New to Reactive Tinnitus and Sound Distortions — Most Likely Caused by Constant Headphone Usage

Hey everyone, I'm Capybara and a little over two weeks ago, on June 28th, I developed reactive tinnitus, most likely due to constant headphone usage and volume being too high. Whenever I turn on a fan or shower, there's another high sound that comes along with it, and especially things like refrigerators, vacuums and even my own PC are a little more annoying than they used to be. It's taken a few days to get more used to this new normal and I've been working on keeping my stress and anxiety low.

Of course the first few days were absolutely hellish. It's the typical swan song that I'm sure everyone on this board can relate to in most ways. Asking yourself 'how will I live with this for the rest of my life, how could I let this happen, I should have been more careful, I want to die' and all that fun stuff + scouring this forum and the reddit for anything that sounded similar and hoping people got better from it also added to the stress and anxiety.

Since then, I've gotten a bit more used to it and trying to stay relaxed. Sleep was completely awful at first and it's still not great but it's getting to the point that I can at the least sleep 4-5 hours. I've started drinking chamomile tea to help with it, but I don't know if I should use Melatonin or anything else. I stopped using my headset that very same day it happened (yes I know, Michael, I know) and invested in a pair of speakers a few days later. At the very least when I'm gaming and completely focused I can tune everything out so that's something. I've yet to see an ENT since my doctor's on vacation and here in the Netherlands you always need a doctor's referral, gotta love that wonderful system but I'll go as soon as I'm able.

And lastly, I feel for everyone else that's struggling with this. Whether it's mild or severe, it's a scary time and adjustment phase for all of us, and if I can be of help to anyone else I'll do my best to support them. The one thing I like most about this community is that they stick together because no one else can understand this invisible affliction. I'm hoping since I'm in a very early stage it'll improve and not worsen but to be honest I'm scared of giving myself false hope just in case it's chronic so for the time being I'll just live it day by day and give myself time to recover.

 

I have the same problem since 6 weeks now. As you said, the high sound comes along with shower, fan and as weird as it sounds, with movements (of the body).

You have to see an ENT as soon as possible. He can give you an audiogram to see if you have hearing loss or not.

Is your tinnitus permanent or does it appear just with sounds? Because I have hearing loss in the high frequencies and my tinnitus sounds like electrical buzzing. It's thank god not so loud so that my sleep is not affected.

The sound which appears with shower, fan etc. is not the sound of my tinnitus. It's a high pitch sound which just appears with other sounds like, as you said, shower. So I don't know if this is called reactive tinnitus or diplacusis. My ENT told me that this is diplacusis.

I tried so many things like LLLT, Prednisolone, Vitamin D, B Complex, Vitamin C infusion, Betavert but nothing helped. In my opinion it is really important to stay positive because reading horrible stories of another people will not help you to recover. We both are still in the early phase so there is a chance that this can subside completely.

So many people have told me that ears need a long time to recover. Yesterday I had a talk with an audiologist who told me that she had hearing loss in the high frequencies and tinnitus. It took more than 1-2 years to recover. She is now tinnitus free but she told me to be patient and to give my ears time. I really hope that this will subside within 6 months because it is really difficult to live with this high pitch sound.

 

Hi Esra. It mostly appears with sounds during the day and otherwise I barely notice it's there, but it also shows up during the night. It seems to be calmer in the morning depending on how much I slept. It affected my sleep by a lot in the first few days and it still does.

I'm hoping for the same. I still need to wait for an ENT visit to be sure of anything but it's looking like I lost hearing in the high frequencies as well. And I hope it'll get better over the next few months for us both, I really do.

 

Just a short update, finally managed to get an appointment with the doctor. She checked my ears, didn't see anything special and told me to go to the audiologist that I can go to on Friday and check back with her later. I told her about the crickets/beeps I hear from TV voices, the sounds in showers/toilet pipe and everything else and she said it didn't ring any alarm bells for her since my hearing is completely fine aside from that one messed up frequency and that it's likely to be fluid in the middle ear.

I'm not convinced at all, but I'll wait it out and see where this takes me. I should keep a positive open mind that the cause might be something other than hearing loss and dysacusis, but I'm the type to expect the worst so I won't be too disappointed when there's no good news.

 

Another short update.

I had a hearing test done. I was surprised to see it's worse on the left even though it feels like the right ear is more damaged since that's where the distorted frequency is. The rest of what she said is probably the usual for everyone else, that she can't do much else and that there isn't enough knowledge on tinnitus and hearing damage. Weirdly she also told me that she doesn't see a point in visiting an ENT for some reason, I guess she was more focused on the fact that my usual hearing is fine. I can't leave it at this yet though, so I'll be going back to the doctor and ask for a referral to see an ENT.

I just need them to look into this more, see if they find anything unusual. Maybe it's just coping at this point but I want to be able to eventually enjoy music and gaming again without any flat sounding or weird feedback from that high frequency, and I know it might take months or over a year to see any improvement. I don't really know what I'll do with myself if one of the few things I enjoy is taken away from me for good, but for now I'll just keep monitoring it and post updates for anyone now or in the future that gets the same sound distortion.

 

The reason you are hearing distortions in certain white noise is because the difference in hearing loss from one ear to the next. That difference in frequencies causes the brain to try in fill in the gap. Your brain can’t process it correctly, therefore making distortions.

 

Hi Marshall, I've seen some of your posts about it and it makes sense that that's the cause. The frustrating part is if my dad's watching TV in the room next door, the messed up frequency that sounds like chirping crickets is quite a bit louder and amplified than the regular sounds and it's very annoying. Is there still hope that it either quiets down a bit or stops being as distorted in several months' time or in a year? I don't know if messing with medication is the way to go or to just give it time.