Professional Musician with Tinnitus

Figure I should introduce myself. My name is Tonya, I'm up in Massachusetts and like most of you suffer from tinnitus. I have actually had it for a long time now, since I think 2012 is when I first noticed it.

However, it has significantly increased in the last few months alone, without any clear cause and neither my primary doctor nor my ENT have found anything that would be causing it. My ears appear to be healthy, my hearing is normal.

This has been particularly difficult for me because I am a professional musician (mainly classical music). I don't listen to music loudly, and as of now I can't find anything I could possibly be doing that has escalated it so significantly in the last few months. I think the hardest point for me was a few weeks ago when I was in a studio (where it is absolutely silent) and the tinnitus was competing with what I was playing on the piano and was basically ruining my enjoyment of playing music.

In the mean time I am trying to remain positive. My therapist who helps me with unrelated trauma issues has suggested I reach out to support groups such as this one to remind myself I'm not alone. Most of the time I think I'm actually not doing too poorly, but other times it feels impossible to ignore. I am only just going to begin to seek out possible therapies for it, and hopefully get some results. In my mind, if I was only able to reduce it by about 50% that would be enough. I look forward to hearing from folks here. Thank you all!

 

Hi @Tonya Song - Welcome. I just joined a few hours ago after lurking for the last 3 months. My tinnitus has picked up in the last 3 months as well. I'm not a professional - but I play classical guitar and it has been distressing at times trying to concentrate on playing with the noise in my (right) ear. I have mild hearing loss in the upper ranges which is likely part of what is causing my tinnitus.

I've found that when I'm relaxed it seems to subside for me. For the last 5 days I've started meditating - I use an app called Headspace, but I'm sure there are many others. I don't know if it will help with my tinnitus - but I think it might be helpful with anxiety / depression associated with it. I've come to notice that some days I'm more anxious than others - even when my tinnitus is at the same level.

So I'm right with you trying to remain positive. Trying to eat right, exercise, meditate - control the things I can control. I too would be happy with just some sort of reduction.

So you are definitely not alone. With any luck yours will go down after a few months - relax and try not to panic in the meantime (I'm telling myself this as well).

John