Tinnitus Aaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know what you mean about the drum-like noise. I get this sometimes but not sure its worse than the sound I’m attempting to block out. Tends to be most noticable with cheap foam earplugs but not so much with the musicians ones, or custom fit ones.

yep – not bad with the er20s, with my shure phones it is worse.

Yet another sufferer here too … a left over from the menieres.
Stress, lack of sleep and a too salty diet seem to make mine worse.
I find if I go for a hard ride on the bike it almost always clears it … I put it down to getting the blood pumping, maybe its just psychological really … works for me anyways.

The alcohol link is prob correct. The fluid levels in the ear will alter due to alcohol dehydrating you to some degree.
I drink very little, so can not give much of an opinion on that.

Suffer here too.

Out of interest, when people are wearing ear plugs, like the ones talked about, do you find that all sorts of vibration cause a big drum like sound. ie walking barefoot on a hard floor, or going down some rough bits on the bike. Sometimes it sounds like this drum sound is worse than the sound I’m trying to block out.

I dont wear them when it’s not noisy, i.e. MTBing isn’t noisy for me. I’d only wear them when not wearing them would hurt, not to block out irritating noises like next doors bass. So I use mine when tuning engines (under the standard industrial ones!), when doing DIY with drills/grinders/sanders/compressors, when out in a club.

I do notice I’m hyper-sensitive to sounds though, I can hear stuff (and it drives me nuts) that my other half doesn’t even notice. Next doors bass drives me BONKERS because I struggle to distinguish the words on the TV from the bass and the rhythm gets stuck in my head and conflicts with the TV music/speach.

Horrible.

@ Oxboy: when i first had tinnitus I was given some anti-depressants in a mild does which serve to deaden the nerve endings which does seem to help some.

you should have a scan on your nut to make sure you don’t have a (sounds like acoustic but not sure it is) nuroma – a type of non malignant tumor on you acoustic nerve.

a friend on mines tinnitus was caused by an over build up of calcium on the small bones in her ear. these were replaced with artificial ones and the noise stopped.

chech out the British Tinnitus Ass’n web site which has some useful stuff on it

yes it is a horrible affliction,
people have been known to top themselves because of it!
i got mine courtesy of years on a jackhammer and a 120mph Triumph Bonneville….
its got worse, now i avoid socialising with younger people,
eg my kids and their friends,
they tend to talk quiet and i just can`t distinguish their voice over the relentless hissssshssssshshshshssss
…”sorry i didn`t catch what you said”…. for the third time,
or like when somebody makes a humerous quip,
everyone laughs! ……. exept me, i didn`t catch it :/
its a weird sort of deafness, now i can hear the wall clock ticking away in the kitchen
[edit], a while back my factory manager asked me to walk round and listen for any air leaks in the compressed air lines,
how i laughed!!:)

bighendo – Member

[edit], a while back my factory manager asked me to walk round and listen for any air leaks in the compressed air lines,
how i laughed!!:)
🙂

finding punctures can be hard – is that a hiss I hear? 🙂

watch the number of people that flinch when a tube trains comes into the station and puts its squealing brakes on…

One that really gets me is sirens no ambulances and police cars – I have to stop the bike and get my fingers in my ears as they come past

+1 for ambulances and police cars. Fingers straight in the ears as soon as I hear them!

Tinnitus- the hallucination of soundis a very distressing condition affecting 7% of the population, more prevelentif you have a hearing loss. If you have tinnitus in one definitly have a hospital appointment to rule out an acoustic neuroma,technically a vestubular schwannoma.
Relaxation techniques and modified cognative behaviour therapy has good results.
Keeping the amount of caffine, alchol and a low salt diet have been shown to help
The British Tinnitus Assoc tinnitus.org.uk have good resourses and local self help groups
Keeping the amount of noise exposure to a minimum less than 70db, slightly louder than talking, during the day will lessen the aggreivation of the condition.
Using noise cancellation ear defenders are the best, followed by musician ear plugs. These contain sintered filters that less the force of the sound, therefore, work best with impulse sounds like shotguns and drumming.
Hope this of help

CoffeeKing, interesting. I find that when out on the bike the wind noise can really be uncomfortable.

Thing that drive me wild is putting tea spoons in the draw. Almost painfull. And I even ended up buying a “quite” keyboard for work, as that drove me up the wall. Strange.

Oh, that reminds me. Does anyone else suffer from this…get ready, really hard to explain thing coming up…Sort of wierd buldge, crackle, swooshing noise, almost a feeling like a muscle tensing/relaxing, in the ear when yawning, talking loudly, laughing etc? Just wondering if it normal, or something unusual.

I think thats the Eustacian (spelling?) tubes issue?

Oh, that reminds me. Does anyone else suffer from this…get ready, really hard to explain thing coming up…Sort of wierd buldge, crackle, swooshing noise, almost a feeling like a muscle tensing/relaxing, in the ear when yawning, talking loudly, laughing etc? Just wondering if it normal, or something unusual.

Could be caused by TMJ? I have it to some extent and I think it’s another cause of the tinnitus.

Does anyone else get a thing where if you lay on your side in bed, with your ear touching the pillow, you can sort of hear/feel your pulse really loudly/strongly in your ear? Very strange/disconcerting.

Yeah I get the weird noises when yawning too. My tinnitus seems to be connected to my jaw in some weird way… Just try not to yawn much/ignore it! Really annoying though!

I currently have a ruptured eardrum (again 👿 ) in my ‘bad’ ear. All I hear on one side of my head is the high pitched whine. I am soooo looking forward to this healing so I can get on with ignoring it. 😀

After a while you do tune it out. I find that having music on in the background helps and keeping my mind occupied (biking helps!).

I may try all the caffeine-free/low salt stuff soon to see if it helps.

Grum, nice one. Never heard of TMJ. When I saw a specialist (about 2yrs ago) I made a very botched attempt at describing those issues. Since then I’ve made a sort of diary of all the odd things that happen with the intent of going back being better prepared. This thread is pushing me to make that visit 🙂

Thing that drive me wild is putting tea spoons in the draw. Almost painfull. And I even ended up buying a “quite” keyboard for work, as that drove me up the wall. Strange.

Hyperacusis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacusis

I get that – also had problems with cutlery on plates and clicky keyboards.

It seems to be related to my eustation tube thing – bad ventilation of the inner ear – I bet that you cannot dive either.

If I do not exercise it gets worse – but the exercise has to be the right form – a hard cycle with lots of panting as I climb hills is good, running is not.

Try pinching your nose and forcing your ears to pop – when you let the pressure go you will probably find that the sharp sounds aren’t as sharp. If so do that ear popping thing regularly – but not with too much pressure.

Another things that really helps me a lot is towards the end of my morning shower I pinch one nostril closed and ‘snort’ out of the other – and vice versa. I often get little bits of fairly solid white stuff coming out 🙁

TurnerGuy. Diving you say. Good question, never tried, but was planning on giving it a bash next summer. Will keep you posted (if don’t die trying!).

Best thing I’ve found for tinitus is keeping busy. Very seldom notice it when I’m actually doing something keeping busy. The big trouble is once you notice it you can’t igore it for ages.

No expert here, but a few people have mentioned awareness and I’ve been told that’s key. I have it – a high pitched white noise that’s brought on most when I’m tired (mentally or physically). A neuro-psychologist I know concurs that there’s no real cure, but observing other noises around you and opening up to them can help to switch your mind away from the tinnitus.

The people who’ve said reading this thread have brought there’s on are proving that, and it does work for me. UrbanHiker ^ suggests the same – keeping busy, not thinking about it, thinking about (or better still, observing) other noise and activity are probably the right way to go about things.

I have no idea how or if this can affect some of the people who have it brought on by some form of damage though, but hope this may be of some help.

TurnerGuy, its your middle ear that the Eustachian tube (ET)ventilates via its opening at the back of the throat. Try using an Otovent ballon to inflate your ET as this safer than pinch and blow, a Valsalva manoeuver,as this could lead to a perforated eardrum.
Otovent ballon

UrbanHiker, this could be involuntary spasms of your tensor tympani muscle, one of the smallest muscle in the body. This pulls on the bones in your middle ear, a defense against loud sounds, causing the eardrum to move, the crackle wooshing noise you hear.

Using noise cancellation ear defenders are the best,

Can anyone recommend some good noise cancelling ear defenders suitable for use around a 660mw steam turbine, as all the ones I can find seem to be for use when shooting, which as far as I can make out is a totally different type of sound.

Sounds about right Gephaudio, any way to train that muscle? I’ve not come accross weight training for the ears!

Love the balloon idea, going to search one out.

Dibbs Your employer shoud be providing ear protection to prevent any noise damage. You should be having annual hearing tests at a minimum

Google ‘active noise cancelling ear muffs’

The people who’ve said reading this thread have brought there’s on are proving that, and it does work for me. UrbanHiker ^ suggests the same – keeping busy, not thinking about it, thinking about (or better still, observing) other noise and activity are probably the right way to go about things.

Works in a general sense, but it can get very tiring having to be busy at all times and the worst thing is when you’re shattered and need to go to bed, or worst of all when you’re camping and looking forward to being lost in nature you have to ensure you’ve got in-ear earphones and a charged MP3 player at all times. Since I’ve had mine I’ve had steadily increasing exhaustion and every 6 months or so I crash completely from exhaustion. I can’t sleep without sounds, my other half can’t sleep with sound. Generally if I have to close my eyes I see coloured flashes left right and centre, so I have to sleep with light around me, preferably moving light which usually means the TV. So I have to sleep with in-ear headphones in (to make music loud enough to cover the noises) and the TV on mute to entertain my eyes.

Plenty of people suggest concentrating on other sounds but that’s a problem in itself – if the sound is low enough volume that I struggle to hear it I just notice my tinnitus is masking it and the tinnitus sounds (relatively) louder and louder until I give up and have to go somewhere noisy. I then get increased tinnitus from being somewhere noisy.

I’m a screwed up mess!

Coffeeking, sorry to hear it’s really getting to you. Have you looked into those pillows with the speakers in? Apparently the other person can’t really hear it. Def worth trying to train yourself not to hear it though if you can

You get used to it I guess, I’m sure there’s people worse off than me eh! I’ve tried one of those pillows but it poses a couple of issues – one is that the sound is generally coming from one ear rather than two, which means the other ear can only hear “weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” while the other hears music and second problem is the sound is not “internal” to my head so it has to be loud to mask it. I can have in-ear phones in at the lowest level and it seems to mask the “root” of the sound, but external music has to be about as loud as normal conversation to mask anything.

Stupid bodies!

Dibbs Your employer shoud be providing ear protection to prevent any noise damage.

They do, and ear defenders (as opposed to ear plugs) are mandatory in some area’s where I work.

You should be having annual hearing tests at a minimum

I do, and have done for the past 25+ years.

Google ‘active noise cancelling ear muffs’

I did, that’s why I typed

all the ones I can find seem to be for use when shooting, which as far as I can make out is a totally different type of sound.

😯

Anyone been to an Tinnitus forum/support group/chat thingy in local area? Any good?

I occasionally get temporary tinnitus, apparently at random. I can just be sitting at my desk, or exercising, or pretty much anything, and all of a sudden I get a loud whistling noise in one ear or the other – never both. It can last anything from a few minutes to all day – after a night’s sleep it will have disappeared.

I found (no idea how) that I can often get rid of it if, immediately after it starts, I can close my eyes and concentrate on the sound. I visualise a sine wave and attempt to ‘tune it in’ to the frequency of the whistling (as I type this I realise how daft/surreal this actually sounds!) by allowing it to run across my vision until it seems to slow and become a static wave like you might see on an oscilloscope. If I can get it to match the frequency (which is complete bollox anyway, as I have no idea what the frequency of the tinnitus sound is, but it makes sense at the time) it usually goes away. If I can’t get it within a minute or two of it starting, I’m stuck with it until it decides to disappear.

No idea how/why this works, but it usually does. And not really very helpful to those with a proper tinnitus problem, but thought I’d throw it in the mix…

Long time sufferer of tinitus since the early 1990’s following a horrific car crash and bump on the noggin.

I than myself luck I only have tinitus though as I was the only survivor of the crash. Constant reminder of how bloody lucky I was.

Whilst I am also a bit deaf in one ear I also try to look at the advantages that brings rather than the negatives. Whilst it is hard to hear folk, especially in a noisy location (parties are a nightmare trying to listen to people who may be talking to me over the background noise) my deafness is also great when trying to get to sleep if there is a bit of noise about.

Avoid increasing blood pressure / stress, that makes it louder in my experience.

Hi Gephaudio,

thanks for the suggestion – I have only just noticed it.

I don’t do it much and not with much force, but I do find the ‘snorting’ thing in the shower to be very beneficial. I will have a look at the baloons.

I also look on the bright side in that it force me to keep some level of aerobic fitness.

When I used to have time to listen to my hifi a lot that would also be a good incentive as, if I slacked off, my hearing balance would change and the hifi wouldn’t sound so good. My in-ear phones are nearly as effective for this.

Luckily my hifi has always been based around LS3/5a speakers which I bought specifically as they sounded good and well balanced at low volumes.

I got tinnitus 6 yrs ago watching a mates band in a small venue,no help sound guy had overdriven the amps so the sound system was really clipping AND mates band moved down running order,’cos one of the other bands “had to go early”!!.Mine is faint high pitch tone.I find taking extra Vitamin C and Magnesium is a big help in masking the noise.Hope this is helpful worth a go as vitamins not expensive and should not kill ‘ya!