I miss quiet, the more quiet the room the more you notice the whine.
Mine started when I was standing next to a tire that exploded while being filled. After that, loud noises will trigger it, and it goes on for a few days, eventually fading to nothing. I don’t really feel like a victim, more of a warning against any more really loud noise.
It’s the floaters in my vision that I wish could go away (but that is another thread, sorry no hijack).
Mine is also the high-pitched background whine. I’ve had it for 20 yrs or so. It will never go away, but under most circumstances the background noise of city life makes it unnoticeable unless I concentrate on hearing it. It’s sometimes worse when I’m exposed to sustained loud noises, but will usually fade in a day or so.
Mine was caused by loud music and gunfire.
Yup, me too. It’s been a constant in my life since I’ve been old enough to remember, and I only recently learned that the likely cause is yet another parting gift from having taken tetracycline a lot as a toddler. Awesome, as if permement teeth that are never any lighter than off-white wasn’t enough.
Anyway, like blinking, I only really notice it when I notice it (if that makes any sense) and am only bothered until I find something to distract me.
Causes for mine:
Loud rock concerts and bands in bars over many years.
Gun fire, usually wore hearing protection but not always.
Worked in a metal fabrication shop, usually wore hearing protection but not always.
Listening to music through headphones.
Riding motorcycles over many years.
Mine sounds like the typical “old TV with the sound turned down” whine.
I learned to ignore mine and take better care of my ears now.
I’m jealous! When I was young I was a very splashy kid during bath time. I’d get water in my ears and I’d hear that marching sound too. I never thought of soothing “night armies,” instead I heard “Frankenstein’s monster foot steps!” :eek: I used to have nightmares even of this very slow walking Boris Karloff creature. I wish I’d been clever enough to think of my own personal army.
According to what I read Googling enough information to scare myself, sudden onset of tinnitus with a pulse CAN BE a symptom of a brain aneurysm or other serious condition, but it’s usually accompanied by dizziness, blurred vision and your typical neurological disaster symptoms. Edit: So “can be” =/ “definitely is”.
That is EXACTLY what mine sounds like. The flyback on a CRT monitor.
It is similar, but I haven’t been exposed to any loud sound in quite awhile. It’s vaguely possible that the subway did it. It was extraordinarily loud the other night. Hopefully my hearing test tomorrow will shed some light. Interestingly, I was goofing around on YouTube playing with some of there “hearing tests”, strictly for amusement, and there was a noticeable drop at 10 kHz. That’s getting up near dog whistle territory, mind you. Of the various tests, I consistently could hear the 8 kHz and 12 kHz tones in both ears, but I couldn’t hear the 10 kHz tone in my buzzing ear. Interesting.
Welcome to the club. Plan on it being a permanent part of your life UFN. Mine started one otherwise ordinary day in 2003 and hasn’t taken a day off yet.
Same with mine- I’ve had it for a LONG time. Some medication I took a while back aggravated it and made it much worse, but it’s normal now and just constant. It only gets worse if I’m exposed to loud noises; concerts, loud engines etc. I didn’t abuse my ears and I suspect it’s somehow hereditary, as my dad has had it forever too.
Not much you can do, I don’t think. I only notice it really if it gets worse from loud sounds or if it for whatever reason changes pitch.
Mine is a mid-range whine with high notes. I only really notice it in quiet rooms. It helps to have white noise when I sleep. Don’t know what caused it.
constant non stop ever present for decades…kids where your FUCKING earplugs
there should be an ipod track or even better a feature that puts the sound into every thing the ipod plays for like a week straight. maybe you could get people to wear some hearing protection then.
The stuff in my right ear seems idiopathic and sounds like a baseball game; when it first developed I would wander around trying to find out if a TV or radio was on nearbly. Now it only bothers me if I get very tired. I must say I have a good ball team–nary a day goes by when the batter doesn’t hit one out of the park while the crowd goes crazy and the announcer yells in excitement.
The left ear tinnitus is the result of a head injury and is a sort of steady whine. I usually ignore it but once in a while it sounds like running water and I keep going out to see if I left the hose on.
In 2004 I had what they ( doctors) think was a micro stroke at the age of 38. Vertigo, puking 24/7, 55% hearing loss in one ear with a chaser of tinnitus. Good times.
It is a constant sound that gets amped up if I am over caffeinated or if I accidently take OTC meds with psuedoephedrine, then it’s worse. Salt is sucks too.
I sleep with a white noise machine on at night. I swim with ear plugs in. I usually have ear plugs somewhere in my car if needed.
The irony is is I have never been a CRANK IT TO ELEVEN kinda person. Yeah,I’ve been to concerts without ear plugs (we all have.) but I’ve never been for the LOUD BARS AND STUFF.
When these punkass kids go by in their cars with the bass so loud that the car vibrates all I can think is, " Just wait."
I do have a mild case of it.
When i was hitting my teens, i heard it when i would try to go to sleep, with one ear on the pillow. It’s like the pulse sound, but the thing is it sounded exactly like the cry of a seagull.
Nowadays it might hit randomly: all the background noise gets muffled and the whine comes for about a minute then goes away, but it takes a few more minutes for the ‘muffled’ effect to wear-off.
I can actually force an auditory hallucination. If i am in a constant loud noise (like in the subay/train, but not like a truck engine) just like when you get a song stuck in your head, i can hear it very faintly coming from one side (as if i’m overhearing someone else’s loud headphones).
I had canalplasty as a teen, and had it right after, but then it went away. I would occasionally get it when I was stressed, but to tell you the truth I can’t remember the last time I had it.
Well, that was exciting. My hearing test showed that in my good ear I have extraordinarily good hearing. In non-clinical terms: I can hear a hamster fart from across the room. My tinnitus ear, however, has some kind of “acoustic notch” and my hearing line is wavy when it should be straight. The audiologist went over my results with me, then sent me to the Emergency Room! :eek: Apparently, there is a window of time during which this may be reversed, and thanks to Dr. Useless at the emergency walk-in clinic, most of that window has passed!
I’m now on a high dose of steroids, and if that doesn’t improve the issue, they’re going to do an MRI to look for some nugget of a tumor that messes with your aural neurology. It’s some kind of benign thing, luckily. I used to work with musicians, so for over a decade I’ve always had ear plugs on my somewhere in case I’m in a loud environment. I’ve always been diligent about protecting my super-hearing. Now I may go partially deaf in one ear due to bad luck. :mad: At this point they think the issue is viral or possibly some little blood clot that hurt my inner ear workings.
Mine started in childhood. Every now and then I would just get a ringing in one year. Pretty loud and noticeable.
These days there is a constant ringing in my ear, usually it can only be heard when it is quiet (there is no such thing as silence for me) and I can often just ignore it. It flares up loudly every ow and then, though.
Made it all the way to my 50s with good hearing. Two years ago I got a bad cold and it left me with a constant high pitched, almost electric, whine. Sometimes it makes an odd crackling sound, like the aliens are about to finally speak to me but then subsides. After quite a few hearing tests and an MRI they tell it is probably inner ear damage and there is nothing they can do. That seems to be the basic response for everyone.
It’s temporary for some people. All sorts of things can cause it. Some people like me have had it since childhood and our brains filter it out most of the time, but it’s always there if we listen for it. Sometimes it gets intrusively loud for awhile. Like now, thanks to this thread, there it is, whining away.
So… what does that sound like, exactly?
toot!