The Difference Between 'Those with Tinnitus' and 'Those Who Suffer from Tinnitus'

Or...

I Found Out My Significant Other Also Has Tinnitus

It's been talked about before. With 10-20% of the world's population having experienced tinnitus (some acute but surely many chronic), why isn't tinnitus taken more seriously? Why do only a subset of people with tinnitus have altered lifestyles and difficulty focusing, making efforts to habituate, etc. etc. and others don't?

After over a year suffering with tinnitus (though surely not as much as many of you who have it severely), I have recently found out my SO has had tinnitus since childhood...and doesn't suffer.

He has no noise sensitivity, can only hear his in a quiet room, and it never, ever spikes or worsens. Last night I was stressed with worry as he went to a concert without wearing earplugs. He came back fine. He's been blasted by truck air brakes, drives a loud truck everyday for work, and has no problem handling heavy machinery.

There have been numerous claims that we are not susceptible for more hearing damage with tinnitus and hyperacusis, yet we constantly see Tinnitus Talk members get permanent spikes from things that should not harm us.

With still so little information about the mechanisms, I'd like to propose my own theory. Reactivity is its own element, separate from both tinnitus and hyperacusis. There are, perhaps varying levels of reactivity just like there are varying levels of tinnitus and hyperacusis. A high level of reactivity has tinnitus change in volume for background noises, voices probably anything. A low level of reactivity would be a person who simply experiences spikes.

It's not enough for our bodies to screw us over in terms of phantom noise but also with the promise of spikes and worsening. 'Those with tinnitus' perhaps do not have this part of this condition while those of us who seek comfort here do. There has to be some physiological differences between those who seemingly do not care about 'ringing in the ears.' Those are my thoughts, anyway.

 

Interesting thought. Just to add to it, NIHL is supposedly more common with blood type O, so there may be some genetic basis to make some of the population at risk.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/14606597/

 

Right about now I'm trying to remember my blood type. Darn it!

Out of 176 people exposed to 85-90 db for 8 hrs a day for over 10 years only 75 had NIHL. That's an interesting statistic!

 

Wow. Can we keep this on file for whenever someone quotes a table of acceptable db levels/durations. 85-90 db for 8 hours is supposed to be "safe."

 

The OSHA 85 dB "safe" is more like "right on the edge of damage" for most individuals.

Interestingly, it looks like in Europe they take it down to 80 db for the lowest action level, and their max is 87, not 90 db. Our OSHA recommendations go back to the early 1980's, with all the research done earlier, so clearly out of date and need to be revisited.

"The Directive 2003/10/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 6 February 2003, on the minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of workers to the risks arising from physical agents (noise), constitutes the current European legislation regulating the protection of workers from the risk of NIHL [7]. Based on the ISO 1999 standard [8], the Directive sets limits of exposure depending on the equivalent noise level for an 8 h working day and obliges the employer to take suitable steps if the limits are exceeded. The Noise at Work Regulation [7] recommends three action levels for occupational settings:

• the first (lower) action level set at LEX,8h = 80 dBA;
• the second (upper) action level set at LEX,8h = 85 dBA; and,
• the maximum exposure limits set at LEX,8h = 87 dBA.

The limits are to be converted using the time-intensity trade-off of 3 dB increase for halving the time. For example, the exposure to noise at 97 dBA for 30 min a day would equate to the second action level (85 dBA for 8 h), under the assumption of long term exposure (Table 1). The first, lower action level of 80 dBA is the most conservative value, below which no consequences of exposure to occupational noise are expected."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5664640/

 

If I could only hear my T in a quiet room and it never got worse I wouldn't care about it one iota either.

Same with blond hair https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24303403
Granted it's a small sample size, but I recall reading another study suggesting people with blue eyes are more susceptible to noise damage. Maybe it has something to do with melanin pigmentation in the cochlea.

 

Interesting theory. That would explain why loud noises never give me spikes. Anyway, i prefer to stay on the safe side..

 

I have O :-o

 

Yep, also Type O.

 

What’s the mechanism behind this, I wonder. Small sample size though.

 

@Red

Someone can quote the OSHA specs, and I think already did, but I thought 85 db or if you have to yell to be heard was the time to take action. I thought you just threw a pair of ear muff on in loud environments and went on with life. It worked for me for almost 30 years. Darn it!

 

Red,

I could have written about 90% of that as my own story. My profile says T since 2008. That is when it became bad, chronic, an affect on my daily life. I have probably had what you described your significant other has since the 70's.

 

Where there you go, he barely even hears it and doesn't experience hyperacusis... Of course it doesn't bother him. If one couldn't handle tinnitus at that level than I'm not sure how they could handle life, as at that level, it is less intrusive than the sound of a ceiling fan on low.

 

Is that why you are always arguing that loud noises shouldn't give other people spikes?

The OSHA regulations are horribly outdated.

 

The difference... is every sound covered with a crackly high pitch mess?

 

You must be mistaken, I have never said anything of the sort. I am well aware that my situation is quite different from most people posting here.

 

I have type O, when I was a kid I had blond hair (got a bit darker with age) and blue eyes (got some of green color mixed in in my teen years).
It seems that I won a lottery...
@Red @Alue @Pero1234

 

Know the feeling with type O as well, and blonde hair when I was younger. Wish we knew we had all these risk factors earlier on. Too late smart and all that...

 

@Alue Read those messages again, you'll understand how ridiculous your statement was.

"Some people are more vulnerable indeed" seemed pretty clear to me. Not only i never wrote the words you put in my mouth, but I actually said the opposite of what you claim.

 

Yes, you cover your position by making it seem like there is this theory floating around that all people with tinnitus have compromised ears (I've never seen anyone claim that on this forum), but the crux of your argument was that there is no scientific evidence that people with hearing damage are more susceptible to additional damage, therefore it's more likely that it's all in their head.

 

I believe some people have especially fragile ears. Not because a trauma compromised them, but because they were born with fragile ears. And I am skeptical about the traumas making the ears of some people more vulnerable, but i never said it was false. What i said is that there was nothing scientific to back the theory saying it was a systematic thing.
And the "all in their head" is your interpretation, this is not what I think.

Type "our ears are compromised" in the search field.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25972177
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=16481444
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=19906956

 

Whenever I read that phrase on this forum, I keep imagining ideologically opposed legislators in Parliament making "compromises" to a bill before being passed.

 

This is not exactly the subject here. Although, I learnt that mice subject to an early "noise exposure" were apparently more prone to age-related hearing loss (if I understand correctly), which is interesting, I did not know that.

And I do not know if it can apply to humans, but if it is the case, sadly, almost all humans are subject to early "noise exposures".