New Victim at Age 19 — Can Having Headphones on Most of the Time Cause Tinnitus?

I think earplugs are a good idea under the following circumstances (assuming you can't simply avoid those noisy places):

When walking by a busy street used by trucks and motorcycles

When you Have to walk through some place that has live music

If you Have to spend something like half an hour at a place where many people talk loudly (e.g., a cafeteria or a hallway)

Underground parking garages and stairways often have heavy metal doors that can slam. In closed spaces it could be traumatic.
===

What you could do is wear your earplugs to college for a week or two. During that time, you could be mindful of the noises there. If during that trial period you aren't exposed to loud noises that would have made you wish that you were wearing earplugs, then it seems stop wearing earplugs there.

 

It sounds like you are dealing with Tinnitus and Hyperacusis which are kinda like sisters to each other. The “plugged and or blocked” feeling is very common with this, especially with Hyperacusis. I too suffer from both, and I fully understand your feeling of despair and panic, especially at your age. I also agree with others here that you need to take a deep breath and try and calm down and allow some time to pass to see where this thing will settle down. I am pretty sure what you are feeling now in your head will calm down some, but will in all likelihood remain to some degree. You really need to see a good GP doctor who will recognize your concern and anxiety over this and recommend not only a good ENT doctor to assess your ears, but also possibly someone in the medical field who can give you some counseling to help you mentally deal with this. The anxiety that you are experiencing right now is of course normal, but will only cause you to focus on the T which will make it worse. You really need to get some help in dealing with the anxiety that you are experiencing.

This forum is a good source to get some practical help on how to go on with your daily life without becoming consumed with the T every minute of the day. But first things first. Get some professional medical consultation to make sure there isn’t some obvious thing that you and we are missing concerning your very personal case. In a few weeks/months you will know much more than you do now. So again, don’t panic. How you feel right at this time will be changing. Stay in touch with this forum and let us know how things go with your GP and ENT.

 

I got my tinnitus about 2 weeks ago when I mixed music for long hours for 3 days and apparently I had it slightly too loud.

Now. Give rest to your ears! No headphones in a month. No caffeine and alcohol. You will lose some sleep because of tinnitus. Alcohol and caffeine do not help.

 

Do you use headphones for mixing the music?
Are the headphones you use how high quality, and for how many hours do you use them for?

 

I use speakers and headphones. I have Beyerdynamics DT880 Pro headphones and Adam Audio T5V studio monitors.

I did about 8-12 hours per day, I guess I did not let my ears rest enough. I was also doing some mixing in 5khz-12khz So I guess that was extra straining for my ears.

My computer is so loud, I had to turn up the volume a bit to hear those frequencies better and this is the result.

 

My case is similar to yours.

I used headphones for 2 weeks, long hours, at lowest volume.

There are so many victims like us, who thought that headphones are safe, but ears are very fragile.

Keep me updated if it gets better or goes away.

I don't understand why humans made headphones and loud speakers

 

My ears did not warn me at all. All the time doing music I heard very well and felt no pain. Then suddenly I noticed my ears ringing.. It was too late.

My condition has improved a bit. It is better than week ago. I got some Prednisolon from my ENT so I think that is helping. Also resting ears is important now...

 

@Strife_84 @JohnFox @Bill Bauer will resting your ear from loud noises will eventually heal or completely fade? Do you know anyone who’s tinnitus completely faded? Seems like it doesn’t fade away..

I work in a part time restaurant m and will exposing to loud sound may trigger tinnitus to be permanent?

 

is there any evidence that it may fade away? I know people experience mini tinnitus after long flight or concert that it usually go in a day or 2 but tinnitus like ours that didn’t Fade away in weeks or months. Is there still chance for ours to fade ?

 

There haven't been any scientific studies about what behaviours promote healing of T patients, and what behaviours reduce the chance that healing will take place.

Some people on this forum report getting exposed to noise and not getting worse, or even experiencing fading. It is not clear whether those people who did not get worse, might have gotten better. It is also not clear whether those who got exposed to noise and got better would have experienced even more fading (or faster healing) had they been more careful.

Other people get exposed to noise and experience severe or even permanent setbacks. See the posts I quoted in the first post on
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/learn-from-others-mistakes.29437/

It appears that when you expose yourself to noise you reduce the Probability of getting better/not getting worse (as some are ok after the noise, but not everyone is ok).

Check out

The short answer is - yes. Numerous members here report fading that gets them to the "can hear it only in quiet rooms" stage. Some report getting to hear silence again.

For the long answer, check out the multiple links to studies on seven pages of the thread below
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/spontaneous-recovery-stats-many-recover-3-studies.21441/