Just Started with Low Whooshing Sound

[mobileandi]

I just started hearing a low frequency whooshing sound in both of my ears. I'm mid-50's and have never had any major health issues. I immediately googled and read that ginkgo biloba drops help tinnitus.

On my journey to buy the ginkgo, i saw 'ring relief' so I decided to try it. Despite the comments about 'snake oil'. Well, After just one night, there was a huge difference. My Tinnitus went down to a barely audible hum. I do believe that alternative remedies are best.

I try to clear away from pharma/meds unless absolutely necessary. So whatever is in this herbal 'ring relief' stuff, it works for me. At least for now. As many of you know, any kind of relief from inside noises is a big deal. So at least I'll be getting a good nights sleep tonight. Hoping it works for all of you also.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Your ears are more vulnerable now that you have had T. Try to protect your ears from loud noises. Try not to take any ototoxic drugs
http://hlaa-sbc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Ototoxic_Brochure.pdf
Hopefully if you do the above, your T will not return.

 

[Julien87]

Your ears are more vulnerable now that you have had T.

Oh really, and what allows you to assert this? What do you mean vulnerable? More prone to damage? Why would it be the case? There is absolutely no scientific evidence that can back this statement. And don't show me your list of horror stories, for god's sake, we both now these horror stories also happen to "traumatized" people who did not have tinnitus before.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Oh really, and what allows you to assert this?

Here is a handful (a tip of the iceberg, as we get these stories more often than on a weekly basis posted on this forum) of examples where people had their T get louder after being exposed to noise that healthy people wouldn't even notice.

In this first one, her T was pretty much gone, and something trivial got her her T back. I am having trouble finding @jjflyman 's post where he describes the minor noise that had caused his T to Return.

The rest of the examples are people whose T got a lot louder after noise exposure. The original poster still has some minor T, so those stories are very relevant for this case.

I first developed tinnitus in 2008 after my high school prom. I guess the music was too loud or I stood too close to the speakers. It was quite moderate and was able to cope. I went away to college and managed my tinnitus well. It was almost gone by 2010 but I went to a bar without my usual earplugs and "relapsed", but again learned to cope. Around 2013, I went to church without ear plugs and the music spiked my tinnitus to new levels and I developed hyperacusis. I started TRT and both my tinnitus and hyperacusis again became manageable and I was living a fairly normal life. In 2015, I was walking down the street in NYC and didn't notice an ambulance sitting right next to me in traffic...as you can guess, the siren went off full pelt. I had no protection in and my tinnitus spiked to new intrusive levels. After a few months of physical and mental distress, I was able to somewhat habituate

I was sitting in my house and my next door neighbor decided to cut his entire lawn with a gas powered weed wacker. She did that for about little over an hour on and off, I guess stopping to refuel and moving around to different parts of the house and driveway. I was so deep into a movie with my girlfriend that I was just not paying attention, and did not notice the high pitched sound of the weed wacker outside at first.

But later that afternoon I got a very bad spike and my tinnitus went through the roof. You would think that a person is safe in his own home from something like this, but it seems that I was not.

xb

I'm in my room and a loud military jet flies over (windows open because airflow and no a.c). I put on 15db reduction earmuffs after I felt it was a bit to loud. I thought I was fine. Well, within a few hours later my ears are in pain. A soreness deep inside, sounds like H. Or, TTTS syndrome, some muscle constricting, who knows, maybe a combo of both. This was on last Saturday. I wake up sunday and my left pure tone, which is higher pitch is now LOUDER. My other tone in both ears, is now erratic sounding, like electrical missfiring and louder too. Ears are both sore, a deep ache type of feel.

The guy that cut my hair trimmed my ear hair and put the trimmer right on my ear lobe. I didn't know he was going to do that. It was super loud but I just dealt with it as it only lasted maybe 10-15 seconds.

After a few hours my tinnitus is definitely spiked and feels super intrusive, I can't think at all.

I was walking past a stack of speakers at the mall when they suddenly blasted loud music. I didn't have earplugs on because I know that area of the mall is normally quiet. Just sucks that the speakers came on. But worse was that I froze in place, like a deer caught in headlights. I got exposed for I dunno, 20 to 30 seconds before survival instinct took over.

I've been in horrible pain in the last couple of days. Stabbing, burning ear pain plus cold and warm itchy sensations.

{This was back in July. Lex has experienced improvement, but she is still struggling with this spike.}

Three weeks ago however, I had an accident with my stereo suddenly jumping to full volume with me being right in front of the speakers. A couple of days later the worst spike I've ever had started and is still going on. My high pitched sound is louder and screechier and more unstable than ever, still at this point. But even more annoying and weird is that I only two days ago noticed a very low pitched tone in my right ear, at around 485Hz. I thought it was just my brain going nuts in general over the spike, but now two days later the exact tone is still there.

My T started August 1, 2012 a high pitch in the middle of the head, then last Sept 7 I attended church service (not wearing ear plugs at this time)with very amplified music my T changed to a higher pitch, then again last Sept 19 a fire alarm got me even though I was wearing plugs then my T is piercing, higher shrill, it will be six weeks (since the first incident) this Friday

I am currently going though a bad spike and I'm starting to worry a bit about it. I went to a loud bar for a friends birthday 10 days ago, and both ears have since been experiencing largely increased tinnitus that has not subsided in 10 days. Usually my spikes last no more than one week if I have been wearing earplugs. Plus, I have been to many louder places before with earplugs that have not affected me like this. I was there no more than two hours, I made sure to not stand next to speakers, plus I regularly went to toilet breaks or stood outside with the smokers – all seemingly to no avail.

what allows you to assert this?

Does the above answer your question, or would you like me to provide you with more examples?

More prone to damage? Why would it be the case?

Your guess is as good as mine. I think it is because our ears have been compromised.

There is absolutely no scientific evidence that can back this statement.

Science is based on observations. Above, I provided you with observations. One bad experience proves that an activity is unsafe. One good experience does NOT prove that the activity is safe.

The fact that there are no published studies about what causes T and H spikes means we have to use all of the information available to us. This is what I have been doing.

don't show me your list of horror stories

I thought you wanted us to use science. Science is about observations. In any case, the horror stories above are there for the benefit of the original poster. I hope the original poster will learn from the mistakes made by others.

we both now these horror stories also happen to "traumatized" people who did not have tinnitus before.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I certainly don't know this. Even if the above is "a thing", I have no idea what relevance it has to our case. This is like saying "a blind person does not need to worry about being hit by a car when walking down a busy street, as we both know that agitated stressed out people are also more likely to step from the pavement onto the road and be hit by a car."

 

[Aaron123]

I thought you wanted us to use science. Science is about observations. In any case, the horror stories above are there for the benefit of the original poster. I hope the original poster will learn from the mistakes made by others.

A series of posts on a web forum does not constitute "science".

 

[Bill Bauer]

A series of anecdotes on a web forum does not constitute "science".

You can't use those experiences to find the Probability that you will get hurt, but you can use those experiences to establish that that Probability is not zero. When it comes to something with as much negative impact on one's ability to enjoy life as T, many people would not want to take any chances.

I have talked to people on this forum for close to a year. In my sample of a couple of dozens people whose progress I got a chance to observe (and my sample includes me), a significant fraction learned the hard way that it makes sense to be more careful from now on. So we are not talking about a one in a million chance of being hurt.

And here is a link where I used the results of a poll and statistics
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...-tinnitus-and-regretted-it.23061/#post-269381
to prove a statement

"We are 90%-99% confident that the fraction of tinnitus sufferers who will get a permanent spike after getting into a habit of attending a loud events is between 8.5% and 58%."

The above is evidence that the risk we are talking about is likely above 1%. This risk seems to be unacceptable to me.

 

[Aaron123]

you can use those experiences to establish that that Probability is not zero

Surely you didn't think the probability was 0.

nd here is a link where I used the results of a poll and statistics
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...-tinnitus-and-regretted-it.23061/#post-269381
to prove a statement The above is evidence that the risk we are talking about is likely above 1%. This risk seems to be unacceptable to me.

Your confidence interval is appropriate only for the self-selected sample of people who chose to respond to that particular poll on this web site. It doesn't generalize beyond that.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Your confidence interval is appropriate only for the self-selected sample of people who chose to respond to that particular poll on this web site. It doesn't generalize beyond that.

I understand that. But you would agree that these results are consistent with the idea that the risk is not trivial (and that is all I was after when I computed that confidence interval).

 

[Bill Bauer]

A series of posts on a web forum does not constitute "science".

If you were to read my post, you would see that I am not using those horror stories as evidence. I am saying that those stories are examples of the stories we get to see here on a Weekly basis (during the summer there would be multiple ones every day, but yes sometimes there are days when a story like that is not posted, so to be very conservative I will say "weekly"). The rate of arrival of these anecdotes is evidence that the risk is nontrivial.

 

[Aaron123]

I understand that. But you would agree that these results are consistent with the idea that the risk is not trivial (and that is all I was after when I computed that confidence interval).

No, I wouldn't. The stories on this site and the results of a particular poll aren't good evidence of risks to any other population.

The rate of arrival of these anecdotes is evidence that the risk is nontrivial.

No, it isn't.

 

[Bill Bauer]

I can't see the population responding to the poll on this site being So different from the population of people reading this site that the risk is hundreds or thousands of times lower for the latter population.

 

[Bill Bauer]

No, I wouldn't. The stories on this site and the results of a particular poll aren't good evidence of risks to any other population.

Actually, now that I think about it, all studies in social science suffer from a similar limitation. A researcher can select X people who are representative of the population a researcher wants to study. The researcher would then ask those people to fill a survey. The problem is that not all of the X people will bother to reply to the survey. You can't Make people answer your surveys. In this case, the population of people who are on this site is the relevant population for us, people who are on this site. Just like with all social science research, not everyone who saw the poll chose to respond to it. So, just like all of the social scientist researchers, all we need to do is to be mindful of this limitation. But it does NOT mean that there is no reason to have surveys ever again, that the information one gets from a survey is useless.

 

[Aaron123]

Actually, now that I think about it, all studies in social science suffer from a similar limitation. A researcher can select X people who are representative of the population a researcher wants to study. The researcher would then ask those people to fill a survey. The problem is that not all of the X people will bother to reply to the survey. You can't Make people answer your surveys. In this case, the population of people who are on this site is the relevant population for us, people who are on this site. Just like with all social science research, not everyone who saw the poll chose to respond to it. So, just like all of the social scientist researchers, all we need to do is to be mindful of this limitation. But it does NOT mean that there is no reason to have surveys ever again, that the information one gets from a survey is useless.

I spend much of my time working with survey data and never said that there is no reason to have surveys again or that the information obtained from surveys are useless.

Non-response in cross-section surveys and attrition in longitudinal surveys are real issues. These issues may or may not be a problem in a statistical analysis. It depends on whether the reasons for non-response are random or not.

Additionally, folks who work with data also worry about self-selection. For example, people who post on this web site are a self-selected sample of people who have tinnitus. Additionally, people who respond to a specific thread are a self-selected sample of people are members of this site. Self-selected samples are almost always a problem. There are still ways to make inference about a broader population in that case, but it is more challenging.

In this case, the population of people who are on this site is the relevant population for us, people who are on this site.

Only if the people who responded to the survey are a random sample of the people on this site - which I don't believe is the case.

Regardless, this is way off the topic of the thread. My apologies to the original poster.

 

[Bill Bauer]

For example, people who post on this web site are a self-selected sample of people who have tinnitus.

So the findings are relevant to everyone in the subpopulation of people who post on this forum. In other words, they are relevant to everyone who posts on this forum and who read that thread.

Additionally, people who respond to a specific thread are a self-selected sample of people are members of this site.

I agree that this is a problem and I have always known that this was a problem. But like I said, I don't believe the populations are Radically different. If the lower bound of that confidence interval is 8%, I wouldn't expect the true value to be 10 times smaller.