I Don't Know if I Have Tinnitus

Hello everyone.

First of all, I'm from Brazil, 22 years old. I've read many posts of sufferers of this T problem and I think you all are very noble in trying not to only solve the Tinnitus itself, but also helping others. Believe it or not, human body, including brain, is a machine and, as well as any other machine, human body can also be fixed or even modified. With the cooperation of wonderful communities like this the solution for Tinnitus can be seen increasingly closer. I've heard about many researches on this area and I hope a cure as soon as possible.

Well… Since I was a child, I remember hearing hissing sounds in both ears, but it was so low and perceptible only in very silent places. I grew up normally with it, thinking it as something completely natural to everyone (and I'm not sure it isn't). I have memories of myself being disturbed by this problem dating from 5 years to 10 years or even only one month ago. At the time, however, I never thought about it, Tinnitus, and the hissing problem disappeared only some minutes after, because my mind got focused on something else very fast.

Recently, however, two weeks ago, I got a cold and began to feel that sensation of fullness on both ears, I think something related to Eustachian Tube. For this reason of the constant pressure on my head, this fact forced my brain to be more focused on my ears, if you understand what I mean, and after that I begin to hear that hissing sound again, a sound that, strange enough, I have always heard since my childhood. At first I was very worried, I should admit, and searched through all web to investigate what was happening with me.

And I found Tinnitus.

And also a lot of doubts and confusion about the problem, sometimes even negligence. Some say it's a physical problem, others say it's a psychological problem. Moreover, it's very sad to know, and also disappointing, that there's no cure so far for a so common ailment like this. Anyway, I think my case is not that severe, because I can hear the hissing on my ears only when everyting is silent, but when I'm focused on it the T appears to turn louder, especially if I'm wearing headphone with no sounds. The problem, unfortunately, is that I work as a programmer and my hobby is to write and to study, three extremely silent activities. This way is very easy to get focused on the T and sometimes frustrating. A white noise of 1%, like in the site "simplynoise", is sufficient to mask the hissing in my ears if my headphone is at 100% or 7% if at 20%. However, I don't use it because I'm hypochondriac and I fear whether this could cause further damage to my auditory system. I also fear because I need to live with a computer fan ringing my ears at almost 24 hours a day. I tried to put it in another room, but there's nothing else I can do about it. Computers are my life since I was 5 years. Other than that my audition is perfect and I had always treated them good, since child, because I was always advised about its high sensibility. I never hear anything loud and my musics are always in low sound. If I hear anything that can make my ears hurt, I flee from the place. Yes, I'm such coward when it comes to my health.

My question, however, is that I obviously always had T and only recently begin to be bored by this. What I hear is a very, very, very high frequency sound. It seems air entering my ears (or going out). When I close my ears with my fingertips, this sound turns out to be that sound similiar to when you're inside water (I guess everyone can hear that…). This led me to the natural question if yes or not everyone can also hear this hissing thing. For my surprise, I asked five persons and all of them said me they can, especially when it's silent all around. I also found through Google someone asking this same question and the majority said yes. Someone even theorized that this sound can be caused by brain due to the lack of sound input, as a kind of Self Hypnosis. The same thing when you close your eyes: you are not seeing "nothing", but black (with some other colors, although I can't say that to blind people), because nothing doesn't exist but as an abstract concept. Well, since I love Philosophy, I immediately started to ask myself if someone on this Earth had ever heard the "true silence", that mysterious abyss where you can truly hear nothing. At least accordingly to my research so far, I really think it's impossible, being "true silence" more a abstact concept than a concret one. There will be always some kind of "hissing", but many people don't realize it because don't pay due attention (what's good).

I know, nonetheless, that many people here truly hear very perceptible sound (or sounds) in all situations and this happened to me also once, a sound about 11000 Hz that happened to my left ear and persisted for about 50 seconds. In this case I really think it was a very physical reaction and not related only to the brain, but I don't know why it happened, once it was all of sudden. Anyway, even if at a smaller potency, in a way or another, I also have T and I hope this won't turn worse in the future. If so, ok, that's the way of Nature. I will not mess with my life because of that, even if I have to hear white noise all day. I just need to know if this what I'm hearing now, at very silent places, like the place in which I'm at this moment, is the "normal" tinnitus, that everyone have (I guess), or not, but something more serious. If it is in truth the serious version of tinnitus, then I had always had that, even when I was a baby.

For me this question of T is someway funny because it is very similar to what happened to me when, some years ago, I realized that I had eye floaters also since my childhood. At first I was very worried and sad, because I realized that I can see those little things wherever I look, but now I don't even care about them anymore, the same way I didn't care about them when I was a child. Following this similarity it's also interesting to note that it's common sense around doctors that there's no cure for eye floaters, but in truth there's YAG laser that made the life of many, although it has its dangers. Maybe there's also something similar and hidden for T, if not now then maybe in the future; body is complex, but even so a machine.

Many thanks for all you.

 

Hey mate,
Newbie here too. It's amazing what you have written is exactly the same experience I have. Why don't you read my version here?

And how is your life now that it has been a year since you have had this?

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/another-newbie-freaking-out-i-dont-even-know-if-i-have-it.9046/

 

You guys are going to be alright!

 

This is called transient spontaneous tinnitus. Almost everyone gets this at some point and it is nothing to worry about .

 

I am totally with you their too man! Haha I've got tinnitus, and eye floaters. My mom always jokes that I'm going to be deaf and blind one day, but at least these are things tha,t for the most part, aren't life threatening and that I can just tune out. I got you dude!