Hello, I'm Sean

Hello from Ontario, Canada. My name is Sean and I can't recall when exactly my Tinnitus started. I have put in 2006 because that's when I started high school. From what I remember about the ringing and never initially wondering what it was, that seems like a fair year to put as a start date. As for the cause, I don't really know. I've never listened to loud music like the kids did (and probably still do) with their earbuds blasted to max volume. I've never (from what I remember) been exposed to excessively loud sounds in any work environments. So unless a few isolated events of brief and very loud sounds (very few concert events, loud bangs at work) were enough to trigger it, then I'm not really sure what caused it.

Ever since I decided to Google "ringing in ears" which led me to finding out what it actually was I've never been able to ignore it. From what some people describe, I wouldn't say it's as loud as it could be. However, every now and then in only ever one ear at a time (but it happens in both), everything will go very quiet and the ringing will be very loud. The ringing will last for about 5-10 seconds and slowly fade away back to it's "normal volume". The general noise level will slowly raise back to normal level after that. I'm not sure if that's a part of Tinnitus or maybe that's something else. I believe that's been happening just as long as the Tinnitus in general has been. I did go to the hearing doctor one time and did a hearing test. From what I gather (as he didn't really tell me) I would say I have exceptional hearing. I hear things most people don't; or maybe I'm just better at identifying the sounds than others. Either way, he said nothing can be done about the Tinnitus in terms of a cure, but I can do things like listen to sound files and such. I found that sound generator just moments ago and will be listening to it later with my noise cancelling headphones (those things have been a life saver for when I get headaches and need a bit of relief, haha).

For work, I drive a flatbed delivery truck. The truck can get fairly loud (mainly on the highways) so I wear foam earplugs in hopes that it'll help prevent any further damage to my hearing in terms of eventual hearing loss and worsening Tinnitus symptoms.

Anyway, after joining numerous forums for different things, the idea eventually popped into my head the other day to search for a Tinnitus forum as I without a doubt knew one existed somewhere. Sure enough, here it is.

I'm hoping to find some things here to help relieve the annoyance and stress of Tinnitus. I've taken a quick browse through a couple of posts and it seems like a lot of useful information is here.

Looking forward to reading it and chatting with you all!

 

Welcome to the forum. You will find that there are two approaches to rrrlieve the annooyance and stress of tinnitus. One being actually reducing the volume or masking it so that it feel less, and the other being changing your mental approach to make T less of a problem.

The reduction of volume by T itself over time can happen for some people. Sometimes, by improving our sleep quality and by engaging in distraction activity can help reduce the perception of the volume. Besides that, taking some meds or using supplements can also help... Masking is the fastest and saefest way to me to reduce my annoyance to the T ringing. Using some generator is a good idea. Here are some more masking suggestions:
1) Mask at bed time so you can sleep better. Find whatever sounds/music that are soothing to you. You can use a sound machine or sound pillow for this, or a computer with speakers.

2) If you need masking on the go, try load an ipod with nature sounds or music using itune. If you have a smart phone, you can download free APPs for soothing or T-masking sounds.

3) If you have computer and speakers, you can try these excellent masking sounds too:

TT's audio player: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/audioplayer/

or this online sound library, particularly the self-mix nature sounds: http://mynoise.net/

or download free sound generator ‘aire freshener’: http://www.peterhirschberg.com/mysoftware.html

or search youtube with words like 'tinnitus masking sounds', 'white noise', 'rain sound' etc.

The mental side of T management is also very important. T feeds on our fear, anxiety and stress. Try to stay calm and positive as humanly possible as we can. This will starve off the fuel T needs to inflict sufferings on us. Coming here to TT to receive support or rant your frustration with T is also a good way to remove the negative effect of T on our emotions. I encourage you to read up as many success story as you can so you can feel hopeful that you will be well too over time and after learning some strategies that work for people. I wrote my success story after suffering initial horror with my ultra high pitch T and severe hyperacusis. I list some helpful strategies for my recovery. You can check it out here. Take good care & God bless.

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...w-i-recovered-from-tinnitus-hyperacusis.3148/