I Don’t Buy Hearing Loss Equals Tinnitus

[Michellejean]

I just don't believe this.

I actually don't believe that ANYONE in the medical community fully understands tinnitus. It's neurological, no it's somatic, no it's due to hearing loss, no it's nerve damage, no it's tight muscles.

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever experienced. I don't expect that any medical professional should know.

Medicine and science are in their infancy but I think instead of making guesses they should all just admit they don't know what causes it and then give us hope it can improve.

If I were told to be calm it WILL get better when this all began I'd not have gone into a downward spiral of fearing this noise. I'd believe it will get better whether that means I will adapt or it will calm down or whatever.

All people who suffer need is HOPE. And lately I've been hopeless. My hope lives and breathes incarnated in my daughter. I feel terrible for people going through this all alone and all doctors can do is scare the shit out of them! If anyone needs some support please message me.

 

[Contrast]

it's an established fact tinnitus has something to do with hearing loss + higher brain functions.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4208401/


Not everyone with hearing loss has tinnitus but it could be a possibility that virtually everyone with tinnitus has hearing loss.

Common themes can include people who have had High frequency hearing loss all their lives but no tinnitus.
They undergo a stressful situation or take a certain medicine and end up with permanent tinnitus.

Some higher brain functions play an unknown role in tinnitus. That is what is up for debate and their is already candidates in what parts of the brain may be the culprit.

Neurological conditions aren't usually a problem of themselves. They have triggers.

 

[dingaling]

I just don't believe this.

I actually don't believe that ANYONE in the medical community fully understands tinnitus. It's neurological, no it's somatic, no it's due to hearing loss, no it's nerve damage, no it's tight muscles.

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever experienced. I don't expect that any medical professional should know.

Medicine and science are in their infancy but I think instead of making guesses they should all just admit they don't know what causes it and then give us hope it can improve.

If I were told to be calm it WILL get better when this all began I'd not have gone into a downward spiral of fearing this noise. I'd believe it will get better whether that means I will adapt or it will calm down or whatever.

All people who suffer need is HOPE. And lately I've been hopeless. My hope lives and breathes incarnated in my daughter. I feel terrible for people going through this all alone and all doctors can do is scare the shit out of them! If anyone needs some support please message me.

I sense you are angry but your opening paragraph is rather a sweeping statement and a little insulting if you don't mind me saying

Yes, there are some in the medical profession that don't understand tinnitus - but equally, there are some that do.

Getting angry about tinnitus is not going to help you or anyone; anger just makes us more stressed and can make tinnitus worse.

Tinnitus is not something than can be cured with a quick fix. I think everyone in the medical profession gets that. Tinnitus is very subjective just like pain. People live with all grades of pain knowing that pain can't always go away

Doing things that promote relaxation and reducing anger go a long way in helping people take control and accept their tinnitus.

If you cannot accept your tinnitus (and remain angry), then I am sorry to say that there is little anyone else can do for you

 

[Bill Bauer]

Have you experienced any fading in the past couple of months, @Michellejean ?

In case you haven't seen it, check out
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...eone-else-who-has-tinnitus.26850/#post-307822
Point #1 in that thread is about the research that has been done about the fraction of T sufferers who end up recovering.

 

[Michellejean]

Alright, I will retract that former statement and say the opposite. Yes tinnitus has a million and one causes. And yes I see it has been proven as well that tinnitus and hearing loss correlate.

And sure I am angry. I think if I weren't angry something would be seriously wrong with me. But I think like any grieving process anger is a step forward now backwards. First I was depressed. Now I'm pissed. What's the next step? Bargaining? Or did I already do that.

I mean no offense to anyone. Let this rant just be that.

@Bill Bauer since tinnitus began it has faded, spikes up, faded, spikes up, flat lined, and now it's an everyday between a fade and spike on an hourly basis. I hope in a year from now I get some stability. Thank you for your thread!

 

[Michellejean]

@Contrast it's easy to resent the medical community but I have hope in what you say about them understanding it. That means help can be achieved.

 

[Michellejean]

@dingaling I see you have tinnitus for a few years. Did you ever find out the exact cause? And has it gotten better, I mean faded any, or is it always the same? My above post I did not tag you in but meant to. Which replies in context of the original post.

I hope it has improved for you!

 

[Contrast]

It's already an established fact that hearing loss is a partial cause for the majority of tinnitus cases.

Charles Liberman, Roland Schaette, Susan Shore are what you can call an authority on tinnitus and they all agree hearing loss + auditory and other regions of the brain play a role in the neurological changes associated with tinnitus. However no one completely understands the alterations in the brain but the scientist are working on it. They hopefully might prove that repairing the cochlea to it's original state (reversing hearing loss) will reduce tinnitus however that is still a hypothesis (a favorable and reasonable one) that would make things a whole lot easier.

I wish Tinnitus Talk could actually add to their FAQ the video and research paper about "central gain" in cases of tinnitus caused by hearing loss. I am certain in the future new things will be discovered but tinnitus and hearing loss being related will not.

If people care about science and show appreciation it brings us closer to a cure.

 

[carlover]

I was like you re hearing loss not causing Tinnitus ...until I saw a private ear dr (not ent) he looked at my results and said ah ski slope ....if you get unlucky and your hearing loss graph resembles a ski slope he said that allways gives T as a symptom. So you may have hearing loss with a graph that is not a ski slope and you will not have T

 

[Contrast]

you can be completely deaf above 8000hz, hearing could be complete mumbled garbage caused by synapse damage.

and you'd still pass a tonal audiogram.

 

[Tinniger]

I actually don't believe that ANYONE in the medical community fully understands tinnitus. It's neurological, no it's somatic, no it's due to hearing loss, no it's nerve damage, no it's tight muscles.

I am convinced that there are several reasons. Just as there are several reasons for headaches.
One problem is that many physicians/advisors believe they have found THE solution for all cases of Tinntus. This is as absurd as a solution for all kinds of headaches.

 

[dingaling]

@dingaling I see you have tinnitus for a few years. Did you ever find out the exact cause? And has it gotten better, I mean faded any, or is it always the same? My above post I did not tag you in but meant to. Which replies in context of the original post.

I hope it has improved for you!

@Michellejean

Thank you. I put the cause down to listening to loud music in my mispent youth but when one is young and carefree, ignorance is bliss or uncaring. It took me a year to fully come to terms as I was in denial for a long time and angry (at myself)

May I suggest you look up Kubler-Ross's stages of grief?

I also live with pain on a daily basis and there are days I am crawling the walls. For me, tinnitus is a walk in the park by comparison but for others, it can be devastating and intrusive

I sincerely hope you can find out what caused your T and move on.

Wishing you well @Michellejean

 

[parsky]

I just don't believe this.

I actually don't believe that ANYONE in the medical community fully understands tinnitus. It's neurological, no it's somatic, no it's due to hearing loss, no it's nerve damage, no it's tight muscles.

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever experienced. I don't expect that any medical professional should know.

Medicine and science are in their infancy but I think instead of making guesses they should all just admit they don't know what causes it and then give us hope it can improve.

If I were told to be calm it WILL get better when this all began I'd not have gone into a downward spiral of fearing this noise. I'd believe it will get better whether that means I will adapt or it will calm down or whatever.

All people who suffer need is HOPE. And lately I've been hopeless. My hope lives and breathes incarnated in my daughter. I feel terrible for people going through this all alone and all doctors can do is scare the shit out of them! If anyone needs some support please message me.

I believe many cases of tinnitus "without hearing loss" is actually tinnnitus with hearing loss. You can actually get very narrow notches in your hearing that sit right between the hearing test points. I know firsthand. Also, most places test to 8kHz which I think is a mistake because testing to 16kHz could reveal why some people have high frequency T. You can actually find the notches yourself in a dead quiet room and a cellphone tone generator app. Start at a VERY low volume that you can just barely hear at 1kHz and just sweep the frequency. If you have trouble hearing it, bump the volume up just a bit. You will hear the dips and distortions pretty easy as you sweep through the range of frequencies.

 

[dingaling]

I believe many cases of tinnitus "without hearing loss" is actually tinnnitus with hearing loss. You can actually get very narrow notches in your hearing that sit right between the hearing test points. I know firsthand. Also, most places test to 8kHz which I think is a mistake because testing to 16kHz could reveal why some people have high frequency T. You can actually find the notches yourself in a dead quiet room and a cellphone tone generator app. Start at a VERY low volume that you can just barely hear at 1kHz and just sweep the frequency. If you have trouble hearing it, bump the volume up just a bit. You will hear the dips and distortions pretty easy as you sweep through the range of frequencies.

One has to throw caution here. Audiometers are calibrated to dB HL (hearing level) which is a different scale to dB SPL and I'm guessing cell phone tone generator apps are calibrated to dB SPL. Our ears do not have a flat frequency response which means they are more sensitive at certain frequencies (2 - 4kHz). This in turn means that it takes more SPL to hear an audiometric tone at 10kHz at the same dB HL level than it would to hear an audiometric tone at 3kHz for example - if that makes sense.

 

[Bill Bauer]

@Bill Bauer since tinnitus began it has faded, spikes up, faded, spikes up, flat lined, and now it's an everyday between a fade and spike on an hourly basis.

It is great that your T is not relentlessly at the same level. It is natural for a body to heal itself, so hopefully that is what will happen in your case.

Are you able to discern a monthly trend? Do the "global lows" tend to be lower as time goes on?

 

[SugarMagnolia]

And sure I am angry. I think if I weren't angry something would be seriously wrong with me. But I think like any grieving process anger is a step forward now backwards. First I was depressed. Now I'm pissed.

I absolutely agree with you. But expect to be criticized if you don't plaster a big fake smile on your face all the time.

 

[dpdx]

I just dont understand why the brain is willing to destroy itself because of a few hair cells. It creates very very loud phantom sounds that cause distress and suffering to a person. Then the person goes through mental anguish and torture, looses sleep, gets high blood pressure, it messes him/her up mentally. You also get eye floaters and perhaps visual snow. I feel like when you get T, your brain simply turns against on you and its willing to destroy itself because of hair cells.

 

[EarHair]

My theory for my situation is the analogy of a football player with too many head hits. They develop CTE from the many concussions.

In my case the 40-50 concerts and +100 movies I've been to. Each one is like a concussion. You can have a couple concussions and recover. But eventually after several dozen you get brain damage in the auditory area of the brain because it gets smacked in that area every concert.

 

[Bill Bauer]

In my case the 40-50 concerts and +100 movies I've been to.

I haven't been to any concerts. The last time I had been to a movie theater was over 30 years ago. My T is the result of a sonic toothbrush coming into contact with the opening of my ear canal for a fraction of a second. I guess this fraction of a second was the equivalent of 40-50 concerts & 100+ movies...

 

[SugarMagnolia]

I haven't been to any concerts. The last time I had been to a movie theater was over 30 years ago. My T is the result of a sonic toothbrush coming into contact with the opening of my ear canal for a fraction of a second. I guess this fraction of a second was the equivalent of 40-50 concerts & 100+ movies...

A fraction of a second. Me too. At least 50 concerts would have been fun.

 

[Contrast]

My theory for my situation is the analogy of a football player with too many head hits. They develop CTE from the many concussions.

In my case the 40-50 concerts and +100 movies I've been to. Each one is like a concussion. You can have a couple concussions and recover. But eventually after several dozen you get brain damage in the auditory area of the brain because it gets smacked in that area every concert.

yup and that causes hearing loss.

 

[Allen Y.]

I sympathize with the author Michellejean here.

Yesterday I went to a local park, which had a latin music band playing. It was nice. Lots of people ... young couples, families with kids, older adults. But to me it was loud, uncomfortably loud.

I think to myself, how come everyone look so happy drowned in the annoyingly loud music? They must all have hearing loss. But do they all have tinnitus?

I had same thought last time I went to a theater. Crazy loud. And it wasn't even an action film...

Here is my theory: almost all people in this day and age ... with the noise we are exposed to (entertainment based or not) ... have hearing loss. It is part of our society.

So if you look at a sample of T patients and measure their hearing so closely, you see hearing loss. What's the big deal? Everyone has hearing loss these days....

Also, here is the average audiogram by age group for people with "normal hearing."

Unless you are a young baby, you have hearing loss.

Just finding that T sufferers have "hearing loss" I say should not be remarkable...

I wonder if scientists normalize the data and know that T sufferers have worse hearing loss than the general population...

 

[InfiniteLoop]

@Allen Y.

I agree that everybody has some hearing loss and it is increasing with age. However, one of the key factors for T is the trauma. The brain can not adjust well when there is a sudden loss, but it is able to adapt better when the loss happens over many years.

 

[MBH]

Loud music and hearing loss are two separate lanes. There are many that fit those bills. But the two are close but not the same. And realizing which is which is dauting that goes with T. I also lead a quiet life and mine is stress I now fully realize, so I am out of the box in this T group. And I'm fine with that now.

 

[Thissucks..jenn]

You would need to have an ABR test to confirm if it's a problem with the inner ear sending signals to the auditory cortex also OAE test as well in higher frequency. MRI can't detect anything only a tumor etc... you can have an MRA to see if it's a blood vessel connection