How Loud of a Noise Does It Take to Mask Your Tinnitus?

Reading through these forums I read about trying to mask your tinnitus with white noise. It's only been 2 days for me but I'm desperately trying to get some relief. I decided to download a db meter app on my phone an test out the noise of different things. A fan doesn't do it for me at all. It takes about 75-80db to begin to drown out my tinnitus! And I have no hearing loss! My hearing threshold is in the 5db range.

How loud is your tinnitus?

 

My tinnitus varies in volume. When I want to 'drown it out' I listen to music but not nearly as loud as you are. I find that over time I pay most of my attention to the music and don't notice the tinnitus much. There are times when I do crank up the music just to rock on and that does prevent me from hearing the tinnitus, but that is secondary.

 

110 db of motorcycle rev doesn't cover it up, but 30 db of cricket noises does.... Unless I'm anxious about it, in which case I can hear it over 100 db of cricket noise, too.

 

Directly under the shower will do it most of the time. But when it's loud, which is most days, trying to mask it means I would have to listen to something so loud that it would damage my hearing, because the sound is located in my head, not my ears. Artificial masking is just noise on top of noise.

 

It varies. Shower, all the time. The car - some days yes, some days no.

 

And yet you state that some of your friends have louder T than you?. Lol. How in the world does it get worse than 110db motor cycle engine? How do you determine theirs to be worse than yours? You guys stand close range to explosions and compare notes?

 

When I try to mask my tinnitus with white noise/water / music -My Tinnitus gets louder and I focus on the tinnitus even more the second I turn off the masking noise. Similar to when I shower - the water masks the tinnitus but the second I turn off the water it feels as though my Tinnitus is even LOUDER. Its least loud when I first wake up.

 

Loud enough that I can hear it over 60+ barking dogs. I don't have any numbers on that.

 

Being able to hear it over a motorcycle is a function of pitch and not volume... the same reason that you can hear a single flute playing clearly over ten tubas. Certain kinds of very specific, very high pitched noises can usually mask it at a low volume, but I generally find those sounds more annoying than the tinnitus, so I don't bother.

There is also a variable, hard to describe nuance here, as well: much of the time, I'm able to do stuff like watch TV at a normal volume or listen to music and barely be able to register the tinnitus. But sometimes, the tinnitus is so obvious that trying to watch TV is like listening through a wall of toxic noise. And yet, at those times when the tinnitus is most intrusive, I would not actually say it's any louder than it ever is. It's not the volume that seems to vary, it's the attentional processes around it.

Even more oddly, certain kinds of meditative practice and cognitive tricks, allow me to sort of modulate the sounds... I can induce loud short spikes just by using my attentive mind in a specific way. It's all very strange, but I suppose all perceptual phenomena are.

 

@linearb @Telis
As you know in the meantime, my pitch is around 15 kHz or even higher.
Like for linearb, this is audible everywhere. The shower partly covers it (if it is a loud shower )
On bad days, crickets must be very loud to be covered. So this is not really relief.
Restaurants, motor cycles, TV, radio etc. do not cover it since it is completely different pitch.
I guess with a T of maybe 4 or 5 kHz, I would be in a much better shape already. But who knows?
It is simply difficult ignoring or not listening to this high-pitched tone.

 

I've wondered about this, too, but it might just be a grass-is-greener thing. A guy I used to work with has loud 4.5khz tinnitus and he described that as "annoying and difficult, because it's right in the middle of everything, it cuts right through everything".

 

That's about where mine is at. God I hope it goes away or lessens.

Out of curiosity, what caused your tinnitus? And did you have any hearing loss associated with it?

 

Burnout, exhaustion, migraines, vertigo. I had all this and I did not know where it comes from.
So I thought I have a life-threatening thing which caused anxiety I never had in my life. Just in this moment, T started like hell in my head. So definitely anxiety caused T. All other things went away after a short period of time, T stayed with me ever since.

Yes, I have the "ski slope" starting at 6 kHz in both ears. Probably because of many nights in clubs and riding motor bikes. But this was already long time before my T started. My T was not caused by acoustic trauma, noise exposure or similar. It was pure anxiety and my T chose one of the highest frequencies it could get.

 

I don't think that I could hear mine over that noise. Surely there has to be some overtones that reach into the very high pitches, even with the sound of a motor? I haven't tried any sort of noise like that (I have hyperacussis) so maybe I'm wrong, maybe I would hear it, but I highly doubt it.

In the beginning, I could calm my tinnitus doing certain mind exercises. At one point I could plug my ears, sit in a enclosed space, close my eyes and walk away from the sound (in my mind). I could get it to a low static after about 20 minutes, unplug my ears and have virtually no tinnitus and be on my way. That was before my hearing deteriorated, now nothing seems to change it except how much exposure I have to noise, and even this is maybe 20 percent variation day to day.

 

Spent an hour at a large casino today on the slots. Lots of pitches and tones all around..... Still the T rang right on through it all. It seems to come from my head, not my ears. It feels like it buzzes as it rings with my heartbeat. Maybe the difference is that my T is probably from a Sjogens med, not from explosions.