forcing me to not use any masking sounds at all, which also makes me realize I probably never completely habituated to the old stuff since it started bothering me again.

Maybe being unable to mask this new sound at all will expedite the habituation process since I can't avoid it. I can't just slap a white noise machine band-aid on it and gotta face it head-on. However, maybe it will make it TOUGHER to habituate since my mind will always associate the sound with negative emotions of being uncomfortable, annoyed, and disturbed. I feel like being able to partially mask the tinnitus into a sound that isn't so bad is more helpful in the long run than auditory torture, but I guess time will tell for me.

 

Sorry for the delay.

I don't use sleep aids. I tried using some herbal ones in December, but didn't find them helpful.

I think I know that I can mostly get some sleep, even on really loud days.

As my tinnitus is reactive, I tend to favour sitting in the quiet, even when my tinnitus is really bad.

This forces me to look at other strategies to deal with the anxiety around hearing the noise/s such as tinnitus focused meditation, listening to a podcast, or focusing on external sounds outside.

In the beginning, I thought it would be impossible to sleep well with severe tinnitus. For the first two weeks, I did what a lot of you do, and tried to mask it with white noise and music. None of this worked. It irritated me even more. So, I decided to turn the white noise off, and lay my head down and actively listen to the noise/s. Of course, it was confronting at first, because I didn't want to hear the noise. But, I noticed something interesting after a while. My mind started drifting onto other things, and whilst this was happening, my awareness of my very loud tinnitus softened. That was achieved in one evening. I have continued to do this night after night since 2013, and have managed to mostly sleep well.

When my tinnitus is particularly bad, or especially annoying, I think of people I know on this forum and in real life who successfully live with loud tinnitus. I have a cousin who experienced a unilateral SSHL 20 years ago. She is an inspiration to me, as is a close friend of mine; who has habituated in reaction to her loud and reactive tinnitus. I think of Zoe Cartwright too, a young British film maker, who is deaf, but has managed to move past the noise. She has made a short film on tinnitus, that you can find on YouTube.

I am a Christian, and pray a lot for the tinnitus community, myself, the researchers, and for funding towards a cure/treatment.

I remind myself of the brain's remarkable ability to adapt e.g., @billie48 and @I who love music.

I think my improvements in the past have been a combination of reduction in the volume (actual) and habituation. Am still in the process of trying to figure out what went wrong.

How are you now?

 

Solid post.

 

That’s how I feel @Mumbo. My tinnitus is centralized at 14-15 khz with that weird oscillating zapping feature that I can feel and it reacts to masking sounds. I’ve been in a mostly panicked state for almost 3 months being forced to listen to it almost 24/7. While I’m trying to convince myself that it’s gotten better, I’m not so sure that’s the case. It may have lowered because my anxiety lowers at times with medication etc but I don’t see how anyone can habituate to this long term. Though it seems people have proven me wrong in this thread. I just hope they’ve experienced it as high frequency as we are at 15 kHz etc.

 

I'm sorry you have to deal with this too. I'm sure everything we're experiencing has been experienced before by countless people, and countless people have probably habituated to it. We can too. Maybe it'll take longer for us than someone who is dealing with a less annoying and less unpredictable sound, but we'll get there. I have confidence we'll both look back at these posts of ours someday and realize our brains were more adaptable than we ever thought possible.

Weirdly, what helped me yesterday when I was reaching my breaking point was putting in earplugs followed by shop quality ear protectors. I couldn't avoid all the sounds in my head and at first it was maddeningly loud. Conversely, there were no external sounds to make my reactive tinnitus worse which made my mind latch onto the sounds LESS than usual. The sounds were still erratic but a more calmed down version. While still far from ideal, it bothered me less than anything else I've tried. I continued a similar trend while I slept and put an earplug into my left ear (the one most affected) and the zings were much quieter than usual all night. I think my long-term gameplan will be to find a method of the least annoyance and just wait until my brain catches up. It's about all we can do.

 

Thanks @Mumbo. I screenshotted your response to reread for encouragement. Thank you so much for the positivity. I keep telling myself that it’s early and hopefully in the next month I will be able to resolve my anxiety and focus more on habituation. Believe it or not I’ve already had moments where I notice it less, that’s just been very rare. I’ve noticed the zapping seems to be less when I’m calm and not stimulated further by outside sounds so I totally get your earplug method and hope that keeps working for you!

Here’s to the day hopefully in the near future when we look back in awe of how quickly we adapted.

 

Have you tried wind chime and bell sounds for tinnitus? You can find them on YouTube. I find the overtones tend to confuse and distract my brain from hearing my high frequency ringing.

 

I keep coming back to this thread but afraid that it is so far down here that know one will read it.

I have this kind of tinnitus.

I have successfully done some meditation that works for me but it is only brief and really is a mind trick. I should write a book about it and maybe feel better about everything.

Here it is...

Lie still without any outside noise or distractions. At night usually is better.

Then imagine the noise you are hearing. Just imagine you are hearing the same noise. Keep doing it.

Soon you will hear the noise even though it isn't there. And you may doubt that you are hearing it, but don't. You should believe that the noise is now in your head and the same as the noise that is already there. Just WILL IT into existence.

I have tinnitus on one side so it is easy to imagine it on the other side. I imagine that both sides are the same pitch and strength. And never not imagine it - it is as real as the noise that is already there. More so.

After a few minutes something happens in my head that I stop hearing the noise - all noise. Not cancelling it out, but it's like I hear it so much that I can't hear it any more. Sounds wrong but it feels like the all sides become quieter.

This technique (?) comes from astral projection where one lies still with eyes closed and imagines they they are across the room and watching themselves from across the room lying there in the bed.

This (for me) results in a consciousness shock - so I decided to try it with tinnitus.

 

How much benzos were you taking and for how long if you don’t mind me asking?

 

My opinion is that high frequency tinnitus can be habituated to much easier when it’s just a sound. When it becomes a sensation or feeling, though, it’s much harder.

I have an electrical tone that sounds like a fuse box shooting off a bunch of electricity and it literally zaps me frequently. But here’s the thing: it feels like those things, too — it feels like electricity and shocks, and causes sensations of physical pain, I’m guessing, because of the frequency being so shrill. The brain assigns physical feelings to it based off how it thinks it should interpret this sound, perhaps. In real life, when we hear that frequency, we feel pain also. So the brain can’t tell the difference. If that tone was just a sound for me and not a feeling, too, I am confident I’d be able to habituate in some way, whether that’s habituation of reaction or perception. In my case, the tone is traumatic, though, because it hurts. The “experts” often say, “It’s just a sound. It can’t hurt you.” Not true in my case. I can’t relate to those words of advice.