Prevalence of Tinnitus in People Aged 60 or Older?

I was interested about any anecdotes for how common is it for someone 60-80 or older to have tinnitus?

Do most people get it eventually (no matter what), or are there lucky people who are able to die of old age and never have to deal with this, or at least if they have tinnitus at some point for it to no longer be "an issue" in their lives?

It's hard to accept that the tinnitus I have in my late 20s will follow me forever, while someone else could be blissfully ignorant their whole life long.

 

I know for sure that most people don't get it no matter the age. At least from my circle and family, I know that only my grandfather (died at age 80) had pulsatile (I guess) tinnitus from high blood pressure and one aunt (died at age 60 something) had tinnitus from otosclerosis.

None of other elderly, family or not, people that I know of (uncles, aunts, friend's family, etc - at least 20 people) ever spoke to me about tinnitus or any ear-related thing...

 

Most people with ongoing chronic tinnitus tend to always have it but for the majority of these people, things tend to get better and they learn to live a normal life with it. So you may still have but there's a good chance things will get better for you.

 

Ok, thanks for sharing that, it's a very interesting result. Well, it helps confirm my thought that it may only effect some people, all else being equal. So, I guess I got 'lucky.'

I really hope I can get there one day.

 

@999, yeah... we got lucky. I think, though, that some people might have it but don't mention it because it doesn't affect them, or maybe they think it's "normal" if they had for a long time (or their whole life). So the statistics can't be very clear.

 

@DimLeb, right I know that those who get tinnitus as children are often times not bothered by it, just because that's all they know.

 

This exactly, a close friend’s dad just mentioned he can’t hear the TV due to his tinnitus. The friend was very surprised as the dad had never mentioned it his whole life. The close friend also has it fairly loud and barely thinks about it.

 

Oh man, that sounds tough... It's good that it doesn't bother them though! It's funny because my mother has some tinnitus, maybe similar to my mild one, and only just recently she told me that she does have it (not very loud I guess). And I was wondering how and who I inherited the genetics from too...

*facepalm*

 

There is no prediction when it comes to tinnitus.

So many different factors come into play, when it comes to tinnitus.

As people age, their hearing can also be affected, so it would not surprise me if some
could experience the tinnitus.

As I say in all my posts, when tinnitus comes around, we need to protect our ears, we need to let people know that our ears are ringing. I let ALL know that my ears ring and I have and still make many adjustments to put up with this ringing.

It's a day by day thing. I journal my routines, diet, and basically what I do on my days. We can still find quite a bit of resilience inside ourselves, even with tinnitus going on 24/7.

 

I had tinnitus for 2 and a half years in my mid 50s. It gradually reduced to nothing.

I’m only here now because taking the Pfizer vaccine brought it back again.

Don’t give up. Time is the real healer.

 

The cases of vaccine-induced tinnitus are very saddening and frankly concerning. If you're willing to say, what was your previous cause of tinnitus?

 

I believe it was an ear infection. My left eardrum burst twice in 2014.

 

One thing my ENT told me is that if there’s any guarantee in life, it’s that my hearing will continue to worsen as I age. He said it’s a very rare person who gets into the 60s and 70s without any element of hearing loss. Audiologist said the same thing. Considering that often the start of tinnitus is related to hearing loss (temporary or permanent) even though the problem is in our brains, I would argue that there is probably a decent percentage of folks who suffer from it in the over 60 crowd.
Both of my parents have hearing loss. My dad, at 81, has occupational in addition to age related hearing loss. He can’t hear a thing. And invariably his hearing aids that he paid thousands for don’t work right. I asked him if his ears ring and he said no. But he did happen to mention to me that when he takes his hearing aids out he has a deep rumble in his head. I said dad, that’s tinnitus. I think people just assume that it’s always represented as a pure tone ring.

My mother, who is 79, also has age related hearing loss. She does not have any ringing or head noise.

I think research has pretty strongly suggested that there’s a faulty mechanism in the brain that is not screening out the noise that our neurons are generating in the absence of some stimuli it is no longer getting in the auditory system. Similar to how the brain screens out other bodily functions like our heart beat.

I guess we’re just the lucky ones. Since obviously there are people with hearing loss who don’t have tinnitus. I’ve had tinnitus on and off since I was 48. It’s gone away. It’s changed. My hearing has changed. I’ve had temporary loss in hearing and then regained my hearing and then the tinnitus resolved.

I once asked one of my ENTs if all people who have tinnitus eventually worsen due to age related hearing loss. He said no and that has not been his experience in his practice. My Otologist confirmed the same. However, my new ENT who has tinnitus herself, has a knowledge that she does have patients who have worsening tinnitus every time their hearing threshold changes. I suspect I’m going to be one of those people. Lucky freaking me...

 

My parents (71 and 67) both have mild tinnitus that doesn't bother them. I have a friend who is in his 70s and he also has mild tinnitus.

 

I want to be them. Mild tinnitus. No bother. Lucky peeps.