Seeking Answers

Hello. I'm a 62-year-old male and I've had tinnitus my entire life. I can remember as a small child asking my mother, "why is there noise in my ears when it's quiet?" She replied that she had the same thing and you get used to it.

She was correct. I got used to it and only noticed it when there was no ambient noise.

Then in 1978 I punctured my left ear drum while in the military. The ear healed but since then the tinnitus in the left ear is continuous and louder than in the right. Most time I don't notice it but it's always there. At the same time I noticed hearing loss in the upper range of hearing in that ear but my previously superior hearing was still good enough to pass a military test.

Fast forward to four months ago and I suffered a concussion after a bicycle accident where I fell on the left side of my head. Since then I've also accumulated a buzzing in that ear when in the presence of certain frequencies. (In particular, the voice of one woman I work with is a strong trigger of the phenomenon.) I call this buzzing a harmonic vibration.

Last week I had my first complete ear exam in five years. The result was that the right ear is fine and the left has hearing loss at the higher frequencies (as I already knew). The doctor said two things of note: 1) he has tinnitus as well, 2) there's not much he can do about it, and 3) he offered comfort but little else.

From all my research I've concluded that my tinnitus is a brain defect and my best hope is in learning how to reprogram the brain to learn how to diminish the sounds.

So, that's my tinnitus story. Thanks for reading.