Tinnitus since November

Hello !

My name is Anna-Stina (people mostly call me Anna). I am a 23-year-old woman from Estonia (it is a small and very cold country located next to Findland). My background is listening to my MP3 really loud from age 12-13 to 22. I always used cheap earplugs so the noise probably was not extremely loud (I couldnt hear others talk through it but I could hear noisy street traffic and the vacuum cleaner above it). Since the 16th of November in 2013 I started noticing a ringing in both my ears In the beginning both of my ears were occasionally locked, but that passed over time. Ironically, a month earlier I had quit listening to my MP3 and thrown it away. I was hoping that it would pass but it didnt. In Estonia the medical system is not so great - so far I have only managed to visit my GP. She told my that it was probably from stress (I did have a very stressful year with many other health problems (unrelated to tinnitus) and I tend to be a very anxious person) and it would probably pass on its own. Also, she said that noise-induced hearing loss does not come that fast. Based on the information I gathered online I feel that it is probably from excessive noise. I have therefore made an appointment with an ENT and will also try to visit and auditologist.
The good thing is that I can only hear my tinnitus in the quiet. When I walk on the street, spend time with my friends or watch TV I do not notice it. In the beginning I had trouble realizing where it came from, unfortunately by now I have trained out my brain to recognize it very fast. I cant really say that right now the T itsself is bothering me. It is mainly the thoughts and anxiety. When I listened to loud music at home my parents always told me not to do that since I would ruin my hearing but I told them I didnt care. Now I see that life is difficult anyway and that I was willing to exchange my healthy ears to 10 years of pleasure from loud music. I feel as if I have ruined my life and keep having anxious thoughts about my future and career. I realize that these thought arent making it better and I would therefore like to find a little support and advice on how to cope with an incurable condition.

Hope I didnt bring anyone down.

 

I am so low nothing can bring me down.

 

Hello

Im glad you replied so fast. I would like to know about whether noise-induced tinnitus is always permanent or not? I read online that in most cases it is but are there some cases where people have actually healed?

Also, what is your story and how have you tried to get your tinnitus under control?

 

I feel sorry that in your case Tinnitus developed so fast. But you must be very brave since you accepted it and are able to live with it.
I hope that in my case it is simply the shock and the knowledge that I myself caused it that gives me negative thoughts. I have tried to think about people who have it worse than me - e.g Hawkins, Beethoven (who, in fact, suffered from otosclerosis). I believe that perhaps with some therapy and treatment it might get better over time.
I will definitely try to keep myself occupied and look into some research. I recently read that there are several groups of scientists who are trying to find a more efficient cure for tinnitus. Could be that in 10-15 years it is already available.

 

I largely believe once you gain control over your anxiety, stress, or depression related to tinnitus you'll habituate in no time. That means that you will not hear tinnitus unless you consciously think to yourself, "Ok...time to listen for tinnitus."

The good news is that over 75% of people that experience tinnitus habituate to it. So the odds are in your favor. For instance, I read on reddit a guy had tinnitus, he could hear it over the shower, and he habituated to it and for over 16 years he more or less forgot he even had it.

I can relate to the headphones because I too abused my ears through them, then factor in the guitar and a band. I didn't think it was that loud but it was. For instance, I have moderate hearing loss at high frequencies it's the worst at 4k it was about 50 db there. The good thing is now I know and stopped and protect my ears. I'm hoping I can get 30 years from now before that 50 turns into a 70 or 80.

As for your tinnitus the best thing you can do is to stop monitoring it and looking for it. Keep busy, avoid quiet if you have too. The sooner you keep busy the sooner you'll forget it, the sooner you forget it, the sooner you can habituate.

Your future and career look bright.

 

Hello NeoM! Thank you very much for the reply. It seems to me that you have habituated yourself?
As mentioned before, for me it is probably the quilt of greating a stupid problem for myself that stopps me from getting better. But I havent had T for that long and hopefully will habituate to it.
How long did you play in a band?
I also have another question about hearing loss. I realize that quite many T sufferers have no measurable hearing loss, also some people who have listened to loud music have no measurable hearing loss. Lets say if my hearing is perfectly fine (which i highly doubt) could the T be still caused by loud music and the audiogram simply does not measure it? Also, I realize that most audiograms dont measure the hearing above 8000 and 15000 hz - could it be that I have loss in higher frequencies?
All the best
Anna

 

Well, first off, there are two habituations.

1) Habituation of Reaction and 2) Habituation of Perception.

Habituation of reaction is where you hear your tinnitus and it doesn't bother you, i.e. it's like hearing traffic noise or the refrigerator running. Habituation of Perception is where you cannot hear your tinnitus unless you intentionally focus on it.

Once habituation of reaction is achieved at a sufficient level then over time it will lead into a habituation of perception. So when I use the term 'habituation' I'm talking about the whole process which leads to habituation of perception. I know some people use the term 'habituation' to only mean habituation of reaction.

For instance, from a Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT) book I have, they give a statistic that...

"Notably, more than three-quarters of people who experience tinnitus can naturally habituate to it (Davis & El Refaie, 2000; McFadden, 1982)."

and they define natural habituation as....

"Individuals who naturally habituate are unaware of the presence of tinnitus, except at times when they consciously focus their attention on it."

So as I stated before, the odds are in your favor.

I have not achieved habituation yet. However, my emotional reaction is way down to it 10 weeks in. I'm very optimistic that I will probably achieve habituation within 6-12 months. I also have hyperacusis which is more annoying than tinnitus and the hyperacusis is improving also.

About a year-ish in the band, but the practices where worse because the sound just bounced off the walls.

Yeah, there's speculation that people with tinnitus and normal audiograms with no hearing loss have hearing loss that is above 8k. However, If you want to read about that I recommend checking out http://hearinghealthfoundation.org/cure_for_tinnitus that explains it better than I would, but it's just a conjecture and not demonstrated though. Maybe once hair cell regeneration becomes possible we will know for sure. It's tricky because just because someone does have hearing loss does not mean they have tinnitus. For instance, from the same TRT book, "In 1995, Hazell, McKinney & Aleksy found that 27% of 800 patients awaiting cochlear implantation had never experienced tinnitus."

Also there are treatments available if you have a hard time habituating like TRT and neuromonics and of course and future treatments.

 

Be sure, you have some hearing loss. Tinnitus (in your case) is symptom of damaged hair cells. Maybe you have lesions between 4000-5000 Hz (for example, i have lesions around 4200 Hz and between 12-13 Khz). My audiogram looks good on paper, but i know, that my heaing is not as good than before my loud accident in garage. I can feel it. You can check your hearing on this site: http://www.onlinetonegenerator.com/hearingtest.html (Firefox needed to play) , but be sure, your sound in computer is set to low volume!!!

 

Hello! I didnt notice any hearing loss up about 13000-14000 kHz. Could be that I have hearing loss but i think it has also to do with my computers speakers since they are not very powerful and doesnt play very high volumes Unfortuately i can not hear my own loss aswell. I have some difficult hearing for example in a very noisy street or when someone speaks unclearly but i think it was always that was. I hink I will wait till my audiogram comes. How do you feel that your hearing has become worse?

 

I use good earphones and after acustic trauma, i noticed, than music lost its quality. I hear music at low level volume and i have to change settings of equalizer. Understanding of speech worsened. I should more often ask to repeat sentences, if someone talks to me. Hyperacusis - i cant drive my car without earplugs, because road noise of tyres induces pain (but this improves)

Maybe your hearing loss is without lesions, because you receive dangerous decibels gradually, not like me - instant big punch in one time (it was like machinegun fire).

Healty adult person can hear 20 - 16 000 Hz (someone up to 20 000Hz).

Sorry for my english :/

Try link above with good quality earphones and set your sound volume to very low. Than listen carefully. If you have not lesions, its good.

 

Yes. I have bad quality earphones as well unfortunately But I can here everything till 10 000. I think I might have some loss in upper registers. I have noticed that I have have difficult hearing right next to a very noisy street (up to 85-90 db street) but that could have always been that way. Otherwise I havent really noticed any hearing loss. I here music fine, also I went to the opera recently - everything was clear. At night I can hear my cat wlaking and clock ticking ( also some very stupid birds flapping behind my window). But it could be that I have some sort of less still...

 

Also, I think it is very difficult to evaluate the hearing online - depends too much on the computer.

 

Don't waste your time with online hearing tests. I used one that supposedly allows you to calibrate it for correct measurements and then when I had an official one it turns out that the online was off by 20-30 db in some frequencies (which was most of them).

 

hhaha. I also think so I also dont see it as a problem because I dont really have trouble hearing. Actually I recently read online that online hearing test are a bit dangerous because some geniuses actually buy hearing aids because of them althought they dont really need them (have no idea how it is legal to sell hearing aids online)

 

I don't understand why anyone would buy hearing aids without getting a legit hearing test.

I think you'll be fine. I suspect if you do have any it would be the classic V shape with 4k (I think that's the frequency) being the worst and your lower frequencies being fine. Let us know how you do.

 

Hello dearsjust wanted to let you know that I had an audiogram made an my ears checked and apart from freakishly small earcanals everything seems normal Actually the doctor said that the hearing is "perfect" (most around 10db , some 5 if i read it correctly). Since I had a quite bad year (a lot of extreme stress and physical trauma) the doctor thought that it could be a reaction to stress. So im receiving 0,5 mg Xanax for 30 days and smth called the eardrum massage (it is spposed to make my eardrum more flexible or smth). Anyways.. Ill see how it works I have actually noticed that when I speak about sensitive topics my Tinnitus gets louder so perhaps it could be stress induced or smth.. but I shall see

 

Still it's nice to know your hearing is perfect.

 

true that.. well we shall see) anyone else ever got this massage thing?

 

Hi Stina,

Since you have no hearing loss, there is comparatiely high posibility for your recovery. Just avoid loud noise, get good sleep and relax, it may need some time, months maybe. And you T is at a manageable level, so just avoid a total quite environment. It will be okay, I have confidence in your recovery

 

thank you Aaron (also maybe some wine will help ) How is your T today??

 

Haha, I am in the 19th months now, and hearing loss 10db at 4K, so my mindset is live with it anyway. That is not easy, I only got this mindset recently, like 1 or 2 months ago.

I slept about 9 hours last night, today is a good day. I enjoyed a moive by Anne Hathaway today, the name is "One day", a great movie which bring my happy memory back in Edinburgh, London and Paris. I forgot T totally in the 110 minutes, and rethink about the meaning of love and life, very happy today, T is at 2, now maybe 3, but it's okay.

Red wine could help your blood circulation, in some case will help T.

Your T is low if you could forgot it when you watch TV, mine is more severe, but still manageable, so be optimistic!

I am talking to Neenie that I would like to travel around the world to meet each member here on TT, last time when I traveled in Helsinky I nearly went to Tallinn but had no time, I think Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia, right? Hope I could come in some day. I have been to 26 countries now, I plan to let the number increase faster than my age, I am 26 this year.

 

Yes its true, Tartu is 2nd biggest city! You have a vast knowledge of geography) Its is obviously nice to travel and t is also nice to do it according to your age Maybe I should also watch that movie then)
Im thinking that if your ringing has gone down recently then perhaps it shall continue resting and travelling will certainly help!

 

Just be careful that passing with success the ENT hearing test(very basic) doesn't mean you have perfect hearing, none of us do and neither do you.

standard audigram are something i believe from the sixties and will detect hearing losses in only severe cases, the classic ski slope at 4-6 khz.

 

Yeah I dont think she thought that I have absolute hearing, just that I hear perfectly normally for my age and the audigram doesnt detect loss. The audigram indeed is not perfect but since many T patients have hearings loss according to this audiogram it is nice to knwo still that at least according to that my hearing is ok

 

yes i do agree, i really pity the poor ones who have a ski slope or cookie bite on a standard audiogram

 

Because the education here in China is awful, we have to memory all the capital cities of the main countries, I have big interest in geography, so memorized about 100 capital cities and some other important cities, especially European countries, cause I used to study in Mannheim, Germany, at that time I traveled a lot around Europe.

Yeah, the movie is great, a love story last 20 years, very nice scenes in Edinburgh, London and Paris, all are my happy memories for me as well.

I just think keep this level is okay, the T is quite low these days, I have found what my Mr. T need, good sleep and relax, so I will give him and observe if it will continue, if works, then maybe I will habituate quickly

 

Mine at 4k

 

Yeah at least you can visit them I hope your T will stay on a reasonable level As long as you dont have major difficulties hearing it probably isnt a problem as well