What Defines Mild, Normal, or Severe Tinnitus?

What are the decibel levels required to make every step? Like how many decibels required to mask is mild, normal, or severe?

 

Nobody?

 

This is a question that is very hard to answer. As you probably already know, Tinnitus is very subjective and varies wildly from person to person. Your best bet would be to go to an audiologist amd get the pitch matched. They will try to mask it after and that should give you a pretty good figure. Mine came out around 25db. To me it seems awful but others might consider this as nothing. I just don’t know.

 

I think that's very close to mine actually. Where can and can't you hear your tinnitus in public?

 

Almost never in public. It’s only an issue at home when I’m surrounded by silence or in a room with quiet ambient noise. Do you know if you have hearing loss with yours? Mine barely shows up on the test but it feels like I’ve lost 10-15% overall. Soft sounds are even worse. Maybe a 50% reduction. It annoys me beyond words.

 

Oh wow my tinnitus is worse than that. I can hear it in public. I have no hearing loss. Do you hear it in libraries?

 

Have to admit, haven’t gone to a library in a while. I usually just buy my books and keep them for my collection after I’m done. My Half-Price Books can get pretty quiet so yes. Just barely. Mine is more of a hiss though. I guess if you have a pure tone, it might be more noticeable.

 

Yeah mines a hiss too. I can barely hear it in a library. I think it's because my tinnitus is reactive. I did some experimenting and I think my tinnitus is 24dB.

 

If you can barely hear it in a library then it's mild imo.

 

It used to be so much louder. But now it's super reactive. It's louder in a 31 dBA room then it is in that same room, wearing earplugs.

BTW I just checked. My library is 40dB right now.

 

For example, this would not be considered even to "SUFFER" Tinnitus in my opinion. This is why it's so difficult to measure, is so subjective.

My opinion:

You can barely hear it in a Library: Very mild (not even suffering Tinnitus in my opinion)
You can hear it always in quite places: Mild
You can hear it in most places, in traffic, restaurants, while talking, inside of an airplane: Moderate (I have this level)
It is so loud, just compared with alarms, horns, turbines, etc: Severe (very, very few people suffer from this kind of level).


Between all this measures, you would find hundreds of different middle levels, depending of many factores like your health, anxiety, stress, habituation, etc.

Regards!

 

That doesn't make much sense. I definitely suffer some tinnitus, and I have a hard time hearing it in a library. I think at best, that's just Mild. Libraries are louder than you think. Also I can hear it in traffic.

 

Well, you are right about that, EVERYONE could SUFFER from Tinnitus, maybe I did not found the correct word.

But, remember that you can "SUFFER" from almost everything... pain, love, etc, even when it is not that big.

If your T can only be heard barely inside of a Library, I would say your problem is immensely more related with anxiety, I would suggest to go to talk with professionals and you will be ok...even better, this anxiety could be bringing other stress problems that you should also take care of.

The best for you,

PS: Yes, so annoying when Libraries are that LOUD... those are supposed to study and to be quite. College ones, in my experience, are the most quite libraries you would find.

 

Do you even know what you're talking about? Yes, that's tinnitus, I'd even consider it maybe lower moderate. My tinnitus is also reactive. Really any tinnitus that can be heard easy in a quiet environment is mild and sufferable. My problem is 100x more tinnitus than anxiety.

 

This is why is SO difficult to measure Tinnitus, because it deppends in personal experiences.

For example, I can hear my T inside of a loud big airplane... and my measures start from there.

But, at the end, I believe just SEVERE Tinnitus is so hard to habituate. From moderate to down, you could have very good outcomes while working in your habituation, stress, anxiety, etc.

 

Have an ear specialists checked your ears? Reactive is related with Hyperacusis (sometimes), and hyperacusis sometimes is related with ear irritation.

I have also hyperacusis (that goes from big to small, deppending the situations, and can take months in one level or the other).

When I get very sensitive ears (ex. when I catch a cold, stress, anxiety, ear irriation because of mi kids screaming) my H goes to the roof.

 

Interesting. I never thought of that. How do you know if it's associated with hyperacusis?

 

My T is 24 decibel

 

That's interesting. What can you hear it over?

 

i can hear it over when people speak soft or over my sound machine

 

Weird I can't hear it over those.

 

How do you measure that?

 

My minimum masking level is 75dB consistently. It sucks massively.

 

I was diagnosed with severe tinnitus and was measured at 85 dB and high pitched on my left side. Life can be hell if you allow it to be.

 

How would they diagnose that? Did they have a chart of ratings?

Have to disagree with your profile picture. I treat animals extremely well but I can't stand people.

 

threefirefour,
The audiologist & I determined my tinnitus pitch then raised the dB level until it reached my volume.

 

That's what I did with me. I could mask it at 34 dBA. Then I did some math to see how loud it was.

 

That’s pretty extreme. Do you have hearing loss that matches that level? Mine doesn’t really shows up on tests and yet I’m stuck with about 25db.

 

My tinnitus would be masked easily if it wasn't for it's reactiveness (which is probably mild hyperacusis) that plays an annoying high pitch droning noise when trying to be masked by white noise.

 

An answer to that can only really be subjective.