Tinnitus from Early Childhood — It's Become Worse Recently Which Scares Me

I have had some odd tinnitus symptoms since I was young. Earliest I remember is at age 5. I'm now 25 years old.

Recently the noise has become more severe making sleep difficult. Barely getting four hours a night. Genuinely terrified of this being my new normal.

I went to an audiologist and ENT and was told that not only was my hearing excellent but there was no visible cause to my condition.

 

You’re not alone.

Did they test up to 16 kHz?

Hugs.

 

Welcome. Sorry to hear that you are experiencing this. Try to protect your ears from loud noises for a while and see if it recedes. Good luck. I think you have a good chance that this is temporary.

 

Hi @ThomasF,

Sorry to hear about your recent increase in tinnitus.

Current hearing tests are usually not accurate enough to detect the culprit behind tinnitus if it's noise induced. I have a pretty alright audiogram with small dips, common hearing for my age, but I still got tinnitus, and I know it was noise induced since it came about after an acoustic trauma.

I personally believe that hearing damage can big or small, but what really matters is how our brains interpret the damage, and that may be more related to how we're wired and our genetics. Do any of your relatives have tinnitus too?

I know exactly how hard it is to deal with a spike. I'd first and foremost advise you to take care of your ears, that means using hearing protection in loud environments, completely avoid very loud environments like concerts. It is also a good call to use ear plugs in crowded public places, or along city streets where momentary vehicle noise can be very loud. If you do this, you might find your spike improving, or at least not getting any worse. We should do all in our power to not have this worsen further.

Sleep is very important and can impact tinnitus volume quite a bit for many. If you're anxious, try to get it under control first, and your sleep may improve. There are medications which may help you sleep, like Melatonin. I used Hydoxyzine to get my anxiety under control and sleep back on track, but we should be cautious when using medications like antihistamines, antidepressants or tranquilizers as those can worsen tinnitus or hyperacusis in some. Using masking sounds, like a fan or a speaker on low volume, can aid sleep if you find that it doesn't spike the tinnitus further.

I hope you get some rest,
Stacken

 

The Audiologist did say that the test was limited to hearing range and that I was at the higher side for my age at 10 dB. I have to ask for the paperwork so I'll get more information with that.

 

Sounds like a cheap 8 kHz test, so then we can’t know. You should hear up to at least 16 kHz at 25 years old.

 

Genuinely it has been so stressful that I drift easily into dark places. I'm terrified of this being my new normal and don't know where to go for help. Which is why I made an account here. It had an immediate relief effect to talk to other people dealing with what I am experiencing.

 

You are not alone. I've found this place to be therapeutic. It's good to know that there are others like us. I will say that the advice given here can be sobering and hard to accept but I think it is sound. Protect your ears from here on out.

Yeah, you may have to make some adjustments to make it work (I'm never going to a concert again) but in the end they will be small sacrifices. I can tell you I am in a better place with my recent spike than I was a month ago. Give it time and I suspect you will as well.

 

So if we find out we have hearing loss that high, what then?

 

At that point it is just good to be able to define what is wrong. It's better than the unknown.

 

Honestly I was so distraught that I called the Suicide Prevention Hotline and spoke to someone for 40 minutes and felt immediately better afterward. Personally I want to tackle this thing to the best outcome.

After all there are promising treatments on the horizon and I firmly believe this condition will be fixable within our lifetime.

 

Then you’ll know why you got tinnitus

Oh and then OTIC / FREQ can help you in 100 years or so

 

It will. Hang in there.

 

How are you doing now, @ThomasF?

 

It is better than when it started. The first couple of days where I had a spike were terrible. Could not hear a thing except tinnitus through my left ear and muffled ringing in my right. Nowadays I've been lucky to not hear tinnitus unless it's quiet or when I sleep without doing my routine. I figured out a system where I place a tablet playing white noise between two pillows, have a white noise machine elsewhere in the room playing running water sounds, and usually classical radio through my laptop on the bed. It works for now.

Thank you for asking. You didn't ask about the sleep part but I felt like I needed to include it so if it is TMI I apologize.

 

Ahhhh that's amazing, I'm glad you are doing better! And thank you for sharing your experience for your sleeping routine, I still have a lot of trouble falling asleep, I also have to use sounds to mask it. It's way better than in the beginning. I was using Zopiclone for a month but I felt like the tinnitus got worse afterwards, I then used Hydroxyzine and switched just to Melatonin 2 months ago. I started at 5 mg and I am currently on 1.8 mg. My dream would be to fall asleep without anything.

 

Just make sure the sound volume when masking isn't to loud – even a volume that seems ”okay” can fatigue the ears in the long run. So maybe set a timer? At least avoid using in ear headphones when masking. If using headphones at least I'd set a timer so the music turns off after an hour or so.

The reason I'm saying this is because I used to listen to music whole night with my phone in speaker mode next to my pillow in bed and I woke up to my hear doing a ”warped chirp” that then faded into the intrusive high pitch hiss/sizzle I now have in my left ear. I'm pretty certain it was the music that did this despite the volume being low, because I did have some ear fullness and warning signs during the days before onset – ears were likely that they were fatigued. I feel like an idiot every day still that I didn't just rest my ears for a couple of days with no music during the night or at least have a timer set.

So whatever you do at lest be careful also with sound that's not very loud but goes on long term in the same frequencies. ”Listen” to the ears. If they feel different, i.e. full or hollow it's time for a listening break for a day or two until these sensations subdue.

 

Than you very much for your reply @star-affinity. I always put a timer for 25 minutes because after a while the masking noise woke me up. I never thought about what you said. It's very interesting! I banned all sort of headphones. I was kind of annoyed because I spent so much money for all my audio devices, AirPods Pro, AirPods 3, AirPods Max and listening to music was one my favourite activities

Don't blame yourself, we all try to survive and cope with this condition as we can and masking is for almost everyone the best solution. You couldn't know. We all made mistakes at some point, otherwise this forum would probably not exist. When my tinnitus started in January I thought it was stress related and that it would go away in a few weeks. I continued my life normally and went clubbing two times without any ear protection, went almost on a daily basis to bars during my ski holidays and I blasted my ears with music at the highest level to mask while studying because I had my med school exams at the end of January. This was so stupid and it could have ended very very badly.

I wish you all the best, we're in this mess together and and we're gonna come out stronger.

 

My eyes teared up here at work reading your post above – thank you.

It is so sad; I feel like tinnitus gave me tinnitus. And the first two sounds I had (that I masked with music during sleep) wasn't even that bad, not affecting me too much during the day. My hearing was fine also, but now that left ear has some hearing loss, and slight ear pain and constant slight ear fullness. The high-pitch sound also oscillate up in pitch and some sounds/frequencies feel uncomfortable in the ear and sometimes it's also like some sounds makes it so I can feel the eardrum move. So many symptoms, it's crazy. Luckily the volume of the tinnitus sound isn't that loud, but it still feels piercing like ”lasers in the head” and all those symptoms together truly makes it hard to habituate.

I also hear you on the devices and listening to music. Some months before onset I had purchased this dedicated DAC for improving music listening at home – it does make a huge difference. Now I want to forget everything that has to do with hi-fi.

I also like to produce music and very much appreciate the intricacy and detail in sound and music.

Luckily I'm okay with the sound from an acoustic guitar and it's not hopeless to keep working with software synths and stuff on the computer, but it sure isn't the same anymore, having an ear that one is constantly aware of and that hears sound slightly different – it's simply not as comfortable to listen to music anymore, especially whooshing strings.

Sorry for being longwinded about my own crap – didn't want to hijack the thread.

Wish you all the best too! Let's hope we all will get better and/or that a cure or at least relief will come as soon as possible.

 

I'm so so so sorry, I know what it's like to think you're doing the best and in the end it gets worse... Mine is also not thaaaaat loud, but it competes with other sounds and gets so loud. It got better over time, at the beginning I would hear it everywhere, it was crazy. I really hope it gets better with time for you so you can find all the joy of music and life again, this stuff can take so long to heal. I'm sorry we all have to deal with this pain, life can be cruel... But I'm sure things can only get better with time.

Btw. I'm sorry if there are any mistakes in my answers, English is not my native language.

 

Hi-Fi is much safer than headphones, Michael Leigh had pretty severe tinnitus and he could eventually use his (fairly quietly, of course) without problems.

 

I would like to update my sleeping situation. I'm currently sleeping on a recliner at my grandparents' house, with the TV on and wearing a sleeping headband I bought off Amazon. I also have this bug thing plugged into the wall that makes noise which helps cover the tinnitus. I think the blasting white noise through the pillow was actually a bad idea in the long run. The headband works fairly well and I can change up the white noise to help. I keep the volume at just above half and some nights lower than half.