Tinnitus since a teenager

Hi. It's true. I woke up one night and heard a sort of humming buzzing noise. Thought someone had left some machine on in the utility room next door, but it wasn't - it was in my head (seemingly, my left ear). It was very low volume and not really any bother. Since about 2005 though, at age 60, it's been joined by a high pitched whistle that sometimes just keeps getting louder and louder, then fades. All my life I've had a problem where I sometimes have a pressurized sensation in my left ear, like when on an 'plane, and a really loud whistle (and my hearing drops), but this faded after about half a minute. Now, I have a similar whistle most of the time. My right ear also has a high whistle that sounds like it was recorded on a worn-out tape recorder with a lot of dropouts - the volume keeps wavering up and down, sort of like a bunch of mad birds in an avery.

My teenage tinnitus was probably down to me being a rubella child - I am also partially sighted, and the right ear has always been almost completely deaf (but oddly, only got tinnitus in it since about 2005). The "Dark style" is best as it doesn't glare like most other sites (except outeverywhere, which also has this facility). From that, you'll gather than I'm also gay.

I tried a self-hypnosis recording called "Turn Down Tinnitus", which encourages you to imagine you are in a recording studio and you can adjust the type of noise and turn down the volume. Someone on another site also recommended trying this technique. It's all about trying to change your perception of course, not actually altering it. Apart from the relaxing effect of the hypnosis, it didn't really help that much.

I live in the south of England, near Salisbury in a village called Landford. I used to work for an engineering company that has since gone bust. In the later years I used to be in charge of their computer systems. I keep my mind active doing simple computer programming, mainly for a "retro" pocket computer from the '80's.

Can I change the size of the site's text (without having to keep scrolling back and forth?).

 

Hi again, Markku,

I'll try the browser zoom function later. Currently, I'm using an old Dell PC running Windows 2000 and an oldish version of FireFox (version 3 I think). I can't use IE later than 6 on W2k, nor later versions of FireFox (as far as I know), but it's academic as I've just got a new PC with Win7 which will get set up when I get round to it!

Perhaps this is an old FireFox or old PC problem, but sometimes the editor lags. If I make a mistake and backspace, I often find myself over-backspacing! Would it be better to turn off the Rich Text editor and use whatever the alternative is?

 

Hi Markku.

I'm trying this out now on my XP netbook, and the editor seems to work OK Maybe it is the old PC, maybe the antivirus was scanning or something. Seems OK now. I don't use the netbook usually when at home because the screen and keyboard are obviously not as good as a desktop one. You will see I have put up my photo now.

How do I get my location to show up? Yours says "Finland", I only have "Tinnitus since..." showing.

Roy.

 

OK, found it. Funny, I thought I entered that when I signed up, but only the "Tinnitus since.." bit saved.