New to the Forum

[Freespirit]

Happy to find this forum. I knew I was not alone with this but great to see all of the comments and helpful advice. My tinnitus has been off and on for the last 5 years or so. Sometimes worse than others. I have been to the ENT and there is nothing physically wrong. Little loss of hearing in my right ear which I do have a hearing aid which helps mask it a little. The last couple of weeks it has been bad. I have learned to ignore it but not lately. If you have put a large sea shell up to your ear and heard the ocean......that is it. Distractions are always good. The more you give in to it the louder it is.

Anyone have any luck with acupuncture? Great suggestions about apps available for sounds.
Definitely going to try that.

Free spirit

 

[billie48]

Welcome to the forum. I like your userid, @Freespirit. From all the readings I have done on T support sites, the effect of acupuncture is mixed. It helps some but not others. I prefer to use other methods that getting my body pinned all over the place, lol. Instead I tried self help CBT, mindfulness, positivity etc and these have helped me.

For masking sounds,you can consider these options:

1) Mask at bed time so you can sleep better. Find whatever sounds/music that are soothing to you. You can use a sound machine or sound pillow for this, or a computer with speakers.

2) If you need masking on the go, try load an ipod with nature sounds or music using itune. If you have a smart phone, you can download free APPs for soothing or T-masking sounds.

3) If you have computer and speakers, you can try these excellent masking sounds too:

TT's audio player: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/audioplayer/

or this online sound library, particularly the self-mix nature sounds: http://mynoise.net/

or download free sound generator 'aire freshener': http://www.peterhirschberg.com/mysoftware.html

or search youtube with words like 'tinnitus masking sounds', 'white noise', 'rain sound' etc.

 

[bryngolleni]

I am 85 and have had very low grade tinnitus for many years.
It was rather like a swooshing sound of liquid going through a pipe. For a long time I use to believe that it was the echo of my pulse.
More recently the noise has changed and is more like a very low level engine noise. In fact when it first started I used to think it was a farm tractor approaching. Of course I was disabused of this idea when it never got any nearer as a real tractor noise would have done.
I should add that I have been deaf in my right ear (90% deficiency) for about 50 years (I don't wear an aid as, except in a very noisy environment, my left ear serves me very well).
Strangely, I am conscious of the noise only on my deaf side. In fact if I close off my good ear with a finger end, the noise seems to stop and doesn't immediately restart when removing my finger.

The noise isn't really intrusive and there may be many occasions when it is there but I am not conscious of it.

It will be interesting if my characteristics are shared by others.