Having What I Assume to Be Tinnitus Since I Could Remember

Hello everybody,

The first time I remember having Tinnitus was when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I remember how much easier it was to sleep when the fan was turned on. I never really realized what was going on (I suppose I thought it was normal). Now that I'm 34, I think the tinnitus is pretty much the same.

It's hard for me to explain the sound of the tinnitus without using the normal "buzzing/ chiming" words. However, if I tried to be more specific, it would be that it sounds like your TV is on without being on an actual channel (and therefore, you get the sound of static). If you took that static and imagined it with a much higher pitch, I think that would describe it. It's always constant (it never, ever turns off). It is usually the same volume unless I concentrate on it a lot (and then it gets louder). I've basically had the fan on at night time for as long as I could remember and it's fairly difficult to sleep without it.

In every day life, there seems to always be enough sound around so that I don't notice it unless it's night time and I'm about to sleep. I went to an ENT doctor for the first time very recently, and he basically just said I had hearing loss. When I asked about the tinnitus and why I've had it since birth, he just gave me a blank stare and said he could get me hearing aids if things got too bad.

I feel really bad for people that it's debilitating for. If I wasn't so used to it, I can tell I would really freak out about it (I've got some sensitive nerves, and this would truly bother me a lot if it wasn't the only thing I've ever known). I hope someone can find a cure for it one day. Occasionally I would ask friends what silence actually sounds like. A lot of people say they can hear their heart beat, and even the sound of blood flowing (never got how that was possible), but most of the time they would just smile and suggest that they really couldn't describe silence themselves.

Anyways, gl to everyone that it's a serious problem for!

 

Sounds like those you asked what silence sounds like, might have pulsating tinnitus from hearing their heart beat and don't even know. What surprised me is how quickly I've discovered so many people have T but don't tell people or talk about it.

 

Tinnitus is definitely underdiagnosed in children/toddlers for at least two reasons:
1) Children - depending on the age - may not realize something is wrong (and think it is normal because... it has always been that way).
2) Children - even if they do realize something is not right - may lack the vocabulary to describe what they are experiencing.

Since your ENT gave you a blank stare, I will explain what can cause tinnitus to occur during early childhood. Here is a fairly exhaustive list of possible causes:
1) High fever at some point in childhood. Inducing a fever is the body's way of fighting an infection; unfortunately children's response to infections is stronger than that of adults, and hence children tend to get high fever for even relatively benign infections (and this can damage body tissue).
2) Mumps. Can cause hearing loss too; this is rare, however - and irrelevant now since the introduction of the MMR vaccine.
3) Low birthweight. Approximately 1 in every 400 children will be born with some degree of hearing loss or will develop it during the first year of childhood (possible causes are low birthweight and any viral infection of the mother during pregnancy).
4) Head injury. Most children will at some point during childhood have a head injury - be it falling down the stairs, falling off a tree branch, hit in the head by a soccer ball - and so on. In most cases, nothing serious happens - but in a few cases the impact will cause tinnitus and possibly other things.
5) Certain antibiotics. Most children will usually at some point during childhood have a serious infection/condition. By serious I mean an infection or condition which requires hospitalization. If the treating physician is skilled in dealing with children, they will get the diagnosis and treatment right - and be reluctant in using antibiotics straight away. In other cases, the physician will readily use antibiotics "just to be safe".
6) Noise. Since doctors do not have any significant awareness of the dangers of noise, do you think the average parent will? No, they will not. And so parents bring their children along for all kinds of noisy events. Just one concert can ruin a person's ears for life. Something to think about.
7) And last on the list: Ear infections...! (no furher explanation required).

 

In response to #6, above - here is one responsible (and good-looking!) parent...



...Gwyneth Paltrow, I believe (which probably explains why she is "responsible" - as her former(?) husband, Chris Martin, suffers from tinnitus). [Sorry, I don't read tabloids much...]

The image is taken from the following article on hearing loss:

http://hearingaiddocs.wordpress.com/

 

My brother just revealed that he has suffered from tinnitus since he was 8! He is now 31 and doesn't notice it unless he looks for it. Also, he had no idea anything was wrong until i started complaining about mine.

 

Wow I just found out a guy in my office has tinnitus and has literally never mentioned it. Now, I'm unsure of the severity but he says it sounds like a "high pitch eeeeeeee sound" and only notices it when he looks for it. It's truly remarkable how many people actually have tinnitus to some extent. Since my onset in November 2013 I have discovered that 10 of my close family and friends suffer from tinnitus to some degree.

 

Hello. I also have had tinnitus as long as I can remember. We grew up in a trailer and we had a TV that had the CRT. I can hear the tubes in those tvs I wonder if that could have had anything to do with it. My dad would watch the TV when he came home from second shift work and it would wake me up. I can also rember having high fevers at a young age, my dad shooting guns around us and with no ear pro and flying for hours in my grandpa's prop plane with no ear pro. I can rember when my dad would shoot a ringing would completly overtake all hearing for a few seconds (to young and dumb to know this was bad) Another weird childhood event I remember was a sensation in my ears that sounded like an owl hooting but there was no external sound. My little brother told my mom he heard something like that also (5 or 6) . After joining the navy things got worse, running air sanders, needle guns, wearing earphones, noisy ventilation, gas turbine noise.