Screaming Kids

My tinnitus is on my right ear. Yesterday my small kids had a fight and one of my younger son 8 years old screamed numerous times that end with those high pitch shrill. My immediate response is to plug my right ear with my finger but being complacent as I thought my left ear is normal I did not plug my left ear (felt stupid now). I was just outside the room where he screamed at least.

Now I am paranoid as I worried my left ear will have tinnitus. I tried to observe but could not confirmed if there is any T on my left as I previously only take note of the right ear and recently it has been pretty mild tinnitus.

 

It is a natural instinct to plug your ear in this scenario and no harm to do so. However the likelihood of your other ear generating tinnitus because of this is extremely unlikely.

You need to decide how you are going to approach your recovery. Too much ear protection can cause/worsen hyperacusis (Sound Sensitivity) and can cause you to focus on your tinnitus to the detriment of your recovery.

If I were you I wouldn't plug my ears at all unless I was in a very loud sound situation. Remember you won't be able to protect yourself from all spontaneous sounds which may present themselves - So no matter how much protection you take loud sounds will catch you out - That is a statistical certainty.

In my opinion to make a good recovery from this condition you need to embrace going back out into the world with an eye on protecting only in scenarios where everyone should be protecting anyway. Plugging our ears constantly causes the tinnitus to spike internally within your head and draws your attention to it which in turn makes it worse. You need to be minimizing your tinnitus awareness as much as you can so that the Cortical Filters in your brain can narrow and tune out the signal for long periods of time.

The only way this scenario is going to get better for you is if you embrace the sound (Practicing not reacting to it) and minimizing your awareness to it where possible. This is the only way you will make steady progress to treating the signal as a neutral stimulus and pushing it into the background. If you continue to protect and fret about the affect that every sound has on your tinnitus you will be on this board for many years to come debating with others in a similar situation.

Like all things in life it is a question of taking a chance and trying to get back into the life you once had not so long ago. It can be achieved - You need to confidence to do it. Life needs to be taken back from tinnitus.

My advice is to chill and regard the noise as nothing but a signal anyone is capable of tuning into. It just so happens that your brain has become aware of this underlying signal and has tuned up the volume on it as it seems important. It is not important. This signal means nothing - It is not relaying any important message to the brain.

You need to stop being afraid of the sound and stop being agitated with it as well. This takes practice but when achieved will lessen the amount of daily time you will notice the noise. It will lessen the distress and ultimately lessen the perceived intensity of the sound.

I am in the same boat as you. I have a 5 year old son who screams a lot when he's playing around the house. I know how it can be unnerving - But be assured these levels of noise are not dangerous to the ear. You hear of peoples tinnitus spiking after noises like this but this is not the norm and you can't live your life basing your potential experiences on the minority of worst case tinnitus scenarios...

Best of luck.

 

Hi RCP1,

Very thankful for your very encouraging advice.

A child scream when playing might be lower than a child scream when he is angry and trying to vent out his anger, what do you think?

That's my worry as my case might be different from yours.

 

I believe when someone is angry their screams tend to be louder with all that pent up emotion (5 yr old nephew). I don't know how old your kids are but I think it would be good to sit down and talk with them, let them know what's going on with you. Thats what I did and my nephew has lowered his voice and surprisingly minimized his tantrums.