The Ringing! So. Much. Ringing.

It's been nearly a year for me.

Well - actually, I've had low level tinnitus my whole life. I could never stand a silent room, always studied with music on - and I've only recently realised it was because I had tinnitus. A gentle breeze would mask it, so I grew up loving the sound of moving air.

Last year, around Easter, I was sitting at my desk in a quiet room, talking to some colleagues via skype. I started to feel strange, and thought i was having the onset of a new sort of migraine with aura (have had 3 visual aura migraines in the past) and ended up going to bed for two days. On the third day (i think), the ringing in my left ear (unilateral issue) had not improved, and i had a marked decrease in audible sound, so off to the doc i went.

As a former musician, I have always valued my hearing and tried to protect it, and its always been better than average. If I went clubbing, i would normally have ear plugs in to minimise any damage. While working as a dj i would have my headphones on all night (zero sound most of thr time) using their innate noise reduction to again minimise damage. I was never a club dj (mobile only) so gigs were never really "club volume" and I could still comfortably hear things before my wife.

It was quite devastating to be told that I had had a spontaneous hearing loss, not a migraine, and that I should see a specialist. 3 weeks wait and $220 later, and my 5 minute "consultation" with the specialist went like this:
- you've had a spontaneous hearing loss
- there's no point trying to find out why, because shit happens
- if your hearing was going to self correct, it probably would have happened already, but shit happens, so get used to it
- tinnitus is the brain's way of dealing with the signal loss. Get used to it because shit happens

I very nearly didn't go back to work that day.

I went and had a hearing test with a mate who is an audiologist. He was pretty thorough, and when we finished, told me that there was a lot less hearing loss than he had expected based on how i had described it to him when making the appointment. Due to my background with music, I apparently listen to and rely on quite a bit of detail in my upper registers ofnhearing. I've lost most of the top end in my left ear - but its the kind of loss that he wouldn't even try to correct for in someone 70 years old (i think that was supposed to make me feel better). A good example of the hearing loss is that if someone whispers in my left ear, I can't understand what they are saying.

My T is what I call reactive for want of an appropriate medical term. I have multi tonal ringing in my left ear all the time, and "metallic" sounds (again for want of a better term) cause immediate threshold shifts to louder and higher pitched ringing. The worst i have ever experienced was broad spectrum distortion from squealing truck brakes.

Running water is a trigger. Moving air is a trigger. Crinkling plastic is a trigger. Moving air is a trigger. Loud conversation in my "gloriously open plan office" is a trigger. Hi-hats are a trigger. =( I have three young boys, and a great deal of the noise that they make is a trigger.

Once triggered, the threshold shift will take between seconds and hours to return to my baseline T, depending on severity and durstion of exposure, hydration, tiredness (im dealing with sleep apnoea and a mental block against going to bed, so I'm not good with that one ) and blood sugar.

I spent almost all of my time at home wearing workers ear muffs over my left ear to reduce the triggers (the cicadas outside at the moment are driving me slowly nuts), and a large fraction of time time at work and out in the world wearing headphones. I'm about 50/50 with listening to music vs silence in the 'phones - depends on the mood. I still listen to dance music - mostly deep progressive house because a lot of it has a minimalist top end with funky beats and bassline, so i can get maximum enjoyment from listening, reduce triggers for my T, and kinda sorta feel normal.. where normal is becoming slowly more hermit-like.

It's only been a year.. so compared to people who have been living with T for ever i feel like i shouldn't complain, but my reality is so different now.

Sorry for the essay - I've clearly been waiting to find some folks to talk to about this who might get it. I hope i can hanh around for a while and get to know some of you.

Btw - my name is Tim.. im 42, live in Melbourne Australia, and wish aliens with magical healing technology would come visit tomorrow so i can have my hearing back.

 

One of the things i wonder, with my ear being as sensitive as it is.. aam i doing more damage every time i have another threshold shift?

 

Hi Tim,

It seems to me that you could possibly have sensitive ears right now and are very focused on your tinnitus. Not all sounds are harmful. The emotions we carry about sounds and our situation/environments can trigger spikes and make our tinnitus louder. It is always good practice to protect your ears , but do not over protect them. This is especially important for folks that recently got tinnitus.

Over protecting can simply train the mind, to be scared of all noises. I have been to multiple DRs and the only person that was really helpful to me, was that audiologist i saw 25+ years ago. It's tough to deal with tinnitus, it takes time and lots of patience to get a grip on this matter.

This forum has lots of good people on it, but do not read too much, into the negative posts here....

 

Personally it sounds more like hyperacusis with the increased sensitivity to noises. I also have hyperacusis, and am specifically prone to porcelain plates touching each other. Definitely causes a spike even when they touch each other with little force.

Keep in mind T is a very emotional thing, I like to think of it is a mind trick. Like you said earlier it is your brain doing this, while this is true, I have T and seem to have a certain amount of control over how loud it is. This may sound strange but after about a year or so of trying my own treatment techniques to lower the volume, which included sound therapy, analysis on my diet, exercise and the release of tensions around my neck, I found that I was able to lower the noise or at least the perceived volume.

How it feels is this, I am pretty sure my ears are ringing all the time, but I have no emotional attachment to the noise. I really don't care about it. So I can knowingly listen in to it or not. Strangest thing is when I decide to not listen in I really do not hear it. Right now it is quiet and I have gone in and out of listening to it. Normally even a room of people talking doesn't completely mask it, yet in this silence I don't notice it.

How this helps you:
Often changing our perspective on something is enough for us to figure out a solution. Rewiring your brain through thought and emotion control I believe can lead to further improvement. Some of this might sound nuts, but I didn't find any relief until I made my strategy more focused on my emotional responses to T. Maybe it really went away, maybe I phased it out, maybe I just learned to live with it, I don't know. All I am saying is that it's like I never had it in the first place.

 

Your description points to hypercusis. It has been said that reactive T is actually a result of some degree of hyperacusis. I have had ultra high pitch T and severe hyperacusis to the point I could not stand even the soft voice of my wife speaking close to me. Every normal sounds seemed to drill through the ears. T seemed to react with most sounds. So I know what you are going through. Don't despair nor panic. H tends to slowly fade out for many people. I hope yours will too. I used to be in a mess initially but I am living a normal, productive and absolutely enjoyable life now. I never thought it possible but never say never. I share my story and some helpful strategies. Check it out if you have time. Take care. God bless.

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...w-i-recovered-from-tinnitus-hyperacusis.3148/