Tinnitus is Awesome...!

... Said no one, ever.

Hi everyone,

I'm Angelo

I am a sound designer, musician, composer, sound fx editor. You can see a pattern here.

Everything I do involves sounds.

I've been doing all things sound related for over 20 years now. Now at the young and tender age of 45 ( I'm being sarcastic, of course), I have developed some form of Tinnitus or Noise Induced Hearing Loss, as my unhelpful ENT and physician have informed me.

Briefly, around the end of Feb, I was working on the final episode of a soon to be cancelled TV show. As all big finales go, this one spared no expense. It involved an Apocalyptic battle involving machine guns, swords, horses, flame-throwers, fights, bodyfalls, explosions, ... you get the picture.

I have a tendency to monitor my work fairly loud and this time was no exception. I edited for hours putting this episode together.

The next morning, I woke up, went to use the bathroom and while urinating, I noticed a weird distortion accompanying the sound of my pee going into the toilet.

I was shocked. I freaked out. What the hell!? In a weird intuitive way, I kind of knew what it was and that I was screwed.

As most of us I'm sure, I panicked. Basically what is going on with me is that I hear a ringing, distortion, buzzing, rattling, resonating sound in my head/ear only when I hear sounds.

So, I don't have the traditional tinnitus described as a constant ringing.

My ringing is when I'm talking or someone else is talking. Even worse, when I hear music, strings, piano, what ever.. there it is. AND it's AS LOUD as what ever I'm listening to.

It's distracting, frustrating, anxiety-inducing, and just maddening. It also throws me into a depression. Also, I'm beginning to notice that I'm isolating myself a lot.

Anyone else have this type of ringing??

I've been to an ENT. They put me on a steroid regime to rule out an infection or some sort of inflammation.

Didn't help

Went to the House Ear Institute here in Los Angles. This is a world renowned institute that specializes in all things related to hearing. I had my hopes up.

They had me take an MRI to rule out a tumor. No tumor, thankfully.

Then I had audio exams. I was shown to have lost some of the high end freq in my right ear. No surprise.

They said I had Noise Induced Hearing Loss. They wanted to see me back in 8 weeks. 8 weeks later I went back had another exam with the same results.

They couldn't do anything for me. All they said was I need to protect my ears from here on out. Monitor at low volumes. I got custom ear plugs so I could at least block out or mute some of the sounds so that I don't hear the ringing.

But it's not comfortable and impractical.

So that's it in a nutshell. I feel lost now. How do I deal with this and block out the sounds? How do I habituate myself to this new life and reality. I've noticed that last couple of days that I've started getting migraines now from the loud ringing.

I'm contemplating changing careers to something that doesn't involve any sound whatsoever. Any ideas? haha.

Thanks everyone. Looking forward to hearing from you guys.

 

@TwilightTinnitus - welcome to "the club".
Your T is recent enough that there is a slight chance it may go away on its own. Believe it or not, there's a fairly high remission rate. What you see in here are those who are in the minority with "tricky Tinnitus".

You're asking all the right questions and you're going through what most of us have gone through. It's a very challenging period to go through, and you need to be kind to yourself as you are likely to experience lots of mood swings, with possible visits to "dark places".

Take care, and good luck!

 

Hey Twilight, my tinnitus does the exact same thing to certain sounds. I have constant tinnitus, too, but I'm actually more annoyed by how it spikes louder to particular sounds. It's nearly impossible to get used to a sound that increases to your own voice.

I have quite a bit of high frequency hearing loss. I often wonder if the tinnitus is reacting to sounds that include the frequencies I've lost. Not sure if a hearing aid would help with this.

 

Hi Angelo, I'm sorry you are going through this, but if it's any consolation I have the same kind of tinnitus -- the kind that likes to compete with other sounds. I can sit in a quiet room and sometimes the tinnitus is quiet (and sometimes not!) but when I go outside the crickets start chirping or the bacon starts sizzling.

I do not have a career involving sound, but my family loves music and my daughter sings, and having to give up going to live shows (and I don't mean rock concerts -- just any sort of live show with music) has been hard. I'm in the midst of a hearing aid trial and it's going fairly well. While it's no cure-all, it amplifies the missing sound and seems to make my brain a little less competitive in the noise-making department. It's especially helpful in loud situations like walking around outside or being in the grocery store where all the refrigeration units spike the tinnitus.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I used to think about flying to LA to go to The House Clinic, but I guess that's out now based on your experience. I'm assuming you've spoken with an audiologist. If not, you might give it a shot. Also, if the first one doesn't help try another. Audiologists seem to have more experience with this (or so it seems). Maybe some sort of device that actually amplifies sound in the bad ear could help you?

Another thing to remember is that there are researchers who are actively trying to come up with solutions and with the advances in brain mapping technology, something may actually come of it.

 

take a leave of absence, man. you have what people on this forum call "reactive tinnitus" and what people on other forums (and one particularly loud mouthed person here) refer to as a symptom of hyperacusis.

The good news. I HAD what you have now. Notice the past tense. Specific notes, upper register Eb most notably - speaker phones, bar chatter, etc would cause a ring or a charlie brown teachers voice style echo.

It took a few months but passed, leaving me with an intermittent buzz.

Protect your ears for a bit, even if its uncomfortable. You get used to it. I'm back to music and still improving despite being around amplified guitars all the time (although now I plug up once I hit 90db).

 

Hi angelo! i hate to say this but.. welcome to the club.
but also, here you will find a very loving and supporting community.

there are two scenarios, in my opinion.

1-it will go away on its own.
2-it wont go, your life is gonna change, you are gonna focus on the good, enjoy things you werent aware of, get better, get used to tinnitus (habituate) and live better.

i know how you are feeling right now and its part of the joruney, just know it can get better and you can habituate.
reach out for help whenever you feel like you need it.

 

Thanks for the responses.

Tom mentioned a leave of absence. I have been definitely thinking about doing that. Maybe even going on a long silence retreat in mountains or something.

I get this weird anxiety-reaction now whenever I think about doing anything because I know that I will be in my own personal Hell with this insane noise that only I can hear.


I think the damage occurred for me partly because of the low sub frequencies I was listening to at a loud volume. Yesterday, I was messing around with some music and I filtered out all of the low end ... from 500 hz and it seemed to help but it sounds like I'm listening the world through a police radio.

It's like I have feedback going off in my head. When certain frequencies hit me it's starts ringing and its freakin' loud and distracting and disorienting.

Has anyone found success with habituation? How does that work? Do you simply continue to expose yourself to the tinnitus in hopes that your brain will begin to ignore it?

 

Don't go sit in silence - but avoid live music.

Silence won't fix you. Time very well might. In fact, it most likely WILL.

Remember forums are filled with the suffering. There are many many habituated musicians. Go to a musicians forum and read about it. Same goes for gun forums.

 

Life is awesome if you make it awesome with out without tinnitus, it is just something you have to adjust to. Do not overprotect yourself but use proper ear protection whenever appropriate. I have ACS Custom 19 and 26 for loud occasions trying to avoid too loud noises but still live life to the max. So please use ear plugs!!!!! buy as said do not overuse them.

 

Funnily enough, this was also one of the first places I realized that I was hearing certain sounds accompanied by strange distortions. For me it sounds like the sound of the stream hitting the water is accompanied by the sound of bells or chimes. I also hear a kind of intermittent whistling from the car, shower, and running/boiling water. The only good news I have for you is that it's improved somewhat over the course of several months, I now only rarely hear distortions from passing cars or my computer fan. A hearing test didn't show any hearing loss (but we know by now that doesn't mean anything). I hope that it will continue to improve over the next six months.

 

You're new to T, nothing wrong with taking a break from the game for a few months to get yourself mentally back on track. If you have the funds behind you, just duck out for a while then go back when you're able. You WILL improve.