Health Issues Tinnitus

[Rosie1]

Anyone else have this?

From Wiki:

"Tinnitus can be perceived in one or both ears or in the head. It is usually described as a ringing noise, but in some patients, it takes the form of a high-pitched whining, electric buzzing, hissing, humming, tinging or whistling sound, or as ticking, clicking, roaring, "crickets" or "tree frogs" or "locusts (cicadas)", tunes, songs, beeping, sizzling, sounds that slightly resemble human voices or even a pure steady tone like that heard during a hearing test.[3] It has also been described as a "whooshing" sound, as of wind or waves.[4] Tinnitus can be intermittent, or it can be continuous, in which case it can be the cause of great distress."

(the part in bold is how it is for me)
I've probably had it for more than 20-25 years. I'm hearing impaired, and it's pretty common with people who have some hearing loss. Sometimes it's not so bad, I don't even really think about it - like breathing or something; it's just a part of me. But other times? Holy hell. It just does not want to quit.

For instance, lots of times when I am trying to sleep it'll start sounding like muffled voices (no, i'm not crazy ), sometimes 4-5 voices all overlapping. Then other times it's just a weird high-pitched whining pulsing thing. Blargh. Like right now, it's just a dull-ish high-pitched pulsing in my right ear.

I have tried http://simplynoise.com/ on a few occasions, usually the Pink Noise one. It has helped some but not always.

 

[MrsSchu2u]

So sorry! I had a brief bout with it in conjunction with some other health issues I was having at the time. I had the high pitched whining. It was pretty distressing when it came on, and I'm glad it did not become a chronic issue. I have a coworker who has had it more chronically. I know he gets frustrated and irritable when it gets more severe.

 

[Pickle Juice]

Yes I have had it all my life. I sleep with a fan on at night to "drown" it out. Which seems odd. But the noise of the fan is soothing. The tinnitus isn't. It gets a lot worse if I am camping at high altitudes, like over 7000 feet above sea level.

I don't seem to suffer from hearing loss though.

 

[Rosie1]

Yes, I've worn hearing aids since I was 3. I am not quite sure when the tinnitus started, though. I don't remember.
I actually have two fans going right now, the box fan is the loudest. I think it helps a bit during the day, but I don't have that on during the cold months.
At night, I'm sort of stuck because I sleep without my aid in; too uncomfortable otherwise. I wear my big, bulky headphones a lot during the day with a little music in them or something else to help but after a while they really make my ears hurt, pressing against the hearing aid and then pressing against my ear.
I would like to just have a detachable head that I could send in for repair, you know?

 

[Pickle Juice]

I do keep my fan on all year. I just don't aim the breeze at myself when it gets cold.

 

[Lord Snot]

I get a high pitched buzzing sound, kind of electrical... it's hard to describe. It's not very often though and it goes away after a few minutes. Does it have to be a chronic problem to be described as tinnitus?

I can't offer any help though, all I have to do is wait a few minutes for it to go away.

When I was a child, before I'd heard of tinnitus, I naturally assumed it was a sound everyone could hear. I remember some nights hunting around my bedroom with my ear to all the electric equipment, trying to work out where it was coming from. Strangely, it seemed to be the same volume no matter where in the room I was

 

[KLS52]

for Rosie!

 

[AddieB]

Yeah, I've always had it. When I was younger it used to keep me from sleeping because it would get so bad. I don't always notice it, but I do find that at times it still gets quite bad.

I spend a lot of my time in a lab, so I wear headphones almost all the time, which may be why I don't always notice it so much.

 

[Spidergrrl]

I read that zinc suppliments can help with it. My step dad tried it and said after a month he noticed a decrease in the whining noise in his ears.

 

[Pirate]

I get a high pitched buzzing sound, kind of electrical... it's hard to describe. It's not very often though and it goes away after a few minutes. Does it have to be a chronic problem to be described as tinnitus?

This describes me too. I get like an "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" every now and then, kinda that high pitched noise you get in your ears if you swim under water? I always used to think it was the boiler (random) and wonder why noone else could hear it.

Im sorry that some of the posters here have to put up with it all the time : (

 

[Digger]

I sleep with a fan on at night to "drown" it out. Which seems odd.

Doesn't sound odd to me!

I've had tinnitus my entire adult life... mine is the loud hissing type... and I was told that it is due to scarring from repeated childhood ear infections. That actually makes a lot of sense in my situation anyway, as I've suffered 4+ ear infections per year for as long as I can remember and there is in fact a lot of scarring on my eardrum. If only someone had told me as a child to stop eating dairy! I haven't had a single ear infection since giving it up. At any rate, I've never been able to fall asleep without the TV on, and it wasn't until quite recently that I realized why.

My doc told me that there is a specific vitamin cocktail that you can take for this, and I forget the brand name, but it was so expensive I just couldn't swing it.

Jim

 

[Freesia]

I have hyperacusis, which is related to tinnitus but less common. Basically it means increased sensitivity to noise, if you get it it sounds like the volume of the world is turned up to "loud", especially higher pitched noises.

 

[Virpukka]

I have hyperacusis, which is related to tinnitus but less common. Basically it means increased sensitivity to noise, if you get it it sounds like the volume of the world is turned up to "loud", especially higher pitched noises.

I had that also when my tinnitus started. I danced flamenco at the time and the studio where we trained had really bad sound echo problem that made the volumes go up super badly and there was few of us who broke our ears because of that. But though the tinnitus wasn't and still isn't nice the hyperacusis made all worse. I got over it with using ear plugs all the time outside from home...I think I did that moths but it really helped. And I used those silicone plugs that really dumps all the noises down. When I was in hearing test we checked how much more louder I was able to listen with those plugs and it was 30 db which is huge. One thing that stayed though was that I really can't deal with high pitch noises but that is due the fact that I lost some hearing from all the lower range and my hearing goes back normal on high ones. Not very ideal when you have to stretch to hear the normal speech and then when there is breaks or something screaming on street those noises almost hurt my ears.

From some reason I haven't had very huge problem to learn to live with the tinnitus though it's on some days really loud and when there is some noises that are on same range with it it's really awful to listen that. It really doubles the volumes in my ear. I'm just happy that I'm past of that when my ears were ringing about 60 db all the time.