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I've got tinnitus, 38 male.

Got it randomly one day this summer.

It's impossible to describe how depressing it is to hear a sound non stop in your ears, night and day, wherever I go or whatever I do, it just never stops.

The brain started filtering it out a bit after months, but it's always there and you're often reminded of it when you're in a slightly more silent environment.

There are days where it becomes especially loud and falling asleep you'd just like to cry or something.

Don't wish it on anybody.

I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember, so I've never had any negative feelings associated with it. As a kid I just thought it was natural that everyone's ears would ring all the time and would get louder when it was quiet. My ears are ringing right now as I write this.

Then I developed pulsatile tinnitus in my early 30s, which means I can hear my heartbeat in my (right) ear at all hours of the day as well. When I tell people about it, I like to describe it like the heartbeat from Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart.

Developing pulsatile tinnitus really affected my mental health for a while, despite living my whole life with a constant buzzing and ringing in my ears. I couldn't get over the fact that there was now this loud whooshing sound in my right ear, 60+ times per second, and my doctors couldn't even tell me why after several MRIs. I thought I was going crazy, or that I'd developed some kind of brain tumor invisible to scans.

I don't have any great advice except to say that eventually (maybe six months to a year) my brain just adapted to the sound and I hardly ever think of it anymore. It's as much a part of my life as the buzzing and ringing I've had since I was a kid. It can be annoying when I'm trying to listen intently for something (my wife is a birder and it's hard to hear things she points out), but it thankfully doesn't affect my mental health anymore.

I always had problems with sinuses. I've had a few surgeries and while it's better, it's not good either. I literally had a drill up my nose, in my forehead. They still hurt and pop on their own, many times a day.

One day my kid brought a nasty flu from the kindergarten. My otolaryngologist recommended the strongest irrigation stream I can find to clean my sinuses.

Not only did it not help, but it also pushed some goo to the end of my sinuses, which resulted in pulsatile tinnitus.

After about 6 months my kid got sick again, so we all got sick, and I got rid of this tinnitus where I was hearing my heartbeat, by casually blowing my nose. The trick was having a stiff blockage, I guess, so the pressure builds up.

It sounds stupid and probably won't help you, but I wanted to share my story. I had no support from the people close to me and the heartbeat was driving me insane.

I'm sorry you have to go through this. Even though it's not a life-treating condition, it might be a life changing condition (QoL).

You sound like me! I have had sinus issues all my life before 17. I even had a surgery at 16 but I honestly don’t think it helped. Now I have the sinus problem a bit under control, aka I still have occasional infections during allergy and cold season. I use NielMed to wash my sinus and I think it helps a lot. Besides that I really don’t know what it would take to fix it permanently. I constantly can feel the mucus dripping down my throat everyday.

Have you considered seeing an allergist to test if you have some environmental allergies? If so, they may be able to recommend or prescribe meds to moderate the effects of those allergies. (disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, just someone else with sinus issues)

Or as a plan B, you can try hayfever tablets / over-the-counter antihistamines, they're harmless to take (I am not a doctor / this is not medical advice / read the information) but if it's allergies they might provide relief already.

I did this 15 years ago. I didn’t feel like it helped much at all. But, that doctor was later on got sued for insurance fraud so it got me wondering if I was scammed as well. I’ll discuss this with my primary physician next exam. Thanks for the reminder!

That story about your Otolaryngologist is insane. It's sad how many times doctors don't really listen to their patients and throw out there generic advice that is harmful.

I’ve used Navage and it honestly helps whenever I have a horrible sinus infection and the constant post-nasal drip wrecks havoc, affecting my quality of sleep the most (also recommend salt water gargles for sore throat).

I have Tinnitus, which I first noticed when I was sick one time as a kid - probably 5-8 yrs old. Thankfully I have no other adverse experiences to report (related to this).

I live in EU and bought from the US SinuPulse Elite, so I spent a little fortune on it. It was advertised as the best in class. It's definitely safe as the pressure is just enough, but it did not help at all for my problem. Most of the EU irrigation systems turn it up to 11 when it comes to pressure. I don't think that's safe.

Anyway, I think I just have chronic inflammation.

It's not allergy either.

You also sound like me I have NielMed. I’m wondering if you used that before and how Navage compares to it? Appreciate the recommendation.

I developed sever allergies to something later on in life (still trying to pinpoint exactly what, all I know is I get random flare ups), and NasalFreshMD is the one you want for serious sinus issues. It's bigger than either of those other devices though. The Navage has this proprietary pod thing going on so either you but their pods or you get a defeat device but the NasalFreshMD just has an open port for you to dump whatever brand of salt (including NielMed refills if you like their formulation) and however much water you want into so is much easier to use. It has three speeds to the Navage's one. (Not sponsored, just a happy user.)

Scary story on multiple levels. (Ask your otolaryngologist if Naegleria Fowleri is right for you!)

I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember, so I've never had any negative feelings associated with it. As a kid I just thought it was natural that everyone's ears would ring all the time and would get louder when it was quiet. My ears are ringing right now as I write this.

I don't know if I have tinnitus. I had strong ringing in my ears every now and then as a kid. I once told a classmate about this, who said I should see a doctor, but I've had it as come up every now and then as long as I can remember.

I now have a continuous beep, but only really hear it when I intentionally tune into it. E.g. I can hear it now because I'm writing about it, but most of the day I simply don't hear it, because I don't tune in to it. Not sure if it was always there or just starting at some age. It is sometimes more present when I'm e.g. sick.

I have no idea if other people have this kind of permanent beep as well, because I never asked anyone.

(I just asked my wife and she doesn't have it.)

> I have no idea if other people have this kind of permanent beep as well, because I never asked anyone.

We do. I've had tinnitus all my life, or at least I can remember it as far back as about four years old or so. It sounds to me like the whine of an old CRT. I thought it was just normal until I learned it wasn't. I used to think as a kid that it was what the Simon and Garfunkel song "The Sound of Silence" was talking about. Luckily for me it's just something that's always been, so it doesn't really bother me. I have no idea what it would be like to not actually hear anything at all. The one time I was in a sound isolation chamber, it just made my tinnitus scream.

My neighbor developed tinnitus later in his life and it drives him crazy. I definitely feel bad for him, and others who are similarly afflicted by it.

I can't hear 15KHz tube whine anymore, but my tube whine-like tinnitus that has been there as long as I can remember is still there. It seems odd, to me, to be "hearing" a sound that's higher-pitched than the sounds my anatomy can actually perceive, but here I am.

I have something similar, I tend to describe it to people as a light tinnitus. It's a permanent high tone, but I don't usually notice it unless it's very silent around me or I intentionally tune into it, and even then it's not very loud. Never mentioned it to a doctor. I think I know which loud disco I got it from when I was about 7.

You have tinnitus.

That's not really tinnitus, I used to have that before I got tinnitus.

Tinnitus is like 30-50 times the volume of that, depending on how rundown I am or whether I have a cold. For me it's predominantly in one ear, though does sometimes change.

What he's describing is fairly normal and is just to do with blood pressure in your ears, from what I've subsequently read.

A clear example of the No True Tinnitus fallacy.

> Tinnitus is a condition when a person hears a ringing sound or a different variety of sounds when no corresponding external sound is present and that other people cannot hear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus

> What he's describing is fairly normal and is just to do with blood pressure in your ears, from what I've subsequently read.

That’s called tinnitus. And I agree, it isn’t rare. From TFA, roughly 15% of people have it (that report it).

Sounds like you may have severe tinnitus, which is more rare, limited to 1-2% of people.

There are different forms of tinnitus, due to there being different causes of tinnitus.

Some people even have multiple frequencies of tinnitus at the same time.

Eye floaters are like that. They don't go away but you get used to them being there.

Eye floaters can definitely go away. I believe they can break up and break apart and dissipate or be absorbed by the body a bit. Or maybe they just float way off to the side of your vision where you don't notice them anymore.

Some of us don’t, but for about $2k they will drain the fluid out and refill will floater free materials.

Changed my life, I thought I was living in a small crowd of fruit flies.

Really? I asked my last ophthalmologist if there was anything to be done about my severe floaters, and he said "no", and that I'd just have to live with them. What's the name of the procedure you had, and what are the downside risks?

There are probably high risks of damaging the retina, and there is an increased risk of cataracts, if I remember correctly. Both my eyes had a vitrectomy during retinal surgery and it is really great to live without floaters. But I can imagine doctors will not want to do it just by itself.

It's called vitrectomy. There are risks and that's why they generally only consider it for really severe cases. Look it up.

Thank you! Glad to know what to look up.

To be honest, I don't know where I'd rank on an objective severity scale. My floaters often make it difficult to read, and I've got one that can lodge in the wrong place for long enough to make driving feel a little scary. That's maybe not bad enough - given the risks, which I don't know right now - to argue against it. I'm not necessarily questioning the doctor's judgment - he's maybe right! - just mad that he didn't even tell me about this procedure.

Given it makes it hard to read and actually makes driving dangerous it sounds like it's bad enough to warrant treatment. Get a second opinion, mention trouble reading and unable to see properly while driving.

I believe there is also "Laser vitreolysis", which seems somewhat disputed.

I have similar issues and 5 years in, problems are only getting worse (perhaps combined with pigment dispersion syndrom making it worse, but not on the path to glaucoma, at least not yet).

I do hear my heartbeat from my left ear. The ear doctor said that the ear can be sensitive to the blood flowing from nearby arteries, and that there's nothing to do. Stress affects the heartbeat volume. I just got used to it, but it can be annoying sometimes, especially when you're trying to enjoy the silence.

The doctor also told me that it's not an ear problem, but rather a brain problem. The brain is supposed to filter out this noise, in the same sense that it filters out the sounds from a (normal) digestion, our breathing, etc. I do have some (undiagnosed) hypersensitivity, so that sounds consistent to me.

nozzlegear: it gets better with time, the less you think about it. I know it's not a great consolation, but trust me, train yourself not to think about it, and it will go away for extended periods of time (and will come back from time to time)

I have this also in the left ear for about a year or so. I self-diagnosed it as eustachian tube related [0] and should really see a doctor, but I also got pretty used to it by now. Only now and then it gets a bit annoying when the sound become more 'whooshing' than 'a clock ticking in the room'.

In my right ear I have another sound regularly, that I went to the doctor for, and she immediately said "Oh, tinnitus, nothing you can do". But I'm pretty sure it is something else. It feels like spasmic tiny muscle fluctuating against my eardrum, and gets triggered by a low-frequency sound, esp. when at rest. Stops after 15-30 mins.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patulous_Eustachian_tube

Huh. The more you learn. Thanks, I think I may have this too.

Wait... This is not "normal"? I thought everyone has that...

This is the first time I heard that this is an issue where the brain isn't filtering out noise properly. This explains why I have had tinnitus, the sound of breathing, whooshing in the ears from my heartbeat, etc. audible to me for as long as I've been conscious and have never understood why everyone else seemed to be really disturbed by what I consider to be supremely normal. Except I also have a sensory processing disorder that makes my brain unable to filter input well so I also come off as sensitive to touch and able to pick up smells well. Because I grew up with all this though I have normalized it enough to function.

Same here, had a low level ringing in my ears for as long as I can remember. I really only notice it in quieter rooms, and pretty much have to sleep with some kind of white noise going in the background. Sleeping in a dead silent room is really tough for me.

I'd say i'm sorry to hear about your 60 beat per second heart rate but by the time you read this you are surely dead. RIP

Haha, woops! I meant 60 beats per minute of course.

60 bps is a fine HR, if you are implying it isn't

Edit: WHOOPSIE DAISY

Yeah, 60hz isn't a pulse, it's a bass hum. It means you are a robot operating in the US and you have a poorly filtered power supply.

I’ve been meaning to get my power supply checked, but my robo-kid needs a memory upgrade and have you _seen_ RAM prices lately.

On the plus side, plenty of employment opportunities in the US these days. They’re offering us all the former meatbag jobs :)

Heart beat is usually measured in bpm. All the charts top out at 200. 360 bpm is certainly problematic for a human.

3600 bpm would be even more problematic.

Even techno would be slower :)

That's 3 times the heart rate of a hummingbird.

You’re thinking of one beat per second, i.e. 60 beats per minute. 60 bps is not possible, but if it were, it wouldn’t be survivable.

Upvoted for the edit. :D

Sorry to hear this. I similarly woke up one day with bi-lateral tinnitus at about an 8/10 in loudness. Thought I was going to lose my mind.

After about 9 days one morning the right ear completely resolved and the left ear was at about a 5/10.

Very, very, very long story short, I did a ton of digging and experimenting and realized it was related to a neck injury (a lot of people with whiplash have short-long term tinnitus). Over a year of physical therapy later, the tinnitus in the left ear is usually gone and only flares up if I lift weights with poor form.

If you've had a neck/shoulder injury in the past 1-2 years, it's something I'd look into.

Now that is interesting, thank you for giving me a new angle to look into. Never thought that there might be a relationship with other things other than just my ears.

I know I can make it instantly worse by clenching my jaw, so that should have been a hint already.

When you say clench, do you mean clench the muscles (i.e. as if biting down), or do you mean jutting your jaw forward?

There is a well known phenomenon among people with (at least some types of) tinnitus that moving the jaw forward increases the sound, but that this also makes the tinnitus go away for a bit. The way my ENT explained it, it has to do with how your brain calibrates sound. Pushing the jaw forward makes the sound louder, which also causes your brain to adjust your hearing to be less sensitive. Or something like this.

With some types of tinnitus, there is a specific connection to the temporomandibular joint. My understanding is that the causes tinnitus are poorly understood, however. There are many hypotheses, but little solid evidence.

Biting down.

TMJ disorders are linked to tinnitus because of the nerves that run near it. In my case, if I force an underbite I can make both of my ears ring but I don't have any TMJ issues.

There are some physical therapists (also dentists) that focus on maxillofacial dysfunction and TMJ disorders, so that's an avenue to go down as well.

The other two common reasons for tinnitus:

* Hearing damage (gunshots, explosions, etc.) and those are not reversible as of yet

* Ototoxic drugs. When I last did research on it it years ago, like hearing damage from gunshots, was also irreversible.

Can confirm.

I've had like 2/10 tinnitus for all my life, can't remember the last time I heard "silence".

Got a C5/C6 hernia a year ago, about 6 months after that MASSIVE tinnitus in my right ear and clear increase in the left. Like "can't hear shit" levels of noise.

Eventually I figured out that doing a basic shoulder workout + going on a walk eased it off in a few hours. A month ago, due to a doctor's suggestion, I discovered that taking muscle relaxants just before going to sleep a bit, I've woken up with maybe 3-4/10 tinnitus a few times.

Definitely a neck thing.

If you have one in your area, I'd recommend seeing a PT that has their CFMT from IPA. It's a pretty specific form of PT that looks for deeper root causes of issues and that's the PT that was finally able to help me figure out and resolve mine.

What kind of physical therapy did you do for it? I suspected mine is neck related too.

I saw a CFMT PT and they addressed two things for me:

1. Laterally sheared and rotated vertebrae in my neck that were causing compression and tension on nerves in my neck

2. Elevated first rib, which was also compressing and tensioning the nerves.

I was incredibly skeptical that PT would fix it even though I was sure it was related to my neck/shoulder. After a few sessions of working to push my first rib back down to where it was supposed to be and also press (quite hard) on my neck vertebrae to move them back into a normal position, the tinnitus went from a 5/10 to a 2/10.

The problem I had was getting the rib and vertebrae to stay put. They would, as a result of lifting things or sleeping funny, slowly start to revert to their original positions causing the tinnitus to get louder again. The PT gave me several exercises to help strengthen muscles to keep everything in place.

I got a high-pitch ringing tinnitus when I was about 18-20. I went from being a person that falls asleep in <5 min to needing at least 1h + needing a background radio/white noise/stream to fall asleep. I sympathize and recognize everything that you reflect on here. I felt kind of "depressed" the first year.

But no matter how cliché it sounds, it does get better with time. The brain does get better and better with filtering it. I also discovered that my tinnitus gets worse with caffeine, stress and lack of sleep. In periods when I live a overall "healthy" lifestyle in respect to sleep, stress, food, working out etc. I forget that I have tinnitus. When I sleep to little and/or when I'm stressed, it comes back full force. I have totally cut out caffeine, which also happened to help with my migraine.

Now ~15 years later I'm in my early thirties and I rarely think about it tbh. However, after a bad cold about 5 years ago I got a secondary tinnitus which is a low-frequency humming. This set me back and cased me some sleepless nights but I have adapted to this as well.

The thing I miss the most is the concept of "total silence". I do envy my fiancé sometimes if we're out in the woods or whatever and I know that she can just relax while "hearing nothing".

Let time do its work and experiment with your body/health to find what makes it lessen. Chances are that de-stressing, sleeping well and eating and working out does make it better.

> But no matter how cliché it sounds, it does get better with time.

For some, perhaps, but mine (25+ years) has not improved one jot. At best I've learnt to manage it with masking sounds (thanks to MyNoise) but it's always there waiting for a quiet moment.

Might be to do with how well your general auditory circuitry was working in the first place, mind - e.g. I've always had the "two noises at once tend toward garbage in my brain" problem (which made most social conversations almost impossible. FUN TIMES.) Given that implies my brain was already fairly borked for auditory processing, that might have an impact on whether it can eventually cope with tinnitus and/or whether it is more susceptible in the first place[0].

[0] Although I am 99% sure it's due to a large amount of loud gigs in small venues without any ear protection causing "mechanical damage" tinnitus.

WRT “mechanical damage” — I feel you. Standing in front of the stage feeling your organs vibrate in time to the music is fucking magic. I won’t say that it’s worth the tinnitus, but I am happy I have some memories of a trade-off, you know?

FWIW I still go to shows sometimes, and stand right in front of the stage to feel my eyeballs vibrating. I wear good ear protection, though, and feel no pain. Even though the music isn’t quite the same.

> I wear good ear protection, though, and feel no pain.

Yeah, I've got a variety of Etymotic "concert" ear plugs (mainly ER20s), a collection of Loop ear plugs, some from Flare (titanium, aluminium), and various other of differing construction that live in my "gig bag" (small bag that holds phone etc. without causing security to freak out.) I find that if I don't wear ear plugs at a gig or even the cinema, I'll have terrible pain overnight and I'll be useless the next day.

(Hell, even bus or train journeys can require ear plugs some days.)

It sounds worse for you than for me, and I’ll tip out some scotch in your honor next time I have some.

I got it about ten years ago and it drove me absolutely insane for a few months until I just accepted that I would have it. Then a weird thing happened: my brain stopped paying attention to it. Now I mostly only hear it when I think to myself, “do I still have tinnitus?” and try to listen for it. It’s still there, I just don’t care anymore. I had no idea that even what you hear can be such a subjective experience until I went through this, but it makes sense. You do this all the time when you tune out ambient sounds and conversations to focus on something.

This is my experience. It normally doesn't bother me, and I didn't think about it until I read this article, so now it is driving me crazy. Please let's stop posting articles about Tinnitus unless the article describes a CURE. Thanks.

Perhaps you could learn to not read those articles?

Don't think of an elephant.

This is 100% my experience. Like, reading this thread right now, I notice the ringing in my ears. But otherwise I go months without thinking about it.

Try this

1. put your thumbs on your ears

2. rotate your hands so your index fingers are on the base of your skull, middle fingers just above

3. now put your index fingers on your middle fingers and "snap" them down on the muscle at the base of your skull some 10-15 times

4. if your tinnitus goes away or reduces, it's caused by muscle tension instead of nerves

This blew my mind when I first tried it, but looked into it and it makes total sense: we all work on computers all day, necks get fatigued, and the impact forces the muscles to contract until they force-release, alleviating the tension-caused tinnitus.

Yeah, I've never had tinnitus last more than a minute or two thanks to this, however I rarely get it and I imagine those afflicted pathologically will get zero mileage out of it, but I am curious.

My nervous system is damaged, unfortunately, therefore it's still here! I appreciate the tips though!

I’m struggling to visualise this, do you have any references with images?

I never heard of the above, but I also have my own method that I discovered one night on some tinnitus forum:

1. Straight body, drop your head all the way down, chin to your chest. 2. Place the palm of your hands on your ears, blocking them, with the fingers to where the back of your neck touches your scalp. 3. Tap your fingers on your stretched, rigid neck muscles.

Just sharing it here since it has helped me and it doesn't help to have many techniques to battle this.

Put your hand like this: https://static1.bigstockphoto.com/9/5/2/large1500/259859530....

But with your thumbs closing your ear orifices.

Now you have to hit the back of the neck with the tip of your middle fingers, and to get a harder hit you "snap" the fingers, putting the finger like "fingers crossed" position, and the pressing the middle finger towards the head. You should hear a big "thump!" inside your head.

It aleviates the tinnitus for a few seconds, but more likely due to the stapedial reflex than anything related to neck muscles.

sounds similar to a masseter muscle massage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VnV7wUxst0

My dad had tinnitus and it bothered him relentlessly. He was constantly following potential new treatments, talking to doctors about it, etc.

I have it too. I've taken the approach of truly accepting it: "I will hear these sounds the rest of my life, and I'm truly okay with that". As a result it doesn't give me anxiety or bother me, and I find it helps it fade into the background. The more you focus on it (and let it bother you) the more it stays in the foreground.

I know the advice of "just learn to be okay with it" is easy to communicate but very hard to actually do. I found mindfulness meditation helped me learn to accept things without judgement, including the presence of my tinnitus.

My ear doctor suggested the myNoise app[0] for me, specifically the Neuromodulator and Brown noise sounds.

The Neuromodulator[1] is a random-ish noise field that ... confuses? the brain after a while and lets you forget the tinnitus - at lest temporarily. The noise isn't "real" it's the brain generating it due to faulty signals, so giving it a bunch of noise helps somehow.

Brown noise[2] was specifically suggested for older people as it has more stuff in the frequencies we still hear naturally :D

As a happy coincidence my partner AND dogs sleep better with the brown noise on, they all tend to wake up to the smallest of noises - this helps with it.

[0] https://mynoise.net

[1] https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/neuromodulationTonesGenera...

[2] https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/whiteNoiseGenerator.php

I used to use brown noise, but I find that rain/ thunderstorm sounds are better. It's a noise that your brain is used to ignoring, and other sounds blend into it - even if they are almost as loud -while with the more homogeneous brown and white noise, it has to be louder than the sounds it's trying to mask.

Having said that, I'm not sure how well it would do for high pitched tinnitus.

Edited to add - now listened to the neuro modulator, nice one.

The fact that we have to tell ourselves these affirmations is just a failure of modern medicine.

Just wondering do you think you got tinnitus or was it there and you suddenly started noticing? I don't know I got it around 20y ago but I'm honestly unsure if it was one or the other because it became worse and worse the more I started focusing on it. Eventually it subsided. I can still hear it if I listen for it (as I just did now and I can hear a distinct 'bruising' kind of sound) but there's literally months between I even think of it or notice it. There have been studies that lots of 'normal' people notice tinnitus when they enter a sound-proof room. What helped me was just taking long showers - I literally couldn't hear a thing during the shower and some time after. And it seems the 'drown out' period would last longer. And just knowing something would stop it somehow made me ease more into it and maybe reduced the fear that had been programmed into my brain. I also did omega 3 and gingo biloba (just low doses) and felt like it had some effect. Was there any trigger and how 'loud' do you perceive it?

I've always had tinnitus, but it used to be that I could only hear it in absolute silence, but it was a medication that triggered mine to go from barely there to screaming banshees in my ears 24x7x365. It sucks to know that I will never truly experience silence again, but my brain does tune it out most of the time. But it's mostly noticeable at night. Mostly.

I think I got it.

I also recall the days before I listening to music a lot with earplugs at rather high volume, like, 6/7 hours per day multiple days.

That's the only out-of-the-ordinary thing I did leading to it, it might be related or completely unrelated, who knows.

I'm really sorry to hear that.

I once read something about the prevalence of depression in people with tinnitus. I was surprised by it, but I didn't really consider how disruptive it must be when you're accustomed to not having it. By contrast, I've had it basically my whole life. I remember laying awake at night, listening to the deafening ringing, thinking about how weird it was that silence isn't silent. It wasn't until later that I knew my experience isn't the norm.

I'd love to have a treatment or cure. Especially for folks like you that truly suffer from it.

> silence isn't silent

Blindness isn’t “no sight” or pitch black, there’s visual snow.

If you pay attention, you can always feel your muscles/joints. Sometimes I smell burnt popcorn, but not usually, but maybe that’s because smell is always present. Similarly always taste saliva.

Also see sensory deprivation experiments. We don’t seem able to experience “absence of sensation”.

As I fall asleep the blackness of what I see suddenly disappears. I would describe it exactly as the absence of sensation.

Unfortunately my mild tinnitus doesn't stop at the same time.

This is not analogous to tinnitus. I remember before and after tinnitus, and it’s as different from visual snow as real snow is from an ice pick in your ear.

[dead]

You'll get used to it. 42 male here. Started at 12-13 years of age. Barely notice it anymore. Some things (lack of sleep, extreme stress, some medicines/drugs) accentuate it a bit, but it's annoying at best, not interfering. I also produce music, so I don't think it has affected my hearing. So you'll be good. Stop worrying.

Oh, use a fan based white noise machine (or a loud fan) during sleeping, really drowns it out.

I also should have mentioned this; despite having tinnitus my actual hearing is very good, and yeah a white noise or fan does wonders

Isn't tinnitus some kind of bone or cartilage related thing?

Also got tinnitus here. Woke up with it about 5 years ago. I'd recently had COVID and was also on a strong medication. But I've been a lifelong insomniac so this article has me wondering.

I can only sleep when there's another noise in the room for frame of reference, otherwise the tinnitus feels like the loudest sound in the universe. My current solution is an air purifier on its audible middle setting (basically white noise with a use), and a humidifier in winter.

I have it too.

It suddenly came one day I was more stressed than usual. Stayed since then.

I often catch myself falling asleep thinking: maybe when I wake up tomorrow, it’s gone. Just to wake up the next day and hear it again.

It’s very annoying. But I have learned to live with it. Some days are better some are worse.

Don't worry: you will get used to it in a couple years and won't even notice it.

Avoid complete silence (a bit of white noise or other background sound helps to mask it for some people), and try to avoid threads like this. Anything that makes me actively think about tinnitus is the absolute worst trigger, suddenly making it seem really loud after barely noticing it for weeks/months.

The brain definitely seems to get better at filtering it out over months/years though, at least until something makes you focus on it

Same with itching. Reading about itching can trigger days long events for me.

I've had tinnitus for almost a decade now. It gets better.

The first six months were hell because I kept focusing on how awful it was. Eventually you stop noticing it. It just becomes part of the background – like how the sky is blue, grass is green, etc.

I strongly recommend reading "Living with Tinnitus" by Laura Cole. Tinnitus is a very poorly-understood condition, but hearing about the experiences of others helps a lot. I hope you feel better soon. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37707931-living-with-tin...

Got it a few years ago. In my 30s as well. God how it used to bother me, i’d have the whitest noises to the point where it depressed how loud it all was, white noise included.

Went to the doctor, did all those rounds. Once I saw the endemic existence of CBT and other psychotherapies as treatment it dawned on me that I might have to reconsider my relationship with this.

In reality I just got used to it and live with it. I have a tiny white noise sound that is always on my headphones while i work that is just enough and that covers me most of the day, but honestly even if I sit in an electric car that is fully stopped and it’s as loud as it’s gonna be, I notice it, absolutely, but it doesn’t really cause distress anymore.

You just haven’t habituated yet.

Source: have tinnitus for 2.5 years. Got used to it after 1.5.

I’ve had tinnitus since I was maybe 5 years old, maybe from my frequent ear infections at the time? I remember discovering it during nap time and noting that silence had a high-pitched, discordant set of tones to it. But I thought it receded when normal sounds, like people talking, tv or music, or wind occurred. It was just the sound of silence.

I still have it, and now I know what it is. I think it’s worse now, but I can still unconsciously ignore it most of the time, although knowing what it is and that it’s aberrant and not something everyone hears has made it psychologically more irritating than when I was young.

Oh, that blows, I’m so sorry. I’ve had it 40 years; I hear it now, louder than anything else in the room.

But mostly I don’t. You do really get used to it. It won’t get better, but you will.

I don't have tinnitus, but I live about a mile from a major highway. Depending on the time of day, the wind, the temperature, etc, it can carry the road noise directly to my yard. It doesn't bother my wife or my kids, but I hate it.

When it gets to be too much, though, I can just go inside, and that's not something that you can do with tinnitus.

I'm sorry that you're going through that, that must be terrible. Have you tried adding white noise?

I've had it for a few years now. One time I got a throat infection and it amplified to a slightly louder volume. It went down to its original level a few months later, but the time when it was slightly louder was scarier than when it first appeared. I was worried it was going to keep increasing.

I'm on the exact same boat. Same age and got it randomly this Summer. Are you able to modulate the pitch by moving your jaw sideways or wide opening it? Would be great to bounce off some ideas. I'll drop you an email if that's OK.

Just moving my jaw doesn’t affect mine, but moving it to the side and flexing whatever muscles involved in that motion are definitely makes mine louder, just for a second.

I’ve always wondered if that implied there must theoretically be a way to cure or reduce it by reducing pressure in there through surgery or stretching or something. I’ve done a bunch of neck stretches in the past that I think mostly relieved my anxiety about it, but may have helped. My motivation to fix it has gone down a lot though as I’ve gotten used to it.

Yeah I wanted to take action before I get used to it. But it seems chances are slim of getting it fixed. I think I never read about anyone who came out of it.

Anyways, I've been to the oto doctor and after a few visits, tests and ct scan he believes it might be due to my jaw and bruxism I have at night. Not ear related. Next stop for me will be to visit a maxilo facial doctor.

Have you checked your hearing?

A friend of mine has tinnitus and found out he has bad hearing. Hearing aids fixed zmthe tinnitus.

Another friend has the same, but no aids yet.

I've had tinnitus longer than I can remember (33m) and I also have moderate visual snow also as long as I can remember. Sadly, I have no tips on tuning it out, but I'd do anything for a cure

Same thing here , but triggered by tiredness/stress. If I sleep a lot and well, then it somehow fades until I’m tired again.

I assume my brain is somehow able to filter it out, unless it’s too tired/busy.

That, and you simply hear the sounds in your environment worse and/or selectively depending on how they interact with the tinnitus. It's a massive nuisance.

The worst has to be in movies or TV shows when they play this ring after something happens (car accident / loud bang / etc). It's like it doubles the tinitus amplitude and it's excruciating. Every time I see this in a movie I am both disappointed for the lazy trope as well as immediately think to myself there's no way the sound designer of this movie knows what tinitus even is.

My main gripe is that some of the people that I interact simply won't believe it and can't be arsed to speak up a little so I can actually hear them.

Got it similarly. 7-8 years ago. Probably from ANC. It used to feel loud, now I have to remind myself to hear it. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Mine started when I was 12 for no apparent reason. A visit to the pediatrician, a hearing test that found my hearing was normal, and that was that. 65 years later (I'm 77) it's EXACTLY the same in pitch and volume, a loud high-pitched whine that doesn't bother me in the least. Once I got used to it and realized it was a permanent thing, it ceased to be annoying or a problem, probably when I was in high school. In my case ANC was most definitely NOT the cause (in 1960). Unless the Russians were already testing their Havana Syndrome weapon in Milwaukee.... One more thing: aspirin and/or caffeine make mine significantly louder for a few hours, though it's still not bothersome.

From ANC? Active Noise Cancelling?

Doesn't seem to be a thing?

Apparently, there is no scientific evidence that ANC is or is not causing tinnitus.

ANC reduces background noise, which typically allows users to listen at lower volumes, thereby reducing total sound exposure to the ear. So if the user adapts their volume, that would lead to less risk of tinnitus. This works for me :)

But there are lots of people on forums suggesting that there is a link between tinnitus and ANC. One reason could be that ANC headphones allow you to listen very accurately to inner auditory signals, and if you already had some tinnitus, you might start to notice it.

I developed tinnitus a year ago (I'm in my early 30s). I was living in an environment where it was noisy in the morning so I took to wearing sound cancelling headphones and earplugs to sleep.

A few weeks into it I noticed a persistent ringing and I thought it was some sort of electrical wine in an old house. A week later I realized it was permanent so I cut out my sound cancelling sleep routine, but the tinnitus has stayed.

I got tinnitus before ANC was a thing, and I've never been able to comfortably use it for more than a short period of time.

Whenever I do, I swear I feel increased pressure on my ears and my tinnitus temporarily gets worse. I've often wondered if I imagine it, but hearing from others here makes me think it isn't so strange.

Oh weird, I also perceive an increased pressure on my ears, but it's only with my over-the-ear headphones when turned on. My in ear ANC headphones don't do the same.

Slight tinnitus here but had it for as long as I can remember.

I personally believe active noise cancelling is a direct cause of tinnitus. This is just a personal belief though and I have no direct evidence. I've heard a lot of anecdotes corroborating this.

Yes it feels like I got it from ANC. Might not "be a thing", just coincided with my ANC use. It is my data point.

Did it start around the covid/ WFH time? There are a few theories

1. Airpods or ANC

2. WFH ->. Less movement -> stiff muscles around neck and head -> head trasnfer frequencies changing

3. Covid vaccine

I know some people blame the covid vaccine. I had tinnitus before the vaccine and it got louder when I took the vaccine and then got quieter later. But it gets louder with other medications too. I suspect anything that causes inflammation can increase tinnitus symptoms, and the covid vaccine does temporarily increase inflammation. This could easily push someone who hasn’t noticed their developing tinnitus over the edge and suddenly they notice it and associate it with the vaccine. What they don’t know is that they might have noticed their tinnitus 2 months later if they hadn’t taken the vaccine. Statistically, I would expect there to be lots of people, like maybe as much as one or two percent of the population (which amounts to a few million people in the US) who might legitimately associate their tinnitus with the covid vaccine, even if the vaccine actually had nothing to do with it.

The same explanation goes for ANC - when you cut out all the noise, suddenly it’s way easier to notice the tinnitus you already had.

There might be something with the neck stiffness idea. I do get the feeling my tinnitus lessens when I’m using cervical traction and doing neck stretching regularly.

1. Without noise you become more aware of your tinnitus.

2. WFH -> Less movement -> Decreased blood flow can contribute to the onset of tinnitus.

Long exposure to high volumes causes hearing damage. Many people set volume on headsets too high to hear better.

3. Many people are diagnosed with tinnitus every day, and some are bound to have it discovered after a vaccine shot. In the same way, some people will have tinnitus discovered after COVID. That doesn’t yet prove causation.

See this is why we can't have cheap tinfoil.

You're killing me with your acronym. That's a recurring thing here, so don't feel bad.

Active Noise Cancelling (headphones, earbuds etc.)

It probably doesn’t cause tinnitus, but people grasp at straws about this kind of stuff.

I'm 35, I very suddenly got tinnitus about a year ago. Like, I remember one day I didn't have it, and when I woke up the next morning I did. I went to an ENT hoping that it would be an earwax impaction or something, but nope. I got a hearing test, thinking maybe I'm getting older and it's a side effect of that, but nope, my hearing was actually slightly better than average for someone my age. I got an MRI thinking it might be a tumor but nope, no tumors in my head that the MRI could see [1]. At this point I think the medical consensus for my tinnitus is "shrug".

Mine fortunately isn't that bad; it's in my left ear, and about 95% of the time I can ignore it. It sounds almost exactly like the high-pitch squeal that CRTs make when you have them on without any input. The biggest thing for me now is that I can't really deal with "silence" anymore. I pretty much always have YouTube running, or some music playing, or some audio of rainstorms of thunderstorms going, because otherwise the squeal can be maddening. Fortunately, in 2026 it's never been easier to find a nearly infinite supply of ambient noise, so I can deal with it.

I'm extremely lucky that it doesn't appear to have disrupted my sleep much. I know some people have had their tinnitus ruin their sleep and I am in the happy few where that isn't an issue. I can go to sleep with the noise in my left ear and it doesn't take much longer than it did before I got the tinnitus.

I'd much rather it not be there, and I was really hoping it would go away after a few months, but after a year I suspect that it's something I am just going to have to live with for the rest of my life. I'm 35 now, and hopefully I got another fifty years or so left, so for the large majority of my life it's just going to be something I'm stuck with. I've just kind of come to terms with it.

[1] I mean, in net it's probably good that there aren't observable tumors in my head. At least I don't think I have brain cancer.

have it too. no idea when i got it, probably a very long time ago. having said that i don't really care and mostly don't notice it. but if i think about it, then i hear a constant feeeeeeeee...eeep. but then i just forget about it. and that's coming from somebody who is very noise sensitive.

A lot of people hear a slight hiss. Is that tinnitus? Faint enough that it's not noticable 90% of the time.

Any noise you hear that is not a real sound that others can hear is tinnitus. The actual experience for people with the condition varies, for some it's a hiss, for some it's a tone, for me it's a really loud, multi-tonal, warbling sound between 11khz and 15khz. If anyone has tinnitus and wants to know what frequency it is that you your brain is perceiving just go online and find a tone generator and start increasing the frequency until the sound from the speakers suddenly disappears. That's the frequency of your tinnitus.

e: btw tinnitus is considered hearing damage.

How does this work in combination with age related hearing loss? At some point you will lose high frequency sensitivity in that 11-15Khz range. Would be nice to get some benefit from that, but I assume the tinnitus itself will not go away even if it hangs out at that frequency?

It also means the above experiment will not work since you lose the signal before you reach your tinnitus frequency.

Honestly though, a hiss that you can hardly notice is maybe technically tinnitus, but not a problem at all. Actual tinnitus would drive anyone crazy, I bet.

For me, it's a very distinct ringing. Like in the movies when there's some explosion/shock scene and there's a very persistent ding that happens after the explosion or whatever - it's what I hear constantly.

i have it for more than 12 years. 8 years ago, I began to dont give a f“““ anymore. I now can go days and weeks without hearing it. Even when reading in silence. Sometimes, when my brain decides to losten to it again, I immediately start to distract myself. Sometimes for hours, until „I forget“

I got it late Feb 2020. Wasn't great to have that sound haunt me through the rest of the isolation.

It gets better,I promise. It becomes an annoying companion,but you develop ways to forget about it

Eventually you stop hearing it unless someone mentions it.

Similar, I went past an event that was playing unusually loud music last may. I ended up with tinnitus and hyperacusis.

I don't know which is worse, but the combination has me contemplating euthanasia on a regular basis

Don’t let it get to you like this.

I have had it since I was 13 (60 now). The base noise is filtered out unless I listen for it, but ion occasion I get a temporary deafness, followed by almost a popping sound, then a LOUD tinnitus at a different frequency which slowly fades.

Sometimes I get a new frequency. Since 2000 it has gotten worse, since 2020, much worse. But changing my environment seems to effect it for better and worse.

No doubt mine is connected to my mental illness and probably temporal lobe seizures.

Consider using a TRT[1] Tinnitus hearing aid. It was prescribed me by my ENT doctor and it provides me with great relief. My Tinnitus is persistent and extremely loud. Loud enough that I couldn't get use to it even after many years. I'm not sure what would be the procedure for you to get one in your country. It is not a cure, but it made my life immensely better. I wished I had gotten it sooner. Good luck!

---

[1] Tinnitus Retraining Therapy

The more you think about it and the more negatively you think of it, the worse it gets. I know it's easy to say, but the secret is just to not care about it.

I got it on a plane ride at 15, due to blasting music on headphones.

Terrible first 2 weeks, then just kind of faded into the background. Humans are very resilient. Well, I am, I guess :)

Fellow tinnitus haver here.

The worst thing you can do is fixate on it. To avoid that, you want to make it so that you never hear it. Play some noise whenever you need it especially when sleeping. Then, over time, learn to accept it. And then the craziest thing happens: it does actually get better. You don’t just get used to it, it actually improves. It’s a profound connection of mind and body.

I wont call it anecdotal evidence but i am told, in "traditional" Greek medicine,tinnitus is a symptom of constipation.

Its told you fix constipation, your ringing ears will get fixed.

I know its not 100% but try to fix your bowel movement if it isn't working properly already.

Who could have imagined that “traditional” Greek medicine was bullshit?

Tinnitus sufferers tend to experience symptoms their entire lives. Do you genuinely think that they’re all walking around continuously constipated for decades?

I'll save you about 30 ad views:

> The Oxford researchers proposed that the large spontaneous waves of brain activity that occur during deep sleep, or non-rapid eye movement sleep (non-REM), might suppress the brain activity that leads to tinnitus.

I'll do even better — here's the original 2022 paper:

https://academic.oup.com/braincomms/article/4/3/fcac089/6563...

I thought you were exaggerating so I went back and counted: I stopped at 50 and I wasn't even CLOSE to reaching the end of the page!!!

uBlock Origin reduces it to an almost reasonable number of three embeds plus the "trending" section. But the cookies consent modal is also disgusting

I don't really get anything apart from a couple of links to science alert stuff. uBlock lite and the "I still don't care about cookies" extension.

I tried turning those off to have a look and my what a lot of ads. It sort of puzzles me that people put up with them.

An analogy: they're sort of like chronic tinnitus. After a few years you don't even notice them.

In addition to uBlock Origin I'm also using AdGuard as my home WiFi DNS server and I'm seeing zero ads and no cookie notices in the linked article. For cookies I'm using uBlock Origin's Filter lists which are available in the extension settings.

Funny, I see not a single ad, trending section, nor a cookie consent.

Are you on Chrome?

Firefox mobile. I just checked, and for some reason, uBlock Origin was deactivated. No longer!

As somebody with tinnitus, forgive me, this seemed instinctively obvious. A very bad night of sleep raises the volume of the tinnitus substantially. Stress does the same.

Not sure about stress, but definitely have the same exp re sleep. If I’m tired the ringing is very noticeable, when I wake up early after a late night it can be deafening. But besides from noticing it being “louder” it seems to go away, or I just ignore it.

It’s been well known for as long time, the news here is the specific biological mechanism, which may open up new areas of research.

So perhaps the connection is sleep -> stress -> tinnitus?

it's really hard to say though, because stress = poor sleep in my case, so there is a chicken-egg problem

For me it's stress -> bruxism (day and or night) -> tinnitus.

as always, the devil (and research) is in the details

it seems that these researchers think it's non-REM sleep that helps in prevention, not just sleep in general

Same experience here.

Same

Also, in the fleeting moments between waking and full consciousness, I can hear all sounds coming back to me (ringing included), exactly as if they had been turned off by my brain during sleep and are now being turned on again.

For people suffering from tinnitus, here is a technique that greatly helped me:

1. Place your hands over your ears such that your fingers are on the back of your skull - thumbs should be on your neck and middle fingers at the base of your skull.

2. Tap your middle fingers on the base of your skull repeatedly for ~30 seconds

It apparently doesn’t work for everyone, and it’s not permanent, but for me it greatly reduces the “volume” or stops it entirely.

I have no idea what the explanation is, but it’s free, safe, and you can try it right now.

Hope that helps! Tinnitus sucks.

I also have been suffering from tinnitus a little over a year now. It definitely has impacted my sleep, especially my mornings. It's the first thing I think about when I wake up.

I've been following the work of Auricle Inc., a company commercializing decades of neuroscience research out of Dr. Susan Shore's lab at the University of Michigan. (Full disclosure: I have spoken to their CEO about potentially helping with their funding, although my primary concern is getting their product to the public).

Instead of just masking the sound, their device targets the root cause using bimodal neuromodulation. It pairs specific audio tones with mild electrical pulses to the jaw/neck to desynchronize hyperactive neurons in the dorsal cochlear nucleus.

Here are the two papers that cover the underlying science, and go over the efficacy:

The foundational mechanism and Phase 1 trial showing how it induces long-term depression (LTD) in the brain circuitry: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aal3175

The Phase 2 double-blind, randomized clinical trial results showing significant reductions in tinnitus loudness and burden: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

Dr Shore device has been decades in development. It's been all the rage in r/tinnitus , r/tinnitusresearch and T. Facebook groups. Still according to people that have tried it, it's no silver bullet.

I've had tinnitus for 25+ years and followed a lot of science. At some point some Brasil researchers found a drug that reduced tinnitus volume as a secondary effect. There wrote papers about it, but unfortunately, nothing came of it.

Thanks for supporting tinitus research. It gives me some hope that there will be a treatment someday.

so its like lenire machine?

> researchers found that ferrets that developed more severe tinnitus also showed disrupted sleep.

Hold up. How do we know when ferrets have tinnitus???

This way: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4411996/

I kinda get it now, it's more of a way of studying induced deafness at certain frequencies that might be similar to the effect of tinnitus.

If your tinnitus is at say 13khz, and someone turns on a sound at that frequency, you don't react to it because your mind is effectively masking it.

I once played my tinnitus tone from this site https://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/ for my partner, when i turned it off i had the odd sensation that i couldn't tell if the sound actually stopped or not.

I used to get some temporary relief from dialing in the tone on that site and listening it to a few minutes.

Hey, I know my tinnitus frequency now!

If they're Greek ferrets, apparently they become constipated. :-)

AirPod pros noise cancellation gave me my tinnitus. Just as a warning to others be careful. There’s an apple support page with lots of people complaining about the same thing.

It's interesting. I guess the algorithm moves the pod diaphragm to try to oppose external noise but must push the ear drum out of it's design range.

I have tinnitus. My theory of how it arises is the bit of the ear that converts spatial movement to electrical signals - some hairs tied to an ion channel basically - gets moved too far and breaks the thing in such a way that the channel jams open.

The noise pro stuff may be worse than regular loud noises as the ear recognises loud noises and tries to protect itself but may not do that with the noise cancellation movements.

(diagram of what the gear looks like https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/3-s2.0-B97801237494750...)

Got mine after my first Acid trip (still don't know if it was real acid). Its not debilitating for me, just annoying. So yeah, be careful out there folks. The Acid trip was very cerebral though and I consider it to be an important experience in my life so I am kind of on the fence that it might have been worth the trade off....

The opening sentence “Those who have never endured the relentless ringing of tinnitus can only dream of the torment” does not mean what they think it means. Unless this is a very niche kink.

Thats what I thought when I first read it. I don't this is something that people look forward to in dreams. Or possible to imagine in dreams.

There are limits to dreams.

I solved mine by chronically exposing myself to very low noise during sleep - wearing good earplugs in an already silent room. To the point where you can hear your eyeballs move etc. I guess this may be where the link to good sleep comes from, which implies a quiet sleeping environment

I also have good experience with wearing ear protection in a quiet room. But I haven't been disciplined enough about it. My probably wrong rationale is that part of the issue is hearing loss and reducing the volume retrains your brain to be able to process smaller signals.

This sometimes makes my tinnitus go away temporarily: https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/whiteBurstsNoiseGenerator....

And this I can sometimes use to pinpoint my tinnitus tone(s): https://generalfuzz.net/acrn/

Personal anecdote: removing a lower wisdom tooth that was close to the jaw nerve nearly cured my tinnitus back in the day.

The surgeon dentist was really surprised by this and could not evoke any similar cases in their practice before mine.

I think I should remove my wisdom tooth too

It's interesting that worked. It reminds me of Scott Adams' story where he lost his voice due to spasming and got it back through surgery that cut one of the nerves involved.

(https://www.brainandlife.org/articles/spasmodic-dysphonia-re...)

I have, I think, probably the most benign tinnitus I could imagine.

I randomly get something in my head that sounds pretty close to coil whine, but definitely isn't coil whine — I've had it when I'm in the depths of the wilderness with no electronics.

It typically lasts less than 20s and I can go months between occurrences.

I'm 35. I've got tinnitus since I was 9/10 years old. The insurgence of my tinnitus is interesting: I got it after sleeping an entire night with a television static after watching a VHS. Another interesting aspect is that the aforementioned insurgence happened in 2 phases: I went asleep watching a VHS and the subsequent static sound made me hear a ringing sound for a while (some days IIRC) then disappeared; a week after that I went asleep again in the same way (vhs, static etc) and from that moment onward I always got a ringing. It sounds like when you turn on a ctr tv. Initially I was kind of alarmed. No one believed me and I found the existence of the condition after many years on tv or internet. My brain filter the sound most of the time so I live with the condition.

I thought it was raining on our trip to venice: "you hear that dear, quite nasty rain". She looked at me puzzled, but hadn't noticed what I really heard. The next day was obvious... This now 15+ years ago. Some days it is bad, some days I hardly notice. It does not affect me that much: still hear near pitch perfect (work on music stuff as hobby), mostly a consistent hiss which can get annoying sometimes as it can distracts, mostly can ignore it. Some people can't, maybe lucky? Edit: Local doctor just once told me:just listen to music to drown it out, don't over do.... Keep enjoying it. never seeked further help.

I’ve had it for almost 6 years. I’m fairly certain it can be solved by a simple laser to the blood vessels in my ear, but doctors refuse to even try it. My tinnitus started as hearing my heartbeat for over a year before it turned into a screeching noise. It makes complete sense to me that blood vessels in the ear are the primary cause, considering how many ailments can cause new blood vessel growth… why has nobody even considered this as a cause to tinnitus? If i could clearly hear my own pulse/heartbeat, then maybe just maybe it’s because a blood vessel was forming extremely close to the inner ear… but nobody will help me, because American doctors are only concerned about their paychecks than they actually care about helping anyone. All of that blood rushing through my ear, shaking the inner ear bones, etc, has destroyed about 80% of my hearing in my right ear… i really wish there was a doctor out there that actually cared enough to help me try to end it… it’s game over if it ever spreads to my other ear too and nobody is still willing to help me…because i will go insane if this begins permanent surround sound with both ears screeching inside my head.

I’ve been using my tinnitus to evaluate whether I got enough sleep or when I’ve become tired for years, so it’s nice to randomly trip over validation here that the link is universal to and not just a hyperlocal mutation. Thanks for posting this.

I suppose I wouldn’t have noticed this if I was trying to tune out tinnitus, but I’m just used to it? Not like anything is every quiet (my hearing is hyperactive), but, like, the tone and volume of it right now is “insufficient sleep but circadian forced us awake” so I need to be particularly measured and chill if I drive while it’s this loud.

Tinnitus might be the simplest debilitating disease. It's sad that no therapy, even alleviating, is available.

I always thought that tinnitus is caused by a "rusted" acoustic nerve wire (here it's coexistence with hearing loss) no central mechanism is evolved. Linking non-REM sleep phase to tinnitus production is unexpected.

I first got it in 2015 after playing Fallout 4 almost nonstop for the entire weekend. The game ran poorly and the low stuttery fps caused a massive migraine in my head. I took Tylenol and went to sleep and woke up with it ringing in one of my ears which eventually moved to both. The doctors were pretty useless and said they couldn't see anything wrong and to just live with it.

My brain eventually figured out how to tune it out and now it associates the sound with silence.

Now I've developed it again after feeling depressed and blasting music in my car. The new version crackles and alternates tones in my left ear. I have a doctors appointment coming up to hopefully figure it out.

There is a new expensive treatment for it called Lenore which works by playing sounds and stimulating your tongue at the same time. Those pathways are located close together in the brain and by stimulating both at the same time, it's supposed to train it to filter out the noise.

Tom Blomfield, the Monzo guy / YC partner fixed his with that

https://x.com/t_blom/status/1810459463725588861

> The doctors were pretty useless and said they couldn't see anything wrong and to just live with it.

Unfortunately that is the truth of it. Sometimes tinnitus can be traced to other parts of the body, but more often it seems to be caused by the brain acting up. And we just don't have enough knowledge about the brain to fix things like that, so all you can do is try to habituate.

It’s spelled Lenire.

This is what helped me not be bothered about my Tinnitus anymore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNjDBOJfMfY

The article briefly links to another article that Tinnitus triggers your fight-or-flight response and I agree. You need to get rid of this instinctive response by moving it more into your awareness.

My life is so much better now.

I am a 69 yr old female. I don't remember a time without tinnitus, even as a child. In the last two years I had a couple of scary episodes where the whooshing, whistling, ringing ,buzzing, heart pulse became a HORN. In my right ear. It was driving me crazy, making me cry because it wouldn't stop. Nothing would cover the noise. I ended up at a neurologist. I found out I had a cyst in a pineal gland, that I didn't know about. But no answer to the horn sound, migraine and nausea. eventually after about a week it stopped. The second time was only a day. It is a frustrating ongoing situation, but I guess others have far worse problems.

>the ferrets that developed tinnitus showed overly responsive brain activity to sound

I wonder how you tell if a ferret is experiencing tinnitus? I did ^F on the paper for ferret but didn't find anything.

Yes!! Sometimes it's much worse when either I don't get a full night's sleep or I wake up from a short nap. The latter is almost guaranteed to make it really bad.

Might be related to neck stiffness on very cold nights.

In my 20s and 30s, I used to turn on the TV to cover up my tinnitus so I could fall asleep. The TV probably didn't help the quality of my sleep, so maybe that's why my tinnitus got progressively worse (especially in my right ear). Once I got a TV with a sleep timer, I would set it so the TV wouldn't be on all night.

My tinnitus is much worse now, but I don't have a TV in my room anymore, so I just play a podcast on my iPad. That tiny built-in speaker doesn't really cover up the tinnitus, but the voices lull me to sleep (which is probably what the TV was doing all along).

I've had it for nearly 20 years, and I know it came from an incident shooting firearms with not enough (none) protection. Most days I don't think about it anymore. However if I am tired or stressed, it seems to turn up to 11. I've read many people get depressed or they can't get over it, luckily I seem to deal with it alright, but wouldn't wish it on anyone. Protect your hearing!

Ive had almost the exsct same experience. I dropped 100+ rounds through my mosin one day stupidly without hearing protetcion, and have been listening to my electric crickets ever since. It isnt distracting at this point but would be nice to turn off eventually.

I get 10% veteran disability for it. the best time to file a claim is now because they'll change the rules soon and eliminate this benefit

For me it's a strange experience: I notice it almost only when ready to sleep, by day even if I focus to check if I can hear it I don't. And when I'm hearing it at about bedtime, I start yawning continuously and very "strongly" because after some tries, it disappears. Do someone has an explanation to this?

Wait so like the constant high pitch squeal/hum is tinnitus? I just thought I was hearing electronics.

No, at least not for me. More like the ringing in your ears after a loud concert. 24/7. Every day.

Sugar or alcohol kicks mine into high gear.

I've heard other people say this.

Wonder if the root cause is inflammation, which might go up with stress, bad sleep, bad diet, etc

I think it's more about stress (cortisol). I find that regular exercise and avoiding things like coffee and Red Bull goes a long way. Stimulants set me off really badly.

Mine started whilst I was skateboarding with in ear headphones in listening to slayer full volume, had a big slam with headphones in, left side of head hit the floor and had a loud ringing in my ears ever since.

Always had trouble falling asleep though, ever since I was a young sperm.

The best thing I did to help with my tinnitus what Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. If you perceive the sound as something dangerous than it bothers you way more.

Like others pointed a bad night sleep definitely increases the perceived sound.

Also the stress in the shoulders doesn't help.

I got my tinnitus from sitting next to a desktop computer with high RPM SCSI drives. I wonder if it is caused by senescent neurons.

I remember reading somewhere a Doctor found a way to 'cure' ringing in the ears temporarily for almost a year in some people by doing something with a tuning-fork.

But after that article I heard nothing more. I just looked it up and seems it may not be a reliable method.

I can play a pure sine wave tone with a tone generator app, and dial the frequency up until it precisely matches my tinnitus. I originally did this just to determine that frequency.

But I noticed a side-effect: if I then turn off the tone generator, my tinnitus would disappear! Unfortunately that effect only lasts for a minute or less, so it is not really practical to get relief this way.

That's called "residual inhibition".

Note that I would be careful about using pure tones for too long. Pure tones end up focusing the energy in your cochlea towards a small area of hair cells. Since these cells don't regenerate, it may be wise to avoid overstressing them.

Thanks! I didn't know it was a known phenomenon. Now I know what to google.

My tinnitus is fortunately not super loud; it's only noticeable when it's relatively quiet, or I'm blocking sounds (with ear plugs, or noise cancelling headphones without input, etc.). So it's not like I habitually blast my ears with loud sine waves out of desperation. But I can imagine it may be different for other readers, so that's a good caveat.

That is fascinating.

I have a coworker that swears by certain sound baths to remedy his tinnitus. It “cures” him for 10-12 months and then he just goes back.

Don't know about the tuning fork one, but there is a method where by if you poke some muscle on the back of your neck repeatedly, it stops for some people. This is apparently due to that muscle being the thing that makes a noise, and poking it eventually physically exhausts it temporarily. Obviously that only works if that's your cause.

Masseter and suboccipital muscle massage that I read about on Reddit of all places instantly reduced my subjective tinnitus by maybe 90% about five years ago. It's not permanent but lasts months and has worked for me for years. I now need near total silence to hear the tone, and it completely resolved the condition as a daily problem for me.

I vaguely recall that tuning fork remedy as well

I got tinnitus from a failing Toshiba notebook hard drive. I can not sleep without masking noises. A real washing machine or dishwasher is S-tier, but more often than not the C-tier fallback has to be monotone Youtube autoplay lectures.

I’m sitting in a restaurant and didn’t notice the ringing until I read this article… but it is there. Usually I only really consciously notice it while falling asleep, never really thought anything of it.

One thing I recently realised is that sticking my head under water makes my tinnitus basically disappear. At least I don’t “hear” it that intensely.

Unfortunately I don’t live near a coast so this is something I can regularly tryout.

I have a mild case of tunnitus, and I can only blame myself. When a rock venue was packed, I gravitated to the area right in front of the speakers - where I also always had a good view of the band.

A friend of mine who had it at night and who is not a smoker realized that smoking a cigarette would calm her tinnitus and allow her to sleep. Anyone had a similar experience with cigarette and/or nicotin ?

Does anyone know of research relating to sleep apnea, CPAPs, and tinnitus?

Sleep is one of the only things I’ve found can actually improve the tinnitus I’ve had for almost 3 years. Every other tactic I have is essentially avoiding making it worse.

I don't have tinnitus (as in "chronic tinnitus") but sometimes I hear it for a few minutes after I have a poor night of sleep...

Just reading the title made my tinnitus come back.

Someone explaining their tinnitus symptoms made me realise that I had tinnitus for years. Until then I didn’t “hear” it because I just assumed it was normal.

Since then, I’ve realised that tinnitus is contagious! So I prefer not to talk about it just in case I pass it on.

For some reason this experience you are describing reminds me of a passage in "One hundred years of solitude" where a character is said to fall in love with a woman that only exists when she is needed.

What's interesting for me is my tinnitus is off when I wake up, and then all of the sudden it turns on. Very weird.

I've heard a scientist say tinnitus also happens after waking up from a nap, not from a night's sleep

Can confirm

I sleep badly, and have had tinnitus since I was a kid.

And sleep is related to air way/jaw/tongue/bite issues which causes mouth breathing and sleep apenia. Get it checked out by your dentist

I doubt most dentists know more about sleep apnea than you do. Look elsewhere.

Whenever I get less sleep, tinnitus gets really bad.

For some reason I started getting tinnitus when I am sick with some sort of sinus infection / cold or flu. Usually I don't sleep very well when I'm sick so that might be part of it.

The first time I got sick and it started, I went walking around the neighborhood looking for the source of the noise until I realized I had tinnitus. Sounded like some kind of distant earth works / resonance thing.

Really feel for people who have it permanently.

I can cause tinnitus by pinching my nose, closing my throat, and manipulating my throat to pressurize my skull.. like one does to "pop their ears" after changing altitudes to hear/speak properly again.

If my ears start ringing like I feel tinnitus has arrived, I've found it goes away by cycling this pressure a couple times.

YMMV

I've long suspected that (at least my own) tinnitus was a neurological phenomenon, seeing how it's always been with me at various "levels of presence", from imperceptible to so loud I can't hear anything else, I've always felt it as an "inner sound".. Had multiple hearing tests, and nothing in particular showed up. It's also weird because it changes somewhat in frequency, both down to frequencies my 40 year old ears can register and up beyond what I can actually hear when doing a test..

But especially the coming and going and how it seems affected to level of tiredness or amount of sleep I got.. Of course, reading the article made me aware of it and now it's loud than before..

I've had strong symptoms of adhd my whole life, but never thought much of it (except as a lack of self dicipline and general failure of a broken robot to impersonate a real human), but as demands on my performance rose to real-adult levels with a young child and duties beyond not dying, I decided to tell the doc how it had generally felt like to be myself, at which point I was referred to someone with a specialty in broken brains, and we quickly agreed that while I wasn't going to become normal, certain stimulants at least provided me with sufficient energy to carry out most of the functions expected by an adult member of society with actual responsibilities.

And so, over the past.. more than a year, I've gotten to experience a little bit of everything as my brain gets to oscillate between being slightly oversaturated to absolutely drained of certain neurotransmitters in a way that at the same time feels slightly unsustainable and the only alternative where I get to not be absolutely miserable all the time.

The point of that story, being, these "phantom precepts", fits the bill somewhat well. I've always had a very conscious experience of common neurological phenomenon which are naturally present but largely-unnoticed by many (auras, visual snow, floaters, phosphenes, tinnitus, afterimages) so I'm probably a bit one the sensitive side, and, the medication seems to have a quite interesting effect on these as well, among them, I noticed the ABSENCE of noticing my clothes touching my skin.. I am no longer acutely aware of the cooling sensation of inhaling air through my nose, and I rarely hear the beat of my heart in my ears.. Maybe the weirdest effect is on saccades, in a conversation, looking from one person to the next seems to be as instant as before, but the blur of my eyes moving between points of focus is gone, it's kind of jarring, just poof, one picture, then another.. nothing in between.

I now seem to be able to influence my attention somewhat, that is, to do whatever that cognitive regulation is called, so that my focus shifts to a subject I need to do but have no interest in doing (oh wait, that's why I got the medication), but it does make me wonder, if tinnitus is just one of the more obvious (and therefore common) neurological processes that "pokes through" maybe perception of sound and attention (and maybe therefore also conscious experience of sound) have evolved to be more strongly linked (because if you notice the predator sneaking up on you, you get to not be eaten).

Maybe this stronger link is why tinnitus is so obvious, and maybe sleep is instrumental in regulating consciousness, so if consciousness is differently regulated, or less regulated, maybe it's easier for the phenomenon to "seep through".

out of all the people in this thread, you seem the most likely candidate to appreciate the following - tinnitus symptoms are often conflated with hearing sensitivity. if you can see auras, then id say your tinnitus symptoms arent indicative of tinnitus. search up brain wave frequencies and look at images. id wager you are hearing yourself, especially during changes of frequency. as well, just prior to sleep, you might hear a spike - thats the brain commencing the sleep mode algorithm (no wonder tinnitus wrecks sleep, affected individuals would struggle at synchronizing both hemispheres with the sleep algorithm when an involved sensor is malfunctioning)

seperately ... its clear that you recognise the incompatibility between sensitive individuals and a society designed to place the populace into constant fight or flight. youre still showing signs of blaming yourself. literally nobody is going to understand you (especially not doctors) and the sooner you accept this, the sooner you will free up a lot of trapped energy. id stop taking the stimulants regularly man ... even without their effect, barely anybody is going to understand your words, and the number of people who will appreciate your words is reduced when they are conveyed via essays (honestly i cant find the strength to read them properly) ... in general your expression has reminded me of the message behind the lateralus chorus

I have Ménière’s disorder and had a few short episodes of vertigo before one finally got me discombobulated. I woke up one morning and couldn’t get my extremities to function. Couldn’t tell up from down. It took about 8 hours for it to completely go away but then I realized I had lost most of my hearing in my right ear and half in my left, and had constant tinnitus and dizziness. I went to an ENT and learned that there is nothing I could do as there is no cure for Ménière’s. I have gotten better at dealing with the tinnitus and don’t notice it unless the train whistle or the lion roars start. I keep hoping one day that I will read that someone has found a cure! Ah well, hope springs eternal!!

I suffered a highly unpleasant vertigo attack yesterday - happens every once in a while. Tinnitus was the warning, and I was definitely over-tired beforehand.

After an ear infection 30 years ago I lost most hearing in my left ear and my balance was affected. Not a massive problem most of the time but I regret not being able to read when travelling, even by plane or train. It’s audiobooks all the way…

im sorry to hear that, some of my family members have inner ear disorders and the nausea/vertigo sounds terrible. the original comment isnt targeted at those like yourself who unfortunately must deal with damaged peripherals ... but still there is a chance it could apply. may i ask whether you ever noticed ringing in your ears to be correlated with a change of mental state? examples of this chage would be arriving at a big realisation, or commencing relaxation, or performing meditation.

I'm mainly thinking that the "sound" of tinnitus may be inherent in the brain, and the problem is the percept itself, not a percept of the tinitus, but the percept being generated while nothing was perceived, and so we become aware of this weird almost impossibly fine hight pitch.

It kind of fits with the patterns I and many other people describe, like the intensity varying with sleepiness and other mental state, and how it goes away if we hear _actual_ sounds of a broad enough spectrum..

It might be this little thing where it comes on by mistake, but it doesn't turn off again, and we latch onto it, and that's the feedback loop that enforces it.. I'm not saying we can "think it away" but I'm noticing in myself, that I didn't have any tinnitus _AT_ALL_ when I woke up, and now I'm almost consumed by this 20khz tone (my hearing stops around 16khz), and sitting here playing with that in my mind, I can certainly make it dim somewhat.

I wonder if there are some cognitive exercises that can be done especially for people who either don't have it, or have gotten it very recently. (Literature talks about some meditation and mindfulness, which I'm generally not a big believer in, but nevertheless, those do touch on the idea of messing around inside ones head in a top-down way).

I'm not too hooked on the idea that adhd is simply a "different kind of brain", I don't buy that we were the excellent survivors or hunters, I'm pretty sure I'd be the caveman who was eaten by a bear because I was too distracted by the pattern of shadows from two branches moving just the right way xD

I don't really blame myself, but I don't need to defend my condition (my personal condition, I'm not speaking on behalf of others), I've always been bothered by it, not simply when the mirror of expectation and society is held up against me, but even when left to do as I please, I find that while there are areas in which I function, and function well, there are areas where I'm so limited that it seems unreasonable even within my own framework. :)

constant 20khz does sound more like a damaged peripheral therefore my positation was incorrect, i wish i could help more but i dont have enough experience, that being said i do find super interesting the idea of playing a tone at the same frequency to manually force brains into filtering it out, thanks for sharing your perspective , all the best