My Story. Both Positive and Negative.

Hi everyone!

I am a long time lurker on these forums and i felt like i wanted to tell you my story.

Im a 24yo (boy) from sweden, i study the violin on a daily basis to become a musician.

Ive had this ringing in my ears for aslong as i can remember, extremely high pitched (10k~) and when i was a kid it was probably very mild. As other children i thought it was completely normal to hear the ringing when it was quiet, its what quiet sounded like. i can tell you i did not suffer from it even though i remember plugging my ears at home listening for the ringing when i couldnt hear it. I never asked my parents or my twin brother about it so naturally i habituated i guess. We should all be like kids i guess !

Ive grown up with music and my parents are musicians, i play the violin since the age of 5. I guess some would say that that is whats caused the ringing but the weird thing is that i have more prominent tinnitus in my right ear (The ear not pointed towards the violin). I also had a rockband with my twin for many years and the lack of protection is also a cause i guess even though i never experienced anything special tinnituswise during that time, i mean my ears rang and all but i was so used to it so i didnt pay any attention towards it. I also had a pretty bad case of pneumonia when i was about 6 which would have killed me but i got antibiotics so it was all good. Maybe thats the cause? who knows.

The first time i really felt bad about the ringing was after i had an ear infection during a flight home from france. My right ear has not really been the same since that trip. The pain was tremendous during landing and it felt like my head was going to explode, i guess this is what they call barotrauma? I got antibiotics this time aswell and the infection went away and my ear drum was intact even though it hurt like hell. Im still sure something happened to my ear or ET which hasnt been resolved yet, i was 18 at the time. its way harder to pop my right ear comparing to my left.

The time after this reassembles what we all go through when we spike or have a new sound, anxiety was great and i lost all hope to continue with music. I think it all got abit better after the infection cleared up and my hearing returned to normal. along with that spike i also had a temporary hyperacusis, which i guess is normal when u obsess about T. The thing that truly saved me this time and made me habituate was computer games, i played a game called bloodline champions and eventually got very good at it. I competed with an esports-team at Dreamhack (big LAN in sweden) and that was pretty cool for me. This was almost a year after the spike and i had forgotten about T for a while.

This is when i thought that i can totally live with this, if i can still perform and concentrate how bad can it be? I still heard the highpitch tone over almost everything becuase it was high pitch, concentrating on something else totally made the T dissapear for me. Playing online games, practising the violin and attending gigs. All of it made me forget about the ringing. i would rate my tinnitus baseline as 4/10. but it is pretty unmaskable.

For almost 4 years i totally forgot i had tinnitus, i mean i heard it and all but i didnt even know it was tinnitus anymore because i never thought about it as something bad. This is my positive part. When i eventually thought about it after drinking or a noise exposure when i had a spike i just thought "I wouldnt be where i am today if i didnt have T". I also have some kind of perfect pitch which comes in really handy when playin the violin. I actually believe T has made my hearing very selective and sensetive since ive had it for so long. This was my way of making something negative into something positive. i think playing the violin has actually been some kind of TRT for me. I focus my hearing outwards instead of inwards.

Okey so now for the negative part.

I have since i moved away from home and started studying music for real been having problems with anxiety and depression. There is alot of stress and prestige involved when you want to suceed as a musician, somehow this all got the best of me and my body started to act up in ways i only felt after something bad had happened to me, but now it was like that all the time. I started SSRI Lexapro and i felt much better after 3-4 months. I didnt even bother to monitor my tinnitus while taking the meds because i didnt really care at that time. its possible i got a spike but im not really sure. I ate the meds for one and a half year and eventually decided to stop all by my self. all was fine for almost 5 months untill i got extreme panicattacks and my tinnitus was raging. i noticed alot of new sounds which ive never heard before. i started lexapro again october this year. the spike got abit worse but eventually it returned to some form of baseline.

Im so extremely habituated to ringing so when this new metallic grinding sound showed its ugly face i was completely in terror. i guess this is how you feel when u get tinnitus from hearing complete silence before onset. It was a completely new experience for me. Its also reactive to static sounds like a computer fan or running water. All of this happend this year in september. I have still not habituated fully to this new sound and its much harder to overcome when compared to the ring and hiss ive had for so long. I do believe it has a connection to anxiety and muscle tension. When i feel relaxed its hardly there but when im in fright or flight mode its much higher than the ringing. I also have pretty bad pain in my right jaw, my tensor tympani muscle is really freaking out on that side when i hear a noise above 60db. Continuos noise is no problem aslong as its not above 80db. Ive also experienced very acute hearing. i can hear my cellphone charger buzzing from the other side of the room and panic about it. it basically levels out with my T. I belive my case of T is moderate but my hearing is so good that my masking abilities are very good. my audiogram only goes to 8k so i guess high frequency loss could be present. I dont know if its hyperacusis but some sounds are very annoying, especially high pitched ones. The thing with this new T is that its very hard to mask because it reacts.

Can Tmj problems cause sound sensitivity? and maybe make allready present T worse? I havent been to a dentist yet but i think it might be a good idea as my jaw is really painfull and it sounds awfull when i roll it around in circles. I really dont care that much about the T itself since im so friggen used to dealing with it but when it start to make me anxious i get really sad. My neck hurts when i swallow, probably from anxiety and grinding my teeth. my upper back has been shit for many years as from playin the violin and sitting by the computer. i think all these things makes me think about T more. My ears feel full and itchy for no reason. Can anyone relate? Ill upload my audiogram, my tympanogram showed a positive pressure in the right ear, Double peaks on the curve. the doc said this is nothing unusual but it seems kind of weird. i didnt vasalva or anything before the test was done. If you have any tips for relief ill gladly accept them, i know i will probably be fine when my anxiety is stable but right now i actually suffer from T.

Merry Xmas!

 

Welcome to tinnitus talk.
I would see your dentist to see if you have TMJ as the symptoms sound like it and that can cause tinnitus and try to reduce stress and anxiety.
I hope your having support for depression and talking therapy as will help you.
Sound therapy through the day and through the night will help you too...lots of love glynis

Happy Christmas

 

Thank you glynis, I see you reply alot to all the new people and its very nice of you to do that. my problems are probably nowhere near menier-level and its so nice to see your positive attitude towards this problem.