[StanD]

   
Of late I've been underinsured so no audiologist in my recent past.
Recently got new insurance and a new doctor.
First visit next week.
I'll be addressing several neglected health issues including this.
 
We'll see.
 
Way too much loud music growing up....

Good luck with the health issues, Perhaps it'll work out better than expected. I've recently spent four days at the end of an IV, it sure sucks.
Hopefully your hearing issues will resolve favorably.

 

[palmfish]

I put my own hearing and tinnitus issues off way longer than I should have. I have had annual audiograms for the past 25 years so I have been a witness to my own hearing loss as it gradually worsened. My brain compensated for a long time (as it does for all of us) so it wasn't until very recently that I began to see how significantly it was affecting my life. Asking people to repeat themselves, watching lips and concentrating harder, using context to guess the word I missed, or just plain pretending I heard and nodding. It was to the point that I was physically and mentally drained by the end of the day.
 
As my hearing worsened, my tinnitus grew louder and my sensitivity to noise grew worse too. It got to the point that I couldn't ignore the tinnitus anymore and I carried foam earplugs with me everywhere I went because the noise levels of restaurants and driving caused me discomfort.
 
Hearing aids have restored my quality of life. I don't notice my tinnitus when I'm wearing them and my sensitivity to noise is gone. I can also hear people speaking without difficulty again.
 
Most people who start to notice tinnitus are at the stage of hearing loss where it is just becoming a problem (mild loss). That's the time to visit an audiologist and come up with a plan to manage it.
 
Sorry, I didn't mean to ramble... it has become a topic of great interest to me.

 

[StanD]

  I put my own hearing and tinnitus issues off way longer than I should have. I have had annual audiograms for the past 25 years so I have been a witness to my own hearing loss as it gradually worsened. My brain compensated for a long time (as it does for all of us) so it wasn't until very recently that I began to see how significantly it was affecting my life. Asking people to repeat themselves, watching lips and concentrating harder, using context to guess the word I missed, or just plain pretending I heard and nodding. It was to the point that I was physically and mentally drained by the end of the day.
 
As my hearing worsened, my tinnitus grew louder and my sensitivity to noise grew worse too. It got to the point that I couldn't ignore the tinnitus anymore and I carried foam earplugs with me everywhere I went because the noise levels of restaurants and driving caused me discomfort.
 
Hearing aids have restored my quality of life. I don't notice my tinnitus when I'm wearing them and my sensitivity to noise is gone. I can also hear people speaking without difficulty again.
 
Most people who start to notice tinnitus are at the stage of hearing loss where it is just becoming a problem (mild loss). That's the time to visit an audiologist and come up with a plan to manage it.
 
Sorry, I didn't mean to ramble... it has become a topic of great interest to me.

Just wondering, did the audiologist tell you what frequency domain (range) that your tinnitus affected your hearing?

 

[palmfish]

Stan, it's more accurate to say that hearing affects tinnitus, not the reverse...
 
Here's my audiogram from last September:
 
---250---500---1k---2k---3k---4k---6k---8k
L--10----10----10---35---55---50---45---40
R--10----10----15---55---60---55---60---55
 
My tinnitus is centered around 4kHz with at least a couple other harmonic frequencies along for the ride.
 
Tinnitus sounds different to different people. My tinnitus basically sounds like a pure sine wave tone. Right ear louder than the left.
 
Again, it's different for everyone, but in my case it is directly correlated to my hearing loss in frequency and intensity. It isn't so much about hair cells (cilia) anymore. Read about "neural plasticity" if you want to know where the latest research is going.

 

[StanD]

  Stan, it's more accurate to say that hearing affects tinnitus, not the reverse...
 
Here's my audiogram from last September:
 
---250---500---1k---2k---3k---4k---6k---8k
L--10----10----10---35---55---50---45---40
R--10----10----15---55---60---55---60---55
 
My tinnitus is centered around 4kHz with at least a couple other harmonic frequencies along for the ride.
 
Tinnitus sounds different to different people. My tinnitus basically sounds like a pure sine wave tone. Right ear louder than the left.
 
Again, it's different for everyone, but in my case it is directly correlated to my hearing loss in frequency and intensity. It isn't so much about hair cells (cilia) anymore. Read about "neural plasticity" if you want to know where the latest research is going.

Wow that's a rough spot to hear a constant ringing, way too obvious and must have annoyed you to no end. In my youth I could hear upway up there, I used to work a a technician in a TV/Audio shop when I was in High School and the constant sound of Horizontal deflection circuits (around 16 kHz) in TV's used to drive me mad. Thank God for LED/LCD TV's.

 

[palmfish]

  Wow that's a rough spot to hear a constant ringing, way too obvious and must have annoyed you to no end. In my youth I could hear upway up there, I used to work a a technician in a TV/Audio shop when I was in High School and the constant sound of Horizontal deflection circuits (around 16 kHz) in TV's used to drive me mad. Thank God for LED/LCD TV's.

 
I remember when I could hear them too... a long time ago.
 
I can't hear anything above 12kHz now.

 

[BobJS]

I think a lot of people hear a faint buzz when it's silent and they focus in on it. Because our passion is music and audio equipment we tend to notice and obsess about it more. My better half says she gets it when I ask her to 'listen' for it and she has never been into loud music/ gigs/ raves like I was growing up. I personally listened to music way to loud for a long time because my life was dance music and clubs for years (plus I was a dj and my left ear took a battering) Now if I think about it I can hear a buzz/hiss when it's silent (which is worse when I'm unwell ) but I don't usually notice it. Not sure if it's tinnitus or just normal?

 
Wow, these last few pages have been very enlightening.  I  asked about the teeth clenching because I just recently noticed it made a difference, and had the same thoughts as James (quoted in bold).
 
Mine sounds like an extremely low level sine wave, equal in both ears at or above the upper limit I can hear (maybe ~ 14kHz)

 

[palmfish]

Wow, these last few pages have been very enlightening.  I  asked about the teeth clenching because I just recently noticed it made a difference, and had the same thoughts as James (quoted in bold).

Mine sounds like an extremely low level sine wave, equal in both ears at or above the upper limit I can hear (maybe ~ 14kHz)

Clenching your jaw can definitely change the sound.

Google "tinnitus test tone" and you'll find a website called "audionotch.com." The tone generator can help you pinpoint the frequencies of your tinnitus. My guess is it will be significantly lower than 14kHz.

 

[Tuco1965]

Caffiene and anti inflammatories can flare up tinnitus also.

 

[diaBoliQu3]

Andrea Bocelli with HD600 from Aune T1. Goosebump.

 

[BobJS]

Clenching your jaw can definitely change the sound.

Google "tinnitus test tone" and you'll find a website called "audionotch.com." The tone generator can help you pinpoint the frequencies of your tinnitus. My guess is it will be significantly lower than 14kHz.

 
I tried the tone generator at that site.  Very difficult to discern precisely, but it seemed to be around 12kHz.  It's almost not a tone, but just a background "sparkle" from my auditory nervous system letting me know it's online.
 
I chose 14Khz because I remember back in the day when I could hear closer to 20Khz, I could recall being able to hear the horizontal retrace of a television circuit (15.75 kHz), and I thought it was around there.

 

[palmfish]

Wow, that is high. Definitely hard to identify at that freq.

 

[hodgjy]

I think a lot of people hear a faint buzz when it's silent and they focus in on it. Because our passion is music and audio equipment we tend to notice and obsess about it more. 

 
This.  What we're hearing is our own ears.  It's not due to hearing damage, but because we have sensitive ears to begin with, and then we've trained our ears even more to hear every last detail since we are in the headphone hobby.

 

[Mrtn77]

Ah, no. The loud, continuous ringing tone that wakes me up at four in the morning is definitely not "my own ears". Good for you that you've never experienced real tinnitus, but you're very, very wrong.

I was amazed to learn that some people had tinnitus do extreme that others could actually hear it.

 

[hodgjy]

Ah, no. The loud, continuous ringing tone that wakes me up at four in the morning is definitely not "my own ears". Good for you that you've never experienced real tinnitus, but you're very, very wrong.

I was amazed to learn that some people had tinnitus do extreme that others could actually hear it.

 
I wasn't referring to you.  I was talking to James.