Ask Lemmy

I've had Meniere's Disease since I was 17, and the tinnitus comes with it at no extra cost. Thirty five years on and all I can say is you just learn to cope. Some days it's louder and some days you don't register it despite it being a constant. It's tough at the start, but take some comfort in knowing you'll adapt. There are plenty of people out there who've gone through what you've experienced, so you've already got a support community.

Short answer: Get an evaluation by an audiologist, if possible, to determine if something can be done.

Long answer: Depending on the personal cause of tinnitus, solutions range from nothing to getting hearing aids with specific software that provides tinnitus relief. I have genetic, moderate to severe hearing loss in higher frequencies and have very noticeable tinnitus. The complications from hearing loss with tinnitus can vary, but personally were resulting in increased sensitivity to noise throughout the day, irritability, and diminished ability to communicate (I couldn't hear what my spouse or kids were saying when there was any kind of background noise present). It led me to never want to go anywhere or do anything outside our home because I couldn't hear or enjoy anything.

I went to an audiologist, had a bunch of tests, and was prescribed a set of hearing aids. Said hearing aids play soft ocean noises in addition to boosting the frequencies I have diminished hearing in. The ocean noises allow the brain to train itself to treat the tinnitus as a routine background noise instead of a panic inducing "danger" sound. Over time, it has helped in significantly reducing my attention to the tinnitus. It will never go away, and I have to sleep with ocean sounds playing so I don't go insane.

Assuming you go to the doctor and find out you do have tinnitus and it’s permanent, I can totally understand the panic you’re feeling right now. It’s a very existential, pit of your stomach sense of dread you’re feeling right now.

As somebody with tinnitus that is likely more severe than yours is right now, and have had it as young as you if not younger, you will get used to it with time, to the point that 90% of the time, you won’t hear it at all. Right now it’s going to seem far worse and suffocating because more than anything the tinnitus is triggered by remembering that you have it. Since it’s going to be stuck on your mind for awhile it might feel like you’re suffocating under it but as bad as I have it, it really is only an occasional annoyance.

The important thing is to start protecting your hearing today. Ear plugs at concerts, plug your ears when the ambulance drives by, don’t blast the music in your car so loud.

Don’t despair, when it’s really bad there are things that help like white noise, which can be generated on your phone or you can set up a fan at night. iPhones have a feature now that can add subtle nature sounds or white noise behind whatever else you’re listening to including music, if you find that’s something that helps you.

You can fix it temporarily very easily. The hard part is learning to deal with it long-term. https://youtu.be/OtZuJONLNAE. Music White noise. Anything but silence. Will keep it at Bay.

I have lived with it for 20 years. I listen to a lot of music or podcasts to help not focus on it. I got relief once for about 2 hours after my ears popped on an airplane. Everyone is different but rubbing the pressure point behind my ear doesn't go away but turns down the volume for a bit.

Disclaimer: (classical) music lover, here. With a lifelong allergy to noise. Suffering from constant loudtinnitus for the last 20 years or so.

Sorry you got that. It's a sad shit.

Mine appeared one night, out of the blue and never went away. The next day I got an appointment to have my ears tested and the doctor told me I got tinnitus plus I was starting to lose my hearing (which slowly got worse as the years went... now to the point that I'm really considering I should be using hearing aids).

I’m unable to cope with and this adds to the burden.

I was unable to, at first.

Don't fight it. To me at least, it was making it so much worse as I was only thinking about that stupid noise, it was everywhere I looked, so to speak.

Nowadays, I'm able to barely think about it.. It's there, I can hear it, like right now I just heard them, but I can also ignore them like I will ignore the roaring traffic noise coming from the street through the windows. Not all the time though. And it shows, when I'm overwhelmed by that sad noise, my spouse instantly notices it as I suddenly look... exhausted and very much unhappy.

You might want to check with doctors (plural) what you can do but what helped me the most was to learn to consider that ugly noise part of myself... Accepting it for what it is: one more limit I have to learn to live with.

Like me getting older each year (nearing my 60s) and not being able to have all night long intense fu..., sorry, not being that physically able to provide long lasting efforts, anymore. Like me knowing for a fact I will be immensely lucky if I manage to reach 70 years old, because I've already been incredibly lucky for the past 20 years or so to be alive, as I should not be.

The level of noise constantly comes and goes. It mostly depend how stressed I am but it's not just that (it would be too simple).

To this day, my spouse is impressed how 'easily' I learned to live with those two whistles constantly blowing their uninspired single note and loud music directly into my ears ... but the real secret is that I did not learn to control them. I just capitulated to their invasion of my personal space. The only thing I did is to study those noises (as there is a narrow range of variations between loud as fuck and just loud) and teach myself to be fine with them being there.

One thing that often helps me a lot when it's too loud to ignore it is to go out for a (long) walk, without any music/podcast... nothing in the ears. Just me listening around to nothing but random outside noise... Birds singing are great for that, plus they're great to watch too, and I will often try to walk wherever I know I might hear them, even though there are quiet a few whose cute voice I can't hear that well anymore.

Herbal infusions can also help, or even a good tea. And just having a calm chat with my spouse talking about mindless things (we would avoid talking politics or anything stinky like that).

As someone who went to a lot of raves in the 90s and was a speaker hugger, I can empathize completely. I haven't really found anything to relieve it besides ignoring it and just living with it, sad to say. But I will keep an eye on this post, hopefully someone will have some more advice about alleviation for you. (and me.)

Fans are nice to make white noise when sleeping, as are softer sounds like a sleep music playlist. For earbuds and headphones, look for stuff with individually customizable audio per side if your tinnitus/hearing damage is asymmetric like mine. I also found a lot of use for headphones that allow audio passthrough and turning up that ambient sound because I lost hearing for certain pitches (which coincidentally are really close to same pitch as the ringing in my ear now) and sometimes struggle to hear what people are saying in surrounding noise. Earbuds that focus on voices help with that as well.

As far as getting used to it, my hearing was damaged at 24 and I'm 35 now. I got more used to it with time, better at selectively listening what I need to, and finding ways to block the ringing out or ignore it mostly wasn't a terrible experience. Mostly that means I just am always listening to something. Music, TV, a stream, whatever. For me it's medium-ish loud so it's always a bit annoying, especially when it gets in the way of actually hearing something or it keeps you up at night or something like that, but please believe me when I say it isn't so bad. I still enjoy music just fine and get to sleep on time. I just don't need all my hi-def audio equipment anymore, hahaha.

I normally react by ignoring it until it goes away. Doesn't work for everyone of course, but if you only started getting it a few days ago there's some chance that it might work for you.

Check your blood pressure

by constantly having white noise going in the background (usually TV or music), or having headphones on listening to something.

Audio stimulation tends to tampen out the tinnitus.

You can get temporary tinnitus from an active ear infection or a swollen/inflamed ear, it may not be permanent.

Were you exposed to any overly loud sounds recently, or chronically over the course of your life?

Have you spoken to a doctor about this? Please do, especially if you have sudden hearing loss in one or both ears. You could have an underlying issue that can be treated, but you want to get it checked sooner rather than later.

It kinda depends, I have very light tennitus from construction, most of the time I can ignore it and it only becomes noticeable when it's exceptionally quiet or I think about it like breathing (HAH your manually breathing now), but 95% of the time I don't even notice it

I do have a friend who, has it really bad from listening to music at mega volumes. He can't have silence to any degree. Plays music, drums his fingers on any wooden object in reach, whatever he can find for noise to drown out the ringing. Seems like a lot, but it's apparently really bad for him.

Here's to hoping yours ain't that extreme

I've had tinnitus for probably close to 15 years at this point. I definitely tune it out most of the time. For a little while I was wearing ear plugs to bed, and the ringing was actually somewhat calming, kinda like my own personal noise machine. It can certainly flare up (gets louder and kinda painful) from time to time though, and the trick with covering your ears and thumping the back of your head helps when that happens, at least for me.

Just keep in mind, you can totally still live a normal life with tinnitus. There are services that can edit music for you to remove the exact frequency of your tinnitus from the audio, so that when you listen to it your body fills in the missing pieces and helps you ignore it. I haven't used them though, so I can't attest to their efficacy.

Ugh I’m so sorry. Tinnitus blows and in the more than 30 years I’ve lived with it I will say I’ve tried everything, spent all kinds of money on apps and gadgets and tests therapies of all kinds, and nothing works for me.

Maybe something will work for you, but the only advice I can share is do everything you can to protect your hearing from loud noises now to reduce the chances of getting more damage and making it worse. You only get one hearing capability and it doesn’t seem to regenerate and there’s currently no treatments to help it do that, so save what you have now!

I was an idiot in my 20s a loud concerts right next to speakers because it felt awesome, and I’ll pay the price for it till I die.

Having never had tinnitus, I'm going to assume the correct answer is:

I have transient tinnitus. As with so many things in our perception, if we fight/hate it, it'll just drive us crazy. Like the floaters in my left eye. Easiest to accept that it happens and it's a normal part of living in your body. After making sure it's not got a known medical cause of course.

I got some tinnitus too but it's luckily not audible in normal situations. I hear it in quiet rooms but it's not something that bothers me anymore.

Hopefully yours is not super loud. It may also decrease in strength with time and it doesnt have to become worse. I've had mine for 25 years and it's still not worse.

I've had it for as long as I can remember, so I'm pretty used to it. However, sometimes it gets really bad for a bit and it's annoying.

I'm not too bummed about not experiencing true silence as I listen to music most of the time anyway.

I'm sorry. I don't have any practical advice, but an Italian singer I like (Caparezza) developed it ~10 years ago. He would go talking about his condition extensively in his subsequent albums (Prisoner 709, Exuvia and Orbit Orbit). The most explicit song about it is "Larsen". In fact, I'm going to a concert of his in a couple of months.

What I mean to say by this, is that if he managed to live with it, produce 3 albums and he's still doing concerts, I'm sure you can overcome this as well, and I hope you can take some solace in knowing the experience of other people.

Also, if you haven't done so already, go see a doctor. It's always possible that it's temporary or that it can be slowed down.

Also I think my mom used to have a milder form of it, and other than turning the volume up on the TV, I don't think she ever was too bothered by it.

Cover your ears with your palms, thumbs down (airtight). Use your two pointer fingers and two middle fingers to drum on the soft spot at the base of your skull for about 20 seconds. This may give temporary relief from the ringing.

For me it helps to have a fan next to my bed. It helps me to focus on the fan noise instead of the Tinnitus when trying to sleep.

Stay calm. It can "go away" sometimes if you stop thinking about it. I don't know how serious or "loud" you perceive it to be but you'll be fine, you can listen to music but you have to take extra good care of the hearing you have. Don't listen to music too loudly, I would even suggest set your volume even softer than usual for the next week so you can train yourself to focus on it. Ear plugs at concerts and safety earwear if you are around construction sites or places that produce a lot of loud sounds.

I would get it checked out with a physician if you suspect that some kind of ear infection, stress, new meds or other kind of illness or complication might be the cause.

There was a trick to temporarily relieve it where you cup your palms over your ears and tap the back of your head, can work for some people to relieve it a bit. Doing that might help with the stress you're facing. The stress from worrying about it I think will do you a lot more harm long term than any of the buzzing or ringing itself.

My source of tinnitus is stress/poor mental health. So living less stressful life helped me a bit to go from 6/10 to 2/10 level.

consider an MRI for acoustic neuroma and similar conditions.

If the tinnitus is permanent, the brain can adjust to it and eventually tune it out for the most part

I had it my whole life so I'm good at filtering it out the moment I get distracted with something else.

45 year old checking in. Tinnitus can have a lot of causes and treatments. Your best bet is to get evaluated. I spent my youth abusing my body going to concerts with no protection and pressing my face up against subwoofers. It was fun at the time, but now I’m coming up on early onset hearing loss by 50 and near constant tinnitus along with vertigo that may or may not be related. People told me to protect my hearing and I didn’t listen so here I am.

Tl;dr get your hearing checked and protect it jealously. Good luck friend!