I Don't Remember Not Having Tinnitus

[Jptsr1]

Greetings-

I feel lucky to have stumbled upon this place. I put 2000 as the date my tinnitus started but honestly I don't ever remember not having it. I remember as a child having to try my hardest to separate the tones on hearing test in school from the tones I heard all the time. I honestly thought everyone heard them and didn't give it much thought. Fast forward 10 years to college when I discovered base music and competitive pistol shooting and things got moderately worse. Now I'm 45 and have developed pulsatile tinnitus to go along with my regular ringing. Ironically my years of dealing with my old affliction are actually helping me deal with my new one. Anyhow I hope to learn even more techniques for dealing with the noise in my head from members here.

 

[Lorac]

Hello and welcome@jptsr1!
You have had tinnitus for a long time! I don't sense fear in your introduction like I have with many others. Many people who are new to tinnitus are afraid. I know I was! You have been incorporating tinnitus into how you hear and experience life since you were a child.
Have you spoken with doctors about your tinnitus? Do you have any hearing loss?

 

[Jptsr1]

I have not but I plan too soon. Up until recently I didn't think anything was "wrong". As a child i honestly thought everyone heard it. In my younger years it was never really troublesome enough to mention to my doctor. Before the pulsatile noise started just a few months ago I believe I may have mentioned hearing tones maybe twice to other people. Once to the audio tech that used to come to my school and once to my wife maybe 5 years ago. This may sound crazy but I didn't even know tinnitus was a "thing" until I heard about it on a cartoon maybe 2 years ago. It was just never that bad for me.

The last few days things have changed substantially. I believe I have had some hearing loss over the years but the tones have increased seemingly overnight. On a scale of 1 to 10 I think it was a 2 as a kid then 4 as an adult and now it's jumped to 8 out of the blue. It's the kind of thing that I am thinking about all the time unless I'm thinking about something else if you get my meaning? Getting to sleep has been the most difficult. I still manage to have times during the day where I don't notice it as much but any break in activity or semi quiet moment and it jumps right back into the front.

I get people's fear. I can imagine a change like this being very scary for some, even most. I think the fact that I don't remember not having it to some extent probably contributes to me not being afraid (or angry). Also, my body has been betraying me all kinds of ways now that I'm half way through my 40ies. Tinnitus hasn't cracked the top 5. Ive learned managing my anxiety is key for everything.

 

[Bobby B]

I had tinnitus for a while before my "shooting" big noise incident - I always thoutght that this was the sound of my blood running in my ears ..normal stuff.
I guess all the shooting in the army plus noisy nightclubs since 1983 got the best of my ears, I had some hearing loss so I just cranked the volume up in my house on the speakers - everyone thought I was crazy - its a viscous circle in a way..you crank up the volume to mask the T and in the process inflict more damage to the ear and get more T and so forth until it hits your hard one day and you wake up with the shower high pitched horrible sound in your head..

And stress will make it more obvious so here's another interesting viscous circle - more T > more stress > more T

 

[Jptsr1]

I'm pretty good about ear protection while shooting but every once in a while there's an idiot who sends one down range when it's supposed to be cold. I've had that guy in the next lane many many times. I got heavy into bass music in college. Always had 10 inch subs in my car and 15 inch towers in my house. I also was a big Q-tip cleaning guy and now I'm on a couple meds that have tinnitus listed as possible side effects. I had tinnitus long before I was doing all these things but I'm sure they didn't help the situation. The only thing I believe I can draw a direct line to is the ear infection I had. I don't remember having and issue with pulsatile tinnitus before that.