40 Years with Tinnitus

[Terje Larsson]

I think it started with a mild concusion and that I started noticing the sound when I was about 6 years old.Taht's 41 years ago so it's hard to remember exactly. Of course I've done things since then that weren't all that helpful. Like sitting in front of the speakers when my friend's punk rock band played so everyones' eardrums were bleeding, playing with fire crackers, playing electric guitar too loud

Overall thoguh, I've been fairly careful with my ears throughout life. Simply because I don't enjoy loud sounds very much. 41 years with the same tone in my head, I'm used to it. It doesn't stop me from going to sleep and I don't worry about it for the most part.

Ah, what else? I work as a social worker and enjoy playing blues and jazz in my free time as well as canoeing and drawing my own comics (nothing for Commercial publishing or anything like that). I live with my wife in a small apartment in Stockholm, not too far from the water.

 

[hoper]

Sorry Sweden for 4:1
Greetings from Austria
I will buy you a Beer if you ever visit us.

 

[Terje Larsson]

Hey, thanks! I drink mostly the non-alcoholic kind but I guess you havce those too in Austria!

 

[Richard zurowski]

@Terje Larsson.41 years that's a long time to have tinnitus.

 

[billie48]

I agree. 41 years is as long as I Who Loves Music who writes us the BTS method in the success stories forum. And you seem doing fine. So people can learn from these folks with long history of T and be reassured that one can live with loud T even for long term.

 

[Terje Larsson]

41 years is so long that, well basically I don't miss any silence because I've never really experienced. In a way that makes it easier. If I got the T I have now at the mature age of 47 I'd probably freak out. Now, it's one of the most familiar sounds I know.

Most likely I'd freak out if it stopped

It has been getting a bit more noticeable over the last ten years and I think it's my hearing going down. Recently went to see an audiologist and she suggested a hearing aid. Might be the next logical step because I do have some hearing loss as well.

 

[Hunszi]

@Terje Larsson

actually how loud is your T?

 

[Terje Larsson]

I don't have a figure on that but let's say I can almost always hear it through most noise. Not because it's louder so much as the fact that it occupies frequencies that I don't hear very well. The shower kills it, but that's about the only thing that does.

It's a high frequency hissing sound, not very loud but always there. Silence brings it down, noise brings it up, bpth just temporarily.

 

[linearb]

I don't have a figure on that but let's say I can almost always hear it through most noise. Not because it's louder so much as the fact that it occupies frequencies that I don't hear very well. The shower kills it, but that's about the only thing that does.

It's a high frequency hissing sound, not very loud but always there. Silence brings it down, noise brings it up, bpth just temporarily.

Mine is very similar to what you describe, and it is inspiring to hear that yours has been stable for so long... if I knew that mine wouldn't be a lot worse in another 20 years, it would lose some of the power that it still has over me.

 

[billie48]

well, perhaps Terje is our guiding light of T stability over long term. Those of us with much younger T age can look up to him for a stable life with T. The future doesn't have to be bad or getting worse.

 

[Terje Larsson]

Mine is very similar to what you describe, and it is inspiring to hear that yours has been stable for so long... if I knew that mine wouldn't be a lot worse in another 20 years, it would lose some of the power that it still has over me.

The first 25 years I didn't know that it was tinnitus. All I knew was that silence had a sound and some how I'm almost sad I learned about tinnitus

I think this type of T that you and I have is the kind that stays very stable and is mainly caused by some sort of hearing loss in the upper register. Don't worry too much about it.