I'm 13 and Have Tinnitus — Can Somebody Tell Me Why?

Can somebody tell me why? I mean sometimes open the music volume high but not that often.

Is there a reason why I have it at such a young age?

 

I'm sorry to hear you have tinnitus.

When did it start?

Can you ask your parent/s to arrange an extended audiogram? You could maybe use an online audiogram?

At a guess, I'd say you have acoustic damage to your hair cells.

If i were you, id avoid *loud anything*; including the use of headphones and in ear buds too. You only have to read the many posts here about supposed minimal exposure to loud sounds to realise how fragile/vulnerable our hair cells are. Rest your ears as much as you can.

If your tinnitus is new, see if you can get a prednisolone taper from your gp. You can also look into taking n acetyl cysteine (nac) which is an antioxidant that can help protect your ears.

 

When it first surfaced (the tinnitus) was right after listening to music at high volume?

Even if it occured after some time after listening to loud music, the high volume is the cause. Other members may tell you more (or confirm) this phenomenon of T turning into a hiss.

If you have tone tinnitus, the hiss may turn back into a tone when you will go through a period of high stress, or an acoustic trauma (a sudden very loud noise that took you by surprise, like ambulances sirens, firecrackers, etc). Plug your ears with your fingers if a loud noise starts. You must not hear it.

Age is not important, your tender age is not a protection against loud sound exposure.

Young age means better chances to recover.

Give up on your pleasure to listen to loud music (i am sorry, but you just have to if you want to not get worse and get better) and mask your tinnitus with soft music, at low music.

Tinnitus improves in time, but very very very slowly.

In many cases it turns into a hiss that is bearable. Chances are that you will be one of those cases.

You must avoid nervous system stimulants, which are cigarettes, coffee, alcohol and sugar laden deserts.

Be optimistic that one day you will heal and, very important, live a normal life (!!!!), which, at your age, means a full life. Keep up the pace with your friends and do not isolate yourself, considering yourself different, because that will cause, amongs other things, a worsening of your tinnitus.

Do not think about it, go out and have fun. Do not let youth pass you by.
Act like nothing happened (except avoiding stimulants and situations where you may hear loud noises).

Get your information from this forum, advices from other members, but after that quit the forum and continue your life.

Don't worry, be happy.

Return to forum only if you have problems. There are some medicines that can help you manage, but they are addictive, and have side effects, and quitting them is a long process, because you can not quit cold turkey, you must taper down slowly.

Do not remain behind your colleagues/friends, that is verry important. Do not add to your tinnitus other problems.

One day this tinnitus will be a matter of the past.

Do not make the mistakes that newbies do (monitpring your tinnitus, panicking if it got louder. Learn from our advices, but more than that, from out mistakes.

Remain who you were before tinnitus.

The joy of liviig does not consiste in smokimg cigarettes, alcohol or too much sugar, but in doing things other that you like,.

 

i missed that train, but it was interesting to read it by you @Dana

 

Age has nothing to do with it. Tinnitus can come at any age, some are even born with it. You are 13, so you need to protect your ears from now on. You have a lot of life and years ahead of you, do your best to protect your ears. If you don't, then you could further damage your hearing and increase your tinnitus volume.

 

Welcome to the forum. Like others said, age has nothing to do with it. Young people get tinnitus too. Yet they also seem to recover faster. Here are some samples of success stories from young people. Don't worry. Things will improve. Take care. God bless.

success story of 17 years old Zach:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/fake-it-until-you-make-it.7590/

success story of Jari with T since 12 years old:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/new.7670/

lana got T at 15 and getting better:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/positivity.13050/

 

@Kelly Huang Hey. Sorry about the poor examples of success stories posted by this user. It happens a lot.

I have some good news, and that is that the chances of it going away are on your side. You're a young female, so you're likely to have other issues that may cause Tinnitus like TMJ. Do you have a bad jaw? It could be as simple as earwax, if you didn't get that checked yet.

 

HI @Kelly Huang

If you have been listening to music through headphones at high volume levels or going to places where loud music is played, this is the likely reason for you developing tinnitus. If this Is the case then I advise you not to use headphones for long while, preferably never again even at low volume. Please click on the links below and read my posts on tinnitus that you might find helpful.

Best of luck
Michael


https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/new-to-tinnitus-what-to-do.12558/

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/tinnitus-a-personal-view.18668/

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/hyperacusis-as-i-see-it.19174/

 

Good advise, but please do not fear that by drinking alcohol or eating desserts your tinnitus will worsen. This is NOT the case, it's possible to have a temporary spike. But you don't have to live like a monk..
I do advise you leave cigarettes out of your puberty because nicotine can have an impact on bloodvessels.
If you go to concerts and parties do protect yourself, your friends might not use earplugs, but you have to be carefull there, once you've had T it's easy to get it back and louder.
But I'll end by saying, this should not impact your life too much as long as you use earplugs!

 

Please do not twist my words. I did not say desserts, i said "sugar laden desserts", like the ones that are dripping with syrup made of sugar, desserts that have in one spoon more sugar than in 3 spoons of just sugar, if not more.

If the Kelly did not try cigarettes yet, i would keep my advise to never try them. That is how tobbaco dependency starts, with one cigarette, the do not call tobbaco "the devil's herb" for nothing, and to be a smoker is so much worse if one has tinnitus. Leave cigarettes out of your life, not only out of your puberty, because , yes, they would have an impact of your blood vessels, including the tiny artery that supplies your inner ears, where you have the problem. I would be a hypocrite right now i would not say that i am a chain smoker (very bad, especially for gals, it will make you disgusting, with yellow teeth and thickened saliva, yuck, so, you see, i am not "a monk", but a preacher, but you know what they say : "Do what the preacher preaches, not what the preacher does". Take my advise and do not give in when many around you will light their cigarettes just to look "cool", cause that is what will happen in a couple of years or so. Be cooler than them and say "No, thanks" when someone offers you a cigarette. You will not be cool then, but super cool.

With alcohol, the same. Most likely it will cause an increase in your tinnitus which may come down after a few days, and that only in the best case, it may not, without the use of medication, so why suffer so much just for a drink? Ok, you can have some alcohol amd cigarettes and after that you tell me if it was worth it. Some people continue to drink and smoke even after tinnitus, and put up with the spike, but they had those depencies before getting tinnitus, which is not your case, so completely different story.

I had such a spike after an espresso that was so torturing that i wanted to die, i do not know what i would have done without my medication, but Kelly does not have any medication, and it's preferable to stay out of medications, if you, Kelly, can handle your tinnitus at the level it is right now.

When i drink coffee, i add milk, and i can't have too much coffee with milk per day either. When i am under a lot of stress and i lose control in drinking coffee and smoking, i pay a big price for that.

These addictions, nicotine and caffeine, are not only biological, but mostly psychological. If you will form a habit to drink coffee or smoke cigarretts in certain situations this psychological dependency is created and it is hard to beat it, when you will realise that they are not good for you.

One coffee with milk once in a while will not harm you.

Oh, very important: do not drink Schweppes!!!!!!! A big no no for people with tinnitus. It is ototoxic, and it will increase you tinnitus. Avoid all other beverages that contain quinine too, very bad for your ears.

 

Hey @Kelly Huang, there are positive posters and negative ones as well on this board. This poster has been known quite negative and often resort to shooting down others' well intended posts to help out suffering newbies. Just ignore the conflicting or argumentative posts as it happens sometimes and can confuse the person seeking help and advice. Try to read not just those sample stories but as many as you can in the Success Stories forum. They will help calm your nerve and anxiety and hopefully can help speed up your recovery.

But I agree with him that you being so young your T can just fade over time especially if you protect your ears from more loud music or noises. Your ears are now quite unstable so give it some time. If you need, try masking your T so you won't be so bothered by it. If you do, try set the volume to slightly below the T level so your brain has some chance to get used to it. Try to get more educated about tinnitus and this forum contains much resource about this. Feel free to post more and rant if you like as this is also part of the healing process.

 

Nah I just talk straight. If I see something wrong I point it out. Trust me in terms of getting rid of tinnitus, I'm one of the most helpful people around here.

 

When i read the comment about billie's recommended links i got curious, so i clicked on them. When i clicked on the first one, Zach's post, not little was my surprise when i saw that i bookmarked this post when i read it for the first time. After i read again this post, i understood why i bookmarked it three years ago..Very very good post. Even me, an adult veteran of T found it helpful, so it must be that much more helpful for a girl close to the poster's age. The other posts, from the other two adolescents are also good, and billie was so very nice to find them for Kelly. I was impressed (again) to what extent billie goes to help others.
Threefirefour must be joking, his post above is a proof.
Black humour, that's all.
If you were not joking, @threefirefour, that means that you are pissed that your T didn't get better. The principle "i did not get better, so neither can you" is wrong.
Sorry, i talk straight too. When i see something wrong, i point it out, regardless who is the poster.

 

@Kelly Huang ,
Welcome to Tinnitus Talk.
For now I would not use headphones etc or headset for Xbox and give your ears time to settle.
You have one advantage over your friends as now know what tinnitus is like so protect your ears with noise reduction plugs and keep away from loud speakers.
If you do use earphones or headphones again keep them on the lowest setting but if they make your tinnitus spike again then you are best with out them.
Maybe come on here with your parents so they can understand about tinnitus.
I hope your ok in yourself and not feeling low or not sleeping due to it.
Keep us posted on how you are doing as we are here for you around the clock.
Love glynis

 

@threefirefour
Could you, please, point to me what have you found so hilarious in the post i wrote, for which you gave me a funny rating?
Thank you.

 

Cool. Finally someone who is gonna play on my field. Sorry for late reply, didn't see your notif.
You either are deliberately misinterpreting the posts he posted as "tinnitus getting better", or you lied about reading them. Simple as that. But that's alright, that's the best way to skew my position from being helpful to being salty. I'm not upset that "My tinnitus didn't get better", because in reality it did. I'm trying to help. As I said, I'm one of the most helpful users in actually reducing tinnitus, because I've studied on how to do it so much (Which I'm doing), and in OP's case, there's probably something causing the tinnitus that can be amended to either get rid of, or reduce the tinnitus. Even if it's hearing loss, considering OP's gender and age, it's likely to get better.

I did it because you gave my post funny. Don't dish what you can't take.

 

I got my Tinnitus when I was 16 . I understand the feeling. I think it'll be okay. Tinnitus isn't fatal which is a good thing. I'd suggest since you're so young to not allow yourself to listen to anything loud for a good while. Like 2 years. Allow your ears to heal. Infact in that time frame your Tinnitus could go away .

Try not to allow this to freak you out. Tinnitus is good and playing with ones emotions. But don't allow that. It can seem hard to overcome it, but it can be done .

You're young, go have fun, enjoy life don't allow Tinnitus to be the reason keeping you from doing so. I say this because for many people Tinnitus is extremely bothersome. It can take of their lives and ruin their mental state of mind.

Despite this, you must realize If your Tinnitus is noise induced it's important to realize it is a sign or symptom of auditory damage. Don't be alarmed by that statement. Because literally everyone in this loud day and age has auditory damage. Your brother, your mother, your grandma to your best friends uncle, has auditory damage. How much? It's dependent obviously on their life style. If their a party person, they love the wild life like clubbing and concerts they will obviously have worse auditory damage.

The thing about Tinnitus and auditory damage is that like I said before, everyone has it and people who live a loud life tend to have it worst. That includes many musicians. But not all of them have Tinnitus. It's a little wonky. Someone could have severe hearing loss and have no Tinnitus while others who have no hearing loss can have Tinnitus.

Like I said earlier I suggest giving your ears a break, try not to expose your self to long term loud loud sounds. I know at your age kids game or listen to lots of music. Therefore I can't tell you not to use headphones. Because honestly, if I got Tinnitus at your age I would still have used headphones. But if you're going to. Keep the volume at 40% at max. This is so the sound is at a comfortable volume for your ears and likely (hopefully) won't cause anymore harm.

I don't think you should keep your head wrapped around Tinnitus. If you are able to mask your Tinnitus then do so. Masking is essentially taking sound and covering Tinnitus up like a mask, so you don't hear it. I mask all the time not because of my Tinnitus but because I have hyperacusis. However, that's a whole other ball park and you shouldn't worry about it unless you show signs of it. This is me assuming your Tinnitus is low. Masking is a good way to keep your mind of Tinnitus.

I know this response may seem "extra" so to say, but Tinnitus is very destructive to ones peace of mind. I don't want to see someone younger than me being crippled by this.

Never the less, don't worry. If you need any help with anxiety and stress management with Tinnitus, feel free to send me a conversation message on this website.

Everything is gonna be okay

 

@threefirefour
How can you say that i lied about reading the posts about which i said that one of them had been even bookmarked by me a while ago (more than 20 months ago)?

Here is the proof:



As you can see, i had bookmarked Zach's post on April 10, 2016, so i must have read it, cause you cannot claim that i bookmarked 20 months ago a post that i have not read, right, Mister?

As for the other claim, that "i am deliberately misinterpreting the posts as "tinnitus is getting better"", is just as ridiculous.

Ah, in case you wonder, the date of the bookmarking a post cannot be changed. If it shows as bookmarked on April 10 , 2016, then it was bookmarked.

I am waiting for your appologies.

 

Yeah, but I'm not going to because you decided to create and solve your own problem. Nobody questioned if you bookmarked the post. As I said, you either haven't read them, or you deliberatly misinterpreted my post. Let's review:

You said "If you were not joking, @threefirefour, that means that you are pissed that your T didn't get better. The principle 'i did not get better, so neither can you' is wrong.", implying that I'm mad about stories of people getting better, when I didn't. In realty, these people's tinnitus did NOT improve, and mine did.

So it seems you misinterpreted my post, which although technically worse, I'm not mad about because that's generally people's only arguments against me.

 

When you "reiterate" what you said, you do not quote yourself correctly. On post #16 you accuse me of deliberately misinterpreting the posts posted by billie, on post #19 you claim that you had said that i deliberately misinterpreted your post, which is something completely different. Are you trying to trick me? You do not have a single chance.

Bullshit, these people got better.

 

No I'm not, but there was a slight info disconnect. Yes, you did misinterpret my post, probably indeliberately (hence the disconnect), but that's not what's in question.

What is, is that you DID deliberately misinterpret these posts. You said in post 13 is that these people's tinnitus got better, and I'm pissed off that there's did and "My T didn't". Since you read them, then you would know these are habituation stories, and not recovery stories, but you're implying the opposite.

As earlier mentioned, they did not, they just got used to it.

Not that it's relevent, but in comment 13, you said you bookmarked that post three years ago, but you did it one year ago. I can play verbal Ninja too.

 

@Dana - This post is full of experience and wisdom. I agree with all of it xx

 

@Jazzer
Thank you for your kind words about my first post, which for me actually became an embarrassment when i saw the next morning how many spelling mistakes i made. I was very tired and when i started to write there was no reply for Kelly and i was afraid that her post went unnoticed so i decided to start writing in spite my tiredness. When i clicked "post" i saw that DebfromAustralia posted in the meantime, so if i would not have done anything, or decided to postpone, nothing bad would have happened, there was somebody else on call.
All the answers are good, some very good, what is important now is Kelly to learn from them.
I have nothing else to add, everything that i forgot to say was mentioned by others.

 

@threefirefour

Their tinnitus improved (the sound that they were hearing), because it
left the central spot in their consciousness, into the background. They still hear it when they look for it, or when they hear it, it does not matter for them, they are able to continue their lives as if they were not hearing it.

Yes, this phenomenon is called "habituation", does not matter what name was given to it, but when tinnitus takes a back seat into somebody's life, that means that tinnitus got better, cause it is not intrusive anymore (so it has gotten better, learnt its place).

@Kelly Huang: do not be frightened about what you will read. I will speak about two cases who got tinnitus from something else, not from listening to loud music. They got tinnitus from vascular accidents and fistula, who left them not only with severe hearing loss, but with catastrophic T. Do not be afraid to learn about them. Reading about that will not change your T, or make it louder, their particular cases of tinnitus are not "contagious through reading". Just consider yourself lucky that you are not in their situation.


Do not scoff at "habituation", @threefirefour!
i spoked in PM with two members who were so sick when they on the forum that i was apprehensive when i was opening their messages only to learn how they are struggling and fighting for dear life.
Their tinnitus had multiple sounds, always changing in frequency and they were also hearing bubbling from the inner ear and vibrations, something too bad for the phenomenon of habituation to take place.
If their brains managed to "habituate", they would have seen in that a second chance to life and accepted the gift right away, not scoff at it, but consider it a gift from God, a sign of grace.
Habituation is good.
When T, from not letting somebody to live but, thanks to habituation (done by the amygdala), stops being intrusive and lets the person continue his live, habituation is wonderful! It can save a life.

Habituation stories ARE recovering stories!
"Recovery" does not mean complete healing, which is, BTW, not possible in the majority of conditions, in case you did not know. "Recovering" means recovering their lives.

 

@Kelly Huang
Your chances to habituate are 100% and your T may even go away completely!

 

@threefirefour
I am sure you have good intention to help out the young poster. But there is no need to shoot down others' well intended posts. We all have different backgrounds and experiences, and we try to advice the new member by giving what we think will help her. You do yours, we do ours. Why not let the suffering young girl look over various posts and make up her opinion what is good for her. Why is there such as need to engage in confrontational posts even before the poor girl can respond to our posts.

All the years I have been in support forums, I have seen so many confrontational, 'shoot-down others to justify your own points' posts ending up ruining good support threads. It often left the struggling member in shock, confused, more anxious & depressed, and even disgusted with the forum. Many would leave such forums as support threads dominated by negative confrontational posts just to show superiority in tinnitus knowledge will only ruin the purpose of the support thread.

I hope in the future, if you don't agree with a poster's comment, please copy the text and send a private message to the member you disagree with. That way you can carry on debate off the support thread instead of ruining it. We all just want to help the suffering girl. What purpose does it serve by confrontational posts? You have seen what these have done to this thread and the poor girl. I don't think she even responds to us. God bless this young struggling member to get well soon.

 

You mean like what you should have done with that whole comment? And I don't think OP's non-responsiveness has anything to do with the thread quality. And it's done nothing to the thread because it was all removed.

 

It all depends on who fire the first confrontational post. We are all human and when publicly humiliated or trashed by a stranger, we respond and defend. None of us are perfect to be able to endure unjust attack without responding.

All these years I tried to be polite and respectful of others in my posts. But if confronted and unfairly trashed impolitely, I will respond and straight out the attack on me. If you do it on others, they will respond. That is why the first instigator of such confrontational post is the main culprit in ruining a well meaning thread. I won't fault others who respond and defend their honor while being attack. It is just human nature. So the best thing to avoid turning a support thread in to a war of words is to avoid attacking others who are just trying to help. If you want to, you can always copy the disputed post to the member who wish to dispute with in a private conversation. That way there is no chance the support thread will turn ugly. My 2 cents.

 

Alright. You asked for it.

 

I don't ask for anything. I am here to this forum to help out others and I don't have time to engage in debates with you or anybody. Please spend your energy on struggling members and not trying to justify why you and your approach is the only way to help out a struggling member. Please stop attacking others in support threads. I am sure you care about others. I respect that. I just don't think the approach of confronting others in support threads will be helpful to the struggling members.