Tinnitis?

[Namekogan]

This is new to me, been going on about a month. Anybody out there also have it ? Can anything be done to stop it or diminish it? It's so high-pitched & constant I thought my dog would start barking...

[Popeye]

vit b5

[Vince Brennan]

Go see an audiologist, but don't hold out to much hope on it... it's usually an inner-ear thing or audiologic nerve damage (mine). It'll drive you bonkers at first... but if it's not real serious, you actually learn to live with it. Mine's a whistling sound that occasionally goes to "white" noise.... I'm useless at cocktail parties or in a restaurant, 'cos I can't hear conversations worth squat. Had it since I was in my 20's... made dating a real tough proposition!

[SchoonerRat]

Hold on to hope! It comes and goes with me; mostly goes, but sometimes loud enough to drive me nuts (admittedly a very short drive).

[Rigadog]

I've had it a while, gotten used to it, almost forgot I had it until you reminded me. Damn.

[Eric D]

Go see an audiologist!

That is the best advice. Then, after they are done checking out your ears, they will know from that if you need further intervention or perhaps surgery/hearing aids/medications.

This can be from a variety of causes as simple as exposure to loud noise that MAY or may not resolve over time, to infections, to cancer. PLEASE don't screw around and just blame your youthful indescretions with your hearing. Have professionals look at the issue. I have had some sad cases in my practice where they did not have it checked and bad things came from it.

[Todd Bradshaw]

I occasionally had short (maybe ten to fifteen second) bursts of it for as long as I can remember and then about eight years ago after spending an afternoon doing kayak rolls I got one and it's never gone away. When my doctor checked it out I told him that I hang upside-down in kayaks and own ten electric guitars and his reply was "go figure", but at least he was pretty well convinced that it wasn't going to kill me. It varies in loudness, but is nearly always there and audible over everything else. The note is a very high "D" and I can actually tune my guitars to it. It is in stereo, centered about 60%-70% off to the left and the pitch occasionally wobbles a little bit if the two sides aren't in perfect agreement with each other, which is annoying to a musician.

We stuck the old band back together last month after 30 years to play a 90 minute set at a reunion festival and at one point when we were on stage during the show with four guitars, bass, an electric piano and six vocal mics all running and also being sent through the PA system and monitors, I realized that I could still hear the squeel on top of all that stuff! If I take a hot shower it will go away for about 20 minutes and if I take a nap, it's loud as hell when I wake up. In general, after eight years I'm used to it and can pretty much ignore it most of the time.

[JBreeze]

Did you begin taking a new prescription or non-prescription drug 6 months ago?

Tinnitus is a side effect of many drugs.

[elf]

A lifetime of listening to classical music and my ears ring all the time. The R one went earlier than the left, about 6 years ago, but both are constantly noisy. There's no specific pitch and I've never listening to noisy music or worn headphones. Neither of my parents lost their hearing.

PITA

[Ian McColgin]

Mine started when I blew my left eardrum at age 12 doing a free dive to 40'. Oh yeah, I had an ear infection and was not allowed to swim. Breaking the other eardrum at least gave me stereo.

Worth learning the cause to be sure that, as one physician I had who'd emigrated from Hungary put it, "isss not more zinisster." If it's just from damage, you'll learn to live with it.

G'luck

[peb]

I have it bad in left ear, not so bad in right ear. For most of my adult life it was off and on. Since a plane ride back from England in 2000 when I had a bad cold and could not pop my ears, it has been non-stop.
It really screws up listening to conversation on the TV. It is always there, most of the time if I am not thinking about it, my mind seems to block it out. And then someone/something reminds me, thanks a lot for the thread
I am pretty sure it originated from working around large industrial, non-muffler engines as a kid and from a some bird hunting without ear protection.
Oh, and it gets worse if I am out sailing in high winds. Can't figure that out, but it is always louder than the wind.

[Ian McColgin]

Louder in the wind is no doubt a sort of flute effect of the breeze rolling about the empty space between the ears.

HehHehHeh

[dmede]

had it my whole life. usually can't notice during the day unless I stop to listen to it. Occasionally gets louder in one ear and may even lose hearing for a few seconds. Things like dehydration, alcohol and caffeine effect it. No known 'cure'. But having a baseline hearing test taken so you can monitor it is a good idea. Something I need to do myself.

[PeterSibley]

Low level in my left ear .Usually I forget about it ...........sometimes it arrives with a vengence but usually it's OK .I used to think it was from power tools but my mum got it at the same age and has never had any loud noise exposure .

Watching the ebb and flow of hers over the years , I'd say that lowering your blood pressure helps .It doesn't make it go away but it whenever she has been able to get it down life improved .When it was high things got quite unpleasant .
Mine is 115 over 70 and I'm going to keep it there .

[Rigadog]

At least it drowns out those voices in my head...

[skuthorp]

Try a foil helmet...............
Seriously, some white noise types can literally be cancelled by a device like a hearing aid that broadcasts the noise back and they cancel each other out. Heard about it some years ago but don't have time to search for a link.

[PeterSibley]

In other words , leave the radio on .

[Pernicious Atavist]

Yup, got it. Jet engines--'the sound of freedom,' did it for me. Sounds like crickets, etc. at night. Never goes away for me and sometimes gets so loud...arghhhh....

[Woxbox]

I've had it for years. When its quiet, I notice it. Othwise the brain tunes it out.

Todd, it never crossed my mind to check the pitch. So of course I had to. I'm stuck at C#. Wonder where that comes from, and is it reliable enough to tune a guitar? (Perfect pitch, me? No way, just a built-in tuner. )

[Shang]

The man in the white coat said,
"Look at the bright side... your high-fidelity sound system will sound better, and it won't cost you anything..."

Serusly... you'll get used to it. It's like living near a waterfall, you only hear it when you think about it.

[Todd Bradshaw]

Wox, mine seems to be a very consistent D. I just have to take a few seconds and zero in on it and then mentally bring it down a couple of octaves. Then I'm all set to start a verse of "Mr. Tamborine Man" or "Turn, Turn, Turn". It's quite annoying when I'm mixing recordings because it covers up low-level noise. I have to have somebody else listen to the mix and see if it's truly clean in the quiet parts because I can't tell.

At times, the sound (or the sonic confusion that it causes)will also blend with or muddy other low-level sounds and it actually does sound kind of like muffled voices. I've wondered if some of the crazies who claim they hear voices telling them to do things might at least to some extent be suffering from the same problem. Maybe their mental state fills in the blanks and turns it into real words. In my case, I suppose all mine would say if I could understand them is something like "it's not smooth enough, go back to 220 grit and start over" or "feed your dog".

I seem to have also picked up a couple other interesting part-time symptoms. Once in a while I get what I call "Tape Recorder Ears". When you listen to a recording made in a busy room, you hear a lot of things that your brain would have filtered out and which you would not have been aware of. Sometimes I'll go into a place like a supermarket and it seems like I can hear every noise in the whole store - every cart going over every crack in the tile floor, etc. The result is kind of a loud roar that makes it hard to hear anything that you actually want to hear. Luckily, this one doesn't usually last more than a half-hour or so.

I only notice the other symptom when kayaking. Some days I'm fine and some days it seems like almost all of my stability reference comes from my eyes and watching the horizon. If I would close my eyes, I'd be over in a heartbeat as my internal gyro seems to have good days and bad days. We like to go for early morning shoreline paddles on Lake Superior when we're up that way. The water is usually smooth with small swells, maybe a foot tall and the way a good boat glides over the water on a quiet morning is pure joy. We cruise along watching the rocks and big ripples on the sand bottom, sliding along the cliffs and it's absolutely wonderful paddling. By 9:00 AM, we're usually done and back on shore, refreshed and ready to take on the day. However, twelve hours later, if I sit down at my computer, the screen will be going back and forth like the swells were. I never had any of these things happen during the first 30 years of my kayaking career, but seem to have picked them up at the same time that my ears started ringing. I guess if you're going to get strange ailments as you get old, they should at least be inetresting....

[kharee]

An old man once told me it had something to do with high blood pressure. After a man gets a certain age he needs to have a fertile woman around. Absorbing the female hormones will lower the blood pressure and stop the ringing. Similar to the male refractory period after sex.

[coelacanth2]

Occasionally a side effect of temporomandibular joint dysfunction as well, esp. if the jaw joints are displaced posteriorly into the auditory canal. Some of my patients have had significant reductions in symptoms after TMJ therapy.

[Gary E]

Yeah... I have it.. for a long time too...
It helps to have another noise going to try to divert my attention ... therefore the Tv is on when I'm trading...

Just saw a commercial about it... the upshot was a drug avaible no prescription required... lipo Flavinoid or something... (the tv is really only a distraction, I dont pay much attention to it, so, maybe I have the spelling wrong)

[Mrleft8]

Huh?
Yup been there done that. Woodworking machines and the firm belief that I was different from all the older guys who told me to wear ear protection.... I have the "Museum security system", as well as the "crickets"... In loud crowded places (Airports notably) all I really hear is a roaring kinda buzz....Like a waterfall. Almost missed several flights because of this. I now ask the gate agents to inform me manually. ("Whack me on the back of the head when you're about to start boarding please.....I can't hear.")

[Shang]

An old man once told me it had something to do with high blood pressure. After a man gets a certain age he needs to have a fertile woman around. Absorbing the female hormones will lower the blood pressure and stop the ringing. Similar to the male refractory period after sex.

Naugh... that doesn't seem to help, at least not the tinnitis.
But in the interest of scientific progress I'll continue the investigation...

[blacksmith]

Try ginko biloba . It's a herbal that's advertised as an aid to increased mental ability, but as a vasodilator, it does help in some cases to diminish tinnits. SWMBO and I, both in our 70's ,experience tinnits,and ginko does help. No side affects, and our doctors say if it helps, go for it.

[Clencher]

Peb's description: "I have it bad in left ear, not so bad in right ear......It really screws up listening to conversation on the TV. It is always there, most of the time if I am not thinking about it, my mind seems to block it out. And then someone/something reminds me, thanks a lot for the thread
I am pretty sure it originated from working around large industrial, non-muffler engines as a kid and from a some bird hunting without ear protection. " is identical to my tinnitus. It's a hissing sound like a high pressure water leak, or the old gas lamps at home when I was a kid. Partial deafness also comes with it and I have a digital hearing aid for my left ear which makes conversation easier to understand since it amplifies the voices but not the tinnitus.

[JimD]

[JimD]

I've had it since I was 13, I think I'd go nuts if it went away.

Only about the last 15 years for me. I miss moments of absolute quiet.

[Art Haberland]

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[JimD]

Sorry you suffer from it.

Mine is not bad at all. It's the hissing variety, in sync with my pulse, so maybe the ears picking up on the carotid artery or something like that. The doc says my head is not about to explode from it and much of the time I don't notice it. But when meditating, or in a quiet place, it's all I can here - hiss, hiss, hiss...

[The Q]

Luckily I don't have tinnitus, I have very sensitive hearing.
Having my hearing tested in a sound proofed box, I complained I could have done better but I could hear them discussing the cricket outside. That somewhat astonished them, as I worked near jet engines.

However that sensitivity has meant I've always worn good ear protection , therefore Ive never enjoyed amplified live music or disco's it's just physically too painful. At events where there is music such as company Christmas dinners I have to have at least the rubber in ear ear plugs.
Late at night I can often hear my pulse, the whine from led lighting supplies and other annoying things to keep me awake.

[JimD]

I'm at least half deaf in one ear but 'hear' the tinnitus equally in both.

[Art Haberland]

Luckily I don't have tinnitus, I have very sensitive hearing.
Having my hearing tested in a sound proofed box, I complained I could have done better but I could hear them discussing the cricket outside. That somewhat astonished them, as I worked near jet engines.

However that sensitivity has meant I've always worn good ear protection , therefore Ive never enjoyed amplified live music or disco's it's just physically too painful. At events where there is music such as company Christmas dinners I have to have at least the rubber in ear ear plugs.
Late at night I can often hear my pulse, the whine from led lighting supplies and other annoying things to keep me awake.

I am with you there. At age 50, I was told I have excellent hearing, for an 18 year old. I work in the music industry, I always wear ear protection.