The Masking Is Starting to Irritate My Ears

I have to use high pitch noises like purple noise or crickets etc and now it's starting to hurt my ears.

Also phone calls especially on speaker is doing it.

 

I only wear my WNG's in the quiet giving my ears a rest when surrounded by environmental noise.

 

Tinnitus should never be masked. If the purple noise or whatever you are using for "sound enrichment" is set too high it will irritate your ears. The sound enrichment should be set lower than your tinnitus at all times. If you are playing these sounds through headphones it could also irritate your ears. When sound enrichment is used correctly it can be beneficial. When not done right it can cause problems....

 

Do you think I caused permanent damage?

 

It all depends. How were you administering the pink noise to your auditory system. For instance, were you using headphones?

 

He is right. I using masking and its set at almost half the level of my tinnitus level and it's very comforting. If you are masking a LOUD level, it just irritates the tinnitus and can spike and make it louder.

 

Any advice for tinnitus that varies in volume? Mine seems to react and increase in volume to particular sounds. I am trying out a hearing aid with Zen tones and the audiologist set the volume for under my tinnitus in a quiet room. Yet in the car, running water, eating, talking with my children, etc. it spikes louder. I cannot hear the Zen tones, but I can certainly hear my tinnitus screeching away.

I'm not sure how to correctly using white noise generators with tinnitus that constantly varies in volume. Other than I guess constantly adjusting the hearing aid's volume too.

 

As Michael said, your masking should be set below your T level to assist with habituation (how can the brain get used to something it can't hear?). Additionally to that, I find white noise tends to make tinnitus worse after its removal (rebound effect) so often listen to ACRN or a variation of those as it provides relief for me, doesn't mask it and I get no rebound effect.