A friend of mine developed a disc problem in her neck. One of the symptoms was tinnitus. After a couple of years of trying to find a non-surgical treatment that would work on the disc, she finally did have surgery, which was very successful. She woke up in the middle of the night about a week after the surgery to dead silence. She panicked, thinking she’d gone deaf. Then she realized that after 2 years, the tinnitus was what had gone.
Mine is loud, but barely audible, if that makes sense.
It is very high pitched, but feels more like a constant pressure, like trying to hear something that is just barely within your frequency threshold but you know is loud and bugging the hell out of your dogs. So the audible part is fairly faint, yet it feels loud because of the pressure.
Weird huh?
I’ve had it for 15+ years. I still remember precisely when it started. I woke up from a nap on the sofa, and there it was. Mine sounds like air escaping a tire under high pressure. It sometimes stops for short periods, and for the most part, I’ve learned to ignore it, but it can be annoying at times. I’ve played in bands since I was 13, so I attribute it mostly to loud music. I also used to do some shooting, and worked on jets in the military for a few years, so I haven’t exactly been kind to my hearing.
For anyone interested: American Tinnitus Association
I’ve had it for nine years. I ran smack into a curb in the dark at a good clip on my bicycle, went over the handlebars and landed on my face. That’s when it started, and it never goes away. Sometimes I don’t notice it, particularly when music is playing. It’s always there, though.
One poster touched on meds, but if you’re taking any meds at all, check the side effects listed on the drug info pamphlet (your pharmacist can help you interpret the data on it and make sense of it.). I started getting terrible tinnitus a while back and discovered a pain med I take has that listed WAY down in the side effect list, but it’s there and it’s certainly in my ears. If I stop taking it for a week or so, it will subside. I was glad to see it wasn’t from my headphone use.
I have a different variation - “Leudett’s tinnitus”. It’s sporadic and only pops up a couple of times a year. IIRC, it is a nervous tic of a muscle deep inside the jaw/ear process/general area, and when it quivers, it transmits an intermittent rumbling, trembling noise. When I described it to doctors, they always mistakenly thought I was trying to describe the air pressure noise that occurs when your ears “pop” after a cold. I eventually found the description of Leudett’s, which fit my symptoms to a T, on the internet. No biggie, it never hangs around for very long - but it’s nice to know finally what it is.
I used to suspect I had it since what I’ve experienced sounds a lot like what books and my dad describe, though not nearly as bad as his; he worked in a factory for several years.
However: a. my high range hearing is very good (I hear dog whistles and monitor squeals most other people seem unaware of etc) b. the ringing noise magically disappears when there’s a power failure or I’m outside far from electricity. I’m pretty sure now that the faint ringing I hear frequently isn’t coming from inside my head, but from things like computers and tvs and so on.
Slight aside: don’t ear buds cause other people to get pimples in their ears too? Major drawback.
Mine, which I got from a head injury, is a steady high pitched ringing. It is usually worse in the evenings. Occasionally it confuses me because I think I left water running but most of the time I just tune it out.
Er, you’re welcome!
It’s good that you’re going to see a doctor to rule out things like aneurysms or some such thing. Once they ruled out abnormalities, it was over, and they never did tell me what it was. I expect it’s a blood vessel close to the eardrum or something. If I tilt my head slightly to the left it almost goes away.
I have it in my left ear; a steady, high pitched ringing that never stops. It’s the first thing I hear when I awake and the last thing I hear before sleeping. I also have about a 60% loss of hearing ability in my left ear.
Huh, I’ve just realized that I seem to have tinnitus too. Thanks, guys! :mad:
Seriously, I just noticed that I can hear a very soft, high-pitched whine just at the limits of my hearing. But I do have very good hearing, so maybe it’s just “technological tinnitus” like elfkin’s.
I’ve always had tinnitus; I noticed it for the first time when I was eight. Luckily, it is soft enough so that I have to think about it to notice it. Not thinking about it can be hard, though. Something like this thread can get me thinking about it more and its hard to stop. Once, about four years ago, I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a month. Not fifteen minutes went by when I didn’t notice the ringing in my ears, and it drove me crazy.
I’ve had mine for about 25 years. It started with after a bad case of the flu. Usually it’s not too bad, but it can get really loud.
I haven’t got much advice, except to disagree with the drug warnings. For me, aspirin has no effect; neither does caffeine. Alcohol may or may not. One thing that does crank it up is melatonin, which supposedly suppresses it in most people. So, everybody’s different; find out what affects you, not the majority of the population.
Mine also gets louder when my jaws are a bit strained, as in from chewing gum a lot. The nerves for the ear and the jaw, and the mouth in general are in close communication.
I would avoid loud music, noises, etc. though. I don’t really have to be told that: since I’ve had tinnitus, loud stuff hurts. But I don’t think that’s the case with most people.
One would hope that you don’t really have it, but it’s something that can be lived with. If it is tinnitus, just don’t dwell on it, and most of the time you’ll ignore it.