Tinnitus....aaaargh!

[Pinkknickers]

For the past week or so, I've had a constant quiet ringing in my head. During the day I don't notice it as I'm busy and there is general noise but at night when it's quiet, it's very annoying. Saw my GP today who says hopefully it will just go away but has referred me for a hearing test. A couple of weeks ago I had 2 episodes where everything sounded robotic but thankfully this particular symptom has not returned. Does anyone here suffer with Tinnitus? I have been very stressed and anxious lately and I know this can be a cause.

If you have the answer, you really should let the NHS know so that they can spread your wisdom.
Oh, don't worry,
it was my NHS ENT consultant who explained it to me

Mine explained it to me too but never mentioned this. Nor did the second ent consultant I saw when I had glue ear a couple of years later.
They only offered advice on coping with it, but did not tell me there was a cure. I'd be interested to hear about it.

Reading with interest as I've been suffering constant tinnitus and partial deafness in one ear for two months now!

mineofuseless
There is no cure.
There is only a greater level of control - as I typed very clearly.
The physical feedback techniques work really well.
Rather than getting snippy, try them.

I'd love to be able to control mine - sometimes it nearly drives me to tears when it's particularly invasive.
As I said, I'd be interested to hear about it, or if you have any weblinks with info?

Following with interest.
I've developed tinnitus in the last month and am waiting for my appointment with my GP.
Have done some googling (as you do). I think it's either teeth or jaw related. I noticed that when I put some bonjela on the gum by my wisdom tooth it stopped for a while.

mineof
lifehacker.com/this-weird-trick-might-give-you-brief-relief-from-your-1794093023
counteracted by
www.tinnitus.org.uk/mindfulness-for-tinnitus
offset by
www.hearinglink.org/news/201807/mindfulness-for-tinnitus/
add in
www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/rsna/69549

The point is that the noise IS THERE for EVERYBODY
but most people's brains edit it out
ours no longer do
so all we can do is request that they do as much as possible

I've had tinnitus for 34 years. You get used to it. It keeps me awake maybe a couple of nights a year now, for an hour max.
Don't try those tips to temporarily stop it as it will be more distracting when it comes back.

sylvie
I've had it for over 30 years too
but getting a week off when I need it is worth it to me

I have constant tinnitus, OP. It arrived out of the blue one morning back in 2013 - actually it was August 2013 - and at first I was so freaked out and panicked I didn’t think I would EVER cope and prayed desperately for it to go away.

I was referred for hearing tests and they did an MRI but could find no cause. Sometimes it’s just idiopathic.

For months I was deeply depressed and researched everything I could on the internet which kind of didn’t help because it was mostly people saying how awful it was which just reinforced my own fear of it.

I saw a specialist and he helped me come to terms with it. The trick is not to despair of it or fear it but learn to accept it in order to habituate, at which point although it’s still there you stop ‘hearing’ it most of the time.

Yours may go, or it may not. Some people’s comes and goes depending how stressed they are. Mine is a constant.

But just to give you hope, I was actually suicidal about mine when I got it. It’s now 5 years later (ffs how time flies) and although occasionally it might get me down a little, mostly I don’t even notice it’s there.

Except now it’s very loud because I’m talking about it so I’m thinking about it!

I'll look into those, thank you.
I'd love to have a day or even a few hours without it - I haven't for somewhere around twenty years.

mineof
I'd love to have a day or even a few hours without it
Yup
I can get a half day off or a quiet evening
and its wonderful
start with five minutes and build up but it DOES work
and its bliss
also, mentally knowing that it can be "paused" makes the loud days easier to cope with

I'm not sure I understand "the noise IS THERE for EVERYBODY but most people's brains edit it out"

I get tinnitus only when I have a head cold. Why do I then presumably lose the ability to edit it out only when I have a cold?

science
Your auditory nerve takes in every sound
but your brain processing blots out all but the useful stuff
with tinnitus, that filter is weakened

a comparison is autism
many autistics are overwhelmed because their brain filter that sorts out useless noise is weakened

when you have a cold, mucus makes all noises resonate more around the skull
for non tinnitus people it goes loud till the mucus clears and then goes away
for tinnitus people the mucus makes the normal noises harder to filter out

OP, I have bilateral sensorineural mid frequency hearing loss. It affects your ability to hear voices in particular, so you may struggle to follow conversations - particularly in busy places. I also used to mishear song words all the time. If your hearing at high and low frequencies is normal the hearing chart will look like someone has taken a bite out of a cookie, so it's often known as cookie bite hearing loss. It's normally genetic, but you may not realise you have it until you're older. It's a fairly rare type of loss, but open dome digital hearing aids can help a lot. They can be difficult to program for this tyoe of loss, but the audiologist successfully did mine.

Jonathan Hazell reckons he can cure tinnitus. I just looked him up and see he has retired but his work carries on:

tinnitus.org/tinnitus/

@pinkknickers this is an old thread and i just wondered how things were now? Someone in my family has something similar from the sound of it

Tinnitus is a bit curious and can apparently be caused by a number of things. Ive read that stress can be a driver for it as well as the usual suspects like hearing damage,certain meds etc.

Now i had an audiology test a while back. Previously ive had these tests and ive been shut in a soundproof booth that was so quiet you dare not move because you could hear your bones creak !

This time i was just sat in a quiet room. My immediate thoughts were, how can i hope to hear everything when there is ambient noise? The other thing of course is,,,how can i hope to hear low volume high frequency noises that the test machine makes when they are being masked by the high frequency tinnitus tone?

I dont think i have hearing damage as i am not a loud noise person. But i do think there is a growing epidemic of potential hearing loss in society as everything is getting louder.

I have two apps i can recommend;

1)Decibel ultra ,a free and very good sound level meter
2)Soundprint- a new app for reviewing noisy social environments eg pubs,restaurants ,clubs etc

The threshold for potential hearing damage is 80db.

The db scale is logarithmic but with that in mind, you can sit in a very quiet room and yet be lucky to record less than 30db ambient noise. Go in many restaurants and bars when moderately busy and they will be close to or exceeding 80db.

As for live music,i went in a pub not long ago and there was a local band playing. I recorded over 100 db, turned and left everyone else to risk permanent damage to their hearing.

Quietness really is a scarce commodity these days..