How Common Is Tinnitus? How Severe Is Yours? How Often Do You Hear It? Does Everyone Have It Mild?

I've just begun struggling with tinnitus. I'm just wondering some general things about tinnitus... like how common it is in the general population? How severe is your tinnitus? How often do you hear it? Does everyone have mild tinnitus and just not "notice" it?

 

I believe everybody has T but us not tuned into it, by choice or good fortune.
I think the issue is our brains take notice and go searching.
My hubby and father can hear T if they look for it, but can immediately turn their minds from it again.
Me well my silly brain turns to it not from it, and when it goes from my consciousness my brain says, oops where's it gone, ah there it is, good lets listen to it.

 

My T fluctuates, but the majority of the time I can hear it above almost everything except the shower. I get days where my T just competes with incoming sounds. For example, if I turn the tv on my T would be screaming over the top of it. If I emotionally react to it and allow it to annoy or depress me, it gets a lot worse. Conversely, I can go days without thinking about it, particularly if I'm in a good mood or stop dwelling on it, it can start to fade into the background. Sometimes this seems more random but I'm pretty certain my overall mood or "brain chemical balance" may have some bearing on this. Sleep for me is probably one of the only things that makes a noticable difference to the intensity.

 

There's no way everybody has T, I had healthy quiet ears for 38 years of my life, I definately did not have this smoke alarm, scratching, beeping, electrical clicking, high pitched painful squeaking jumping around my brain and just ignored it my whole life until one fine day My brain decided to take a listen, no sorry but that is ridiculous, I had an injury, plain and simple.

You make people with tinnitus sound like they are crazy instead of having a physical problem. I had barotrauma and ototoxic poisoning, lost a lot of hearing within days, now have screaming in my head/ears with extreme pain and pressure that would f/:k with any human being alive.

 

My audiologist also said a study in 50's deduced that everybody did have T. To be fair the brain is a very noisy place and all it takes is an event to expose it. After all why would people get T after a stressful event but no noise trauma or drugs involved

 

Trust me. everybody does not have tinintus. I never did either. My room was always 100 % quite. No traffic outside, no electronical noises, no sounds, nothing. All silence, till I one day woke up by this firealarm in my head and it has been with me since that day.

 

I just realized a couple of hours ago I can still hearing my T even in a bar where there are 7o dbs average... I measured the dbs and been shocked...

 

The Wedding Singer, nice : ) My tinnitus is 75-80 dbs approximately. I can "hear" it whenever I listen for it, but I don't anymore. Sure, some people who have had mild tinnitus don't notice it, just like you don't notice the disturbance of your eyelids when you're blinking. Most people don't have tinnitus though.

 

My tinnitus comes and goes, so I am a little unusual. When it disappears, it is not because I am in a louder situation, so it is better masked, I mean it actually isn't present.

I work in a facility that has anechoic chambers and before the onset of mine, I could work in one for hours on end and could hear the sound of my own heartbeat in my chest, but no additional sounds over the top, so no, everybody does not have tinnitus. Equally, I could wear earplugs when sleeping and I would hear nothing other than my heartbeat. Now, I can walk into one of the chambers when it goes and it is as near as makes no difference gone, although not 100% silent as it used to be. There is a very slight sshhhh still present, but if that was all I heard, I would never have been bothered by it or given it a second thought.

When bad, mine cannot be masked by much other than the shower - in addition to the amplitude, the random nature and multiple frequencies of the sound from a shower work extremely well at masking it. Fortunately, I have not had it at this level for a few weeks now, but for over 6 months, it was like someone had their mouth to my right ear and was screaming continually.

Mine also varies from a Morse code type sound, to a continual tone that is at about 9 kHz. In both cases, the amplitude can vary significantly.

 

You know, this is a great point. my friends basically tell me that "it's not the tinnitus that's wrong. You have other issues you need to work through, it's not the tinnitus that's bothering you."
I almost snapped on my best friend yesterday because she was making me so upset because she can't understand that it's a REAL problem that thousands of people deal with and thousands of people either get over it or it goes away.
Anyways, hope you're having a great day.
Ricardo

 

Yeah man, my advise...do not talk to people that don't have it. Come here if you need someone to understand or message me PM. People are ignorant, if they can't see you bleeding it's not there in their view.

 

Yea, exactly. That's why I finally joined! After 2 months, I decided I should just join and see what's up. Thanks bud

 

See attached.

I have no idea what that means.

 

@attheedgeofscience. Interesting report and thanks for posting it. I can only say, that before my right ear decided to go belly up, with SSHL, I could sleep in an ultra quiet room, with no perception of head noise. Hearing a pin drop, would wake me up. Now, a nuclear fusion device could detonate outside my house and I probably would hear my tinnitus over the explosion!

 

Your audiologist is either misinformed or trying to comfort you ( hey they can't fix it or manage it so some would actually choose this approach to not reinforce anxiety or panic attacks and this is very common in the psychology field as well)The brain is a very noisy place,yeah when you HAVE T not prior to it and i have to agree with ATEOS not understanding what that means.

You're asking " why someone would get T without noise trauma? or after the use of meds/drugs?.
But just after a stressful event,well it could be more than that descending in an airplane,having brain disorders,
even something like diving into water can cause T.

 

I have heard all kinds of crazy stuff lol,it's too ridiculous to even approach their way of thinking.This is the factor
of them not perceiving your T so they think it does not exist.It's a very convenient way of approach.

 

The problem with this approach while trying to comfort you, they also make you consider the fact that you have lost your mind and are indeed completely insane. Not cool

 

I made the mistake of telling my neighbor that I had T. He had no idea what it was and now he looks at me like I am a person that hears things other people cant hear. Maybe he thinks I hear voices also. Haha

 

I've started doing a little live-action data mining because I find tinnitus polls to be misleading - I think they attract people who are more bothered by their T.

I work at a place that has plenty of opportunities to make conversation with people, so whenever it is appropriate, I ask them if they hear "a weird sound that doesn't go away" when it's quiet. People usually have to think about it - but I definitel get a "yes" more than 10% of the time.

And if they say no, they're usually curious about what I mean, and I can explain it pretty well! It's a nice way to raise a little awareness.

 

I was at Tinnitus conference last saturday in Poland and they said around 15% of adult Polish population has chronic T to some degree (I think this may be the same worldwide meaning around 15%). Interestingly they said for 80% of chronic T sufferers it's not a problem and they don't even seek for professional help. Remaining 20% of sufferers really "suffer" from it and are looking for a medical help and ways to get rid of it. Of course I assume this relates to severity of T. For instance my wife, mum, aunt and father in law have moderate T , my sister and my friend have mild T. None of these 5 person I mentioned ever looked for professional help to get rid of it, despite 1 visit to and ENT when they were said to get used to it - so they did. They accept it easily and they say it does not interfere with their life at all neither causes anxiety. I have mild T instead which makes me anxious and depressed. I also recently had a visit to an ENT with totally different thing but I mentioned I have T for 1.5years which troubles me a lot. This ENT admitted she has T as well for years (cicadas in her head) but it does not bother her, she has no problems concentrating, relaxing or doing any other things in life. There was a slight humm from air-conditioning in a room where I met her and I couldn't hear my T but she could hear hers. So she had it louder than me, still was not bothered by it. I even asked her if she does not miss silence and she said "no", she never ever thinks about lost silence being a problem.
So true mild/moderate T seems to be pretty common in moderen society, at least I have a lot of people with this level of T around me. And amongs them I'm the only one dwelling on it, attending support group meetings, looking at research news and potential treatments with hope for a cure in the future. And I think this somewhat relates to personality, I was always prone to anxiety and easily irritated. And T in my case is additional irritant whch adds to it and makes life difficult for me.

Of course I'm sure this is different when it comes to severe T sufferers, in such case I don't believe anyone comes to terms with it easily.