How to Tell the Level of Tinnitus?

How do people gauge if they have high, medium or low tinnitus. It's a relative question. What may be high to one might be low to another, and vice versa.

I've always heard, if you can't hear it when putting you ears near a running faucet or in the shower, then its low. Thoughts?

 

Well there is the 1 to 10 rating, but it all depends on the person.
There was some explaination with that scale here on the forum, (like 1 is only in very very quiet rooms) but I don't think it's globally accepted as "the standard".

There is also the 1 to 10 rating for emotional response.

I give myself a 0,5 to 1,5 (I've improved a lot over time) and a 3 on emotional response. But it might be totally different for someone else with the same "loudness"..

 

You can subjectively measure minimum masking level in dB, as well as you can match your tinnitus loudness in dB. At audiologist my results were 25dB masking level and 10dB tinnitus itself. Hence I consider mine mild.

 

My T is very loud. I can hear it over everything, all the time. I’d say 8 for loudness, I also have a very negative emotional reaction to My T. I’d say 9 for emotional response. It’s been like this for the last 6 months.

 

So with 25 dB masking you can't hear your T anymore? That sounds very mild indeed. All depends on the sound you use to mask though, the frequency.
I doubt you can find a room under 30 dB in an average life btw.

 

Depends on masking sound Frequency. I think 25dB of white/pink noise is enough to mask my T, but still I can hear it over TV for instance

 

Did you get your T because of one concert or how did you get it?

 

Mild: Only in quiet rooms or trying to sleep.
Severe: Difficulty concentrating. Unmaskable.
Mid: Everything in between

Don't much care for 1-10 ratings for, well, anything.

 

Mine is what I call unmaskable (or very close to). For example, for my T to be masked, it needs to be quite noisy. So much so, that I feel I’m probably quite close to the threshold that causes more damage! Still, I wouldn’t say mine is severe. I think maybe higher pitches are harder to mask completely. Most times I can concentrate, though at the beginning it was very difficult. My emotional response to it has improved massively (I think this is a big factor) but I wouldn’t say the noise has gone down a great deal, if at all. My T is just single tone (at least not multi tone). So I think that has some bearing to.

 

One concert 2.5 years ago, T was catastrophic for the first 6-8 month, then it subsided to the current level and stayed like that

 

This I don't even call tinnitus, it's nothing. I had a very mild buzz in left ear only audible when going to sleep whole my life, never gave a second thought about it. I'd say if 20-30dB white noise can mask it it's mild, above starts moderate.

 

The higher the pitch or frequency the harder to mask.

 

You can have a volume match performed with the help of an audiologist.

 

Different audiologists do it differently too, mine has been "tinnitus loudness matched" by 2 different audiologists with 2 different results 40db sl and 14 db sl.
I've read that most people are between 1db sl and 10db sl and anything over that is considered very loud.

If you can hear it under the shower i think that is pretty much universaly considered loud.

100% agree.

 

I had mine matched numerous times with the clinical trials I was in. It was consistently around 29-30dbsl. This was with months between tests.

Was the frequency the same for the 2 different times you had it done? What was the frequency they used?

 

The frequency used was 10Khz, don't know if it was the same both times as the first one didn't tell me.
I know when it was measured at 14db sl that it seemed much quieter that morning, but i keep being told by "experts" that tinnitus volume does not fluctuate during the day and that it's only your perception that changes.
What is your frequency? i have found that my new increased frequency is much more distressing than the old 6-7Khz was.

 

Ridiculous! There is no doubt in my mind that mine fluctuates all of the time.

 

Yeah, but not everyone had that experience. I did have T before I "got T" if you know what I mean but it was even more mild than "mild" and I know that I must have been developing it over time. The moment there is a noticeable change is when it matters. I don't think your story is uncommon but it's not the story of the majority.

 

When I think back, I used to get this intermittent ringing in my ear but thought not too much of it as it would only be for a few minutes and would then disappear. This was obviously a warning sign and I basically ignored it, because it never really bothered me. T doesn’t become a problem until it’s significant, not all tinnitus is significant imo. Now.. not only is my T constant instead of intermittent, it is also a lot louder. If only I had read the warning signs i MAY have been okay. I never thought it would be possible to hear a hearing loss !

 

Well to be honest almost everyone I ask from my social circle says that when it's dead quiet at bed time they would hear something, buzz, humm, ring, etc. I agree that the moment there is a noticeable change is when it matters. My pre-T sound was so soft that it never ever bothered me at all, I had no thoughts about it at all. I could hear it only at bed time or sometimes sitting in a bath in a quiet bathroom. My current T is not onyl louder in volume, but also more unpleasant. I think I wouldn't mind my "old pre-T sound" being the some volume as my current T, but the pitch wasn't unpleasant at all. Now I hear bloody "needles falling on the floor" in the back of my head which annoys me daily and I have to mask to bear it.

 

When it comes to measuring sound volume, perception is reality for your hearing apparatus (the only one that matters for this sampling). That's the definition of volume: how loud you perceive a sound. And that's ultimately what you want to know: if you have H and there's a guy whispering next to you, but you perceive it as a 100 dB stimulus, then it's 100 dB that matters to you for all practical purposes, not the loudness of the whisper.

It makes sense that you'd get a lower reading if you were perceiving your T as being quieter that day.

 

I use a similar yardstick.

 

I can hear mine in the shower. Excellent!
Maybe tinnitus should be measured in sones rather than dB. I think I once heard this mentioned at a conference. I'll look into it.

 

Hang in there Mark. I'm 3 months in and about to pull what little hair I have, out! lol But I refuse to let this break me. I find a shower is the best masking sound. It doesn't go away, but it temporarily makes it to the point that I can not hear it if I just ignore it and focus on the sound the shower makes. I am currently looking into meditation, and hearing aids. (expensive) but my quality of life is worth it. Best of luck to all of you.