Does anyone else have tinnitus?

[IfyouseeRitaMoreno]

About a month ago my (helmeted) head had a collision with the pavement. For a while I suffered neck ache but that luckily went, only to leave me with goddamn tinnitus.

The Doc said my jaw muscle is in spasm and gave me exercises to do which I've been doing religiously. It helps during the day but when I wake up in the morning it's ringing like crazy and starting to drive me slightly nuts..the only silver lining is that it makes me get up quickly and go out for a walk where the outside sounds mask it somewhat.

Does anyone have any advice? Does it ever go? Or do I have to suck it up? I tried meditation in a bid for philosophical acceptance but of of course, when it's quiet you just hear it more!

Thanks MNers in advance for any wisdom you may have.

I’ve had tinnitus since 2001when I was rear-ended at high speed & got whiplash. I’ve had every kind of test including two brain scans, absolutely nothing has worked. I saw a doctor in France who, unlike the UK doctors, prescribed various drugs to address it. They worked to some extent, but only changed the pitch. I always find that travel (plane, train, boat, car) makes it worse, stress & tiredness also, plus it gets louder when I’m under the weather. Other medications can also make it worse. You do learn to live with it, but I don’t follow the advice ‘Have music/Radio/sound machine in the background’ because I hate constant noise and enjoy being quiet. I was offered ‘exercises’ but didn’t take this up as I didn’t have time. I only think about it now when it’s mentioned, it’s become normal now & my brain doesn’t draw my attention to it, if that makes sense. I do avoid loud noises eg speakers, fire alarms etc as these obv trigger it. Hope this helps.

I have long term tinnitus, I have moderate hearing loss which increases risk of tinnitus, unfortunately there is no known cure, I live with it,like above poster it is worse when I am tired, sometimes it causes sleep difficulties, how I have accepted I have it, it bothers me less, some noise resonant at same frequences and they make it worse, so lots of music actually hurts my ears, background music is my pet hate for 2 reasons, it stops me hearing in the first place and then makes my tinnitus worse which then makes hearing even harder, also most hearing aids struggle to filter out background noise, which with natural hearing you can just tune out

If yours was caused by trauma it will hopefully improve but ultimately though mine is pretty constant if I think about it it doesn't much bother me except when combined with back ground music or it wakes me at 5am and I can't get back to sleep,

Unfortunately people can often be quite selfish about switching noise off they think their love of noise music trump's my need for it to be off in order to hear, sometimes I have to point out that switching background music off is a reasonable adjustment any business can make and therefore they should do so when asked otherwise it's disability discrimination, this may not apply in a shop but it certainly would in an office or where hearing the customer client patient is important. So if it's bad, not feel you have to suffer in silence you can ask for work noise to be minimised.

I have had tinnitus for years - high pitched whistle. I think there must be varying degrees, as I can usually ignore it, but I knew of someone who retired early because of it, and also heard of someone who committed suicide because of it.

I’ve had it around 5 years. I have to play white noise on my iPad at night to drown the high pitched noise out so I can sleep. Sometimes it’s louder than others but you just have to try and focus on other things so that you are not paying it any attention. If you focus on the noise it will drive you crazy. Basically I always have background noise-TV, Radio, washing machine- going on so that I am not just listening to the ringing in my ears. It’s actually particularly bad this morning for some reason so I’m going to mow the laws, that will drown it out!

I've had tinnitus since I was a child, following a bout of meningitis which also damaged my hearing. I actually didn't know I had tinnitus until I was an adult. I assumed, because I suppose I was very young and one has no comparators for things like sight and hearing, that everyone heard a weird whistling whooshing noise.

I had a tinnitus masker for a while, but it didn't do much good and I gave it up. My saving grace has been my MP3 player, particularly at night when I'm trying to sleep. If my tinnitus is very loud, the volume of mine varies but I don't know if that's the case for others, I pop my MP3 on quietly and it draws my attention so that I can drift off.

I'd certainly investigate whether you can be helped by technology, things may well have moved on since I was last investigating. I wish I could tell you it will go, but I don't want to give you false information. Good luck.

Thank you so much. Yikes, it seems like I might have to prepare for the long haul and try to cope with it as much as I can.

It's such a niggly thing because whilst I'm not in physical pain with it I'm thinking "god is it always going to be here?".

Thanks for the tips on background noises. I've got an echo dot so I've got some low level white noise going on which helps to a certain extent at night. It's just in the mornings that it's the worse.

Right, I'm just gonna have to find coping ways and train myself to not pay attention to it as I feel like there is nothing I can do. Thank you

A hopeful story for you. I had it for a couple of years and also had problems with hearing. Sometimes it was so loud I couldn't conceive that others couldn't hear it! We think mine was caused by a very stressful situation I was in for a few months. I found having the tv or radio on or concentrating on a task helped. Anyway it culminated in a hideous bout of labrynthitis and then it was gone. I'll occasionally get it but literally for just a few moments.

Sometimes a sound effect will come on TV (BBC drama I'm looking at you) which will give me a bit of a turn but generally I'm fine now.

Charlotte. Thanks that is hopeful. I just have to do my jaw exercises every day I guess (I look really stupid doing them!) and hope it goes away.

Mine started in 1982 after a double ear infection that was very painful.
It's in one ear, and I always like to have background noise. Dh hates that I have the TV on all the time even when not watching it. But it works for me. At night it sounds to me like there are large lorries parked outside my room, with the engines idling. I've learned to pretty much ignore it most of the time, it varies it pitch and volumne.

Had mine for 3 years now, following a failed syringing for hardened wax. Right ear only. Didn't realise i had it til i got the wax removed by microsuction a week later and discovered i had a bit of a hearing loss in that ear. At the time it felt unbearable to live with, the loud hissing like an out of tune radio signal. Cried for weeks. Had an mri to rule out an acoustic neuroma as that can present with one sided hearing loss. Was told the loss may have been from a bit of an ear infection after flu 4 months beforehand. 3 years on and a lot of the time i hardly notice the tinnitus, only aware of it in a quiet room. I def think your brain learns to ignore it, filter it out, during the day especially. Or it simply gets drowned out by the noise of household stuff like kitchen appliances, tv, boiler etc. Think the traffic and train noise where i live helps at night. Weirdly, i use my tinnitus to help me sleep at night if im anywhere quiet. I tell myself it's just the air-con in the swanky hotel i'm staying in on a caribbean island (if only!)

There's also this thing you can do to get a few minutes relief from it. An exercise where you cover your ears with your hands and bang your fingers across the bottom of the back of head for 3 or 4 minutes. It's on you tube, sorry cant link. It is amazing the first time you try it - the tinnitus disappears for a little while (only a few minutes tho) and you hear silence again.