New to Tinnitus — Have Some Questions

[AdamR]

Hello

I've recently been waking up with a ringing in my ear and believe this is probably tinnitus. I've been experiencing frequent episodes of transient spontaneous tinnitus for the past 6-12 months (once to twice per day) and now it seems to have taken on a permanent effect. The ringing is loud enough in the morning to wake me up and although I can still hear it during the day it's not particularly bothersome, other than being distracting and annoying. My worry is it will get worse as I've made a concerted effort over the past few months to protect my ears and avoid loud noises, however this doesn't to seem have prevented its onset.

I'm currently managing T by playing sound therapy videos on youtube, at very low volumes. The sounds mimic the sound of my T and basically cancels out the sound in my ears by replacing it with an external source (residual inhibition?), my question , is there any chance that constantly listening to high frequency sounds will cause further damage to my hearing and agitate my T? I've tried listening to other more soothing sounds such as rainfall and white noise but I can still hear my T slightly and doesn't offer much relief. Is masking supposed to drown out the T sound entirely or only provide distraction?

I would also like to know if there's any other treatments such as steroids or other medicines that may be effective in alleviating T in its early stages? I'm seeing a GP this afternoon but obviously I'm aware there is no cure and treatment options are limited.

Thanks

 

[Jomo]

Well to assist you in protecting your ears invest in a pair of custom fitted musican ear plugs. Other than that i am doing the same thing myself but i listen to somthing a little less intense with some science to back it up. Unsure how helpful it really has been but its great at masking. Try looking up the ACRN therapy from the generalfuzz website on google and follow the steps listed.

 

[I who love music]

Hello

I've recently been waking up with a ringing in my ear and believe this is probably tinnitus. I've been experiencing frequent episodes of transient spontaneous tinnitus for the past 6-12 months (once to twice per day) and now it seems to have taken on a permanent effect. The ringing is loud enough in the morning to wake me up and although I can still hear it during the day it's not particularly bothersome, other than being distracting and annoying. My worry is it will get worse as I've made a concerted effort over the past few months to protect my ears and avoid loud noises, however this doesn't to seem have prevented its onset.

I'm currently managing T by playing sound therapy videos on youtube, at very low volumes. The sounds mimic the sound of my T and basically cancels out the sound in my ears by replacing it with an external source (residual inhibition?), my question , is there any chance that constantly listening to high frequency sounds will cause further damage to my hearing and agitate my T? I've tried listening to other more soothing sounds such as rainfall and white noise but I can still hear my T slightly and doesn't offer much relief. Is masking supposed to drown out the T sound entirely or only provide distraction?

I would also like to know if there's any other treatments such as steroids or other medicines that may be effective in alleviating T in its early stages? I'm seeing a GP this afternoon but obviously I'm aware there is no cure and treatment options are limited.

Thanks

My advice is to keep the noise down and do this..https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/back-to-silence.7172/

 

[AdamR]

Saw a GP yesterday and she referred me for a hearing test. I realise my T appears to be in the high frequency range, around 12- 13khz. I suspect I have high frequency hearing loss as I cant hear above 14khz. Its not very loud but at that frequency it can be heard above just about everything including my motorbike.

Does anyone have any advice for coping with T in the early days? Its quite a shock to the system to become aware that you may have a high pitched ringing in your ear forever. Are there any masking sounds that are effective for high frequency T? White noise etc, doesnt particularly help in my case.

 

[billie48]

Does anyone have any advice for coping with T in the early days? Its quite a shock to the system to become aware that you may have a high pitched ringing in your ear forever. Are there any masking sounds that are effective for high frequency T?

White noise is loud but not high pitch enough. Try out these sites to see if you can find something for your high frequency T. I have that too and so I need really high pitch sounds such as shower, heavy rain fall, waterfalls, even faucet sounds and perhaps cicada too. So give these a try out. Take care. God bless.

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

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

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

 

[AdamR]

Does anybody have suggestions for early evidence based intervention for tinnitus? Should I be badgering my GP for a round of prednisone? Is it true that hyperbaric oxygen therapy should be undergone in the early stages? Anything else I should be considering?

 

[LukeYoung]

Does anybody have suggestions for early evidence based intervention for tinnitus? Should I be badgering my GP for a round of prednisone? Is it true that hyperbaric oxygen therapy should be undergone in the early stages? Anything else I should be considering?

Done a fair bit of research on both, and while some people have had success, those succcess stories were VERY hard to come across.

Depends how early in you are. They say prednisone is only good in first couple days after onset.

Heard of oxygen therapy making some T worse.
But never really found strong evidence of either working for multiple people.

 

[AdamR]

Im aware that prednisone provides mixed results, but obviously I would be keen to try this and suffer any short term ill effects on the basis it may alleviate my T permanently. Im also keen to pursue the lidocaine route as this also apparently can work in the early stages, but not sure if theres anywhere in Australia they offer this?

 

[LukeYoung]

Im aware that prednisone provides mixed results, but obviously I would be keen to try this and suffer any short term ill effects on the basis it may alleviate my T permanently. Im also keen to pursue the lidocaine route as this also apparently can work in the early stages, but not sure if theres anywhere in Australia they offer this?

Prednisone possibly, but lidocaine doubt it..

I'm in QLD

 

[racerfish]

For masking I have a sound generator from Brookstone I got though you could probably do just as well with an app for your phone. I've found that rain sounds plus white noise masks the T sound best for sleeping.

 

[AdamR]

Wow, last night was horrendous. Couldn't sleep a wink , my usual masking sounds didn't work. Noticeable increase in loudness of the T, felt like and needles on my eardrum, hopefully I can habituate to this. Now where to find me some Prednisone.

 

[Jomo]

i would strongly suggest downloading the white noise app and then creating a looped sound recording of your sink. I recently created the sound of my heat being turned up using this app and that works even better. I try to keep the volume in the middle ranges or less. I may hear some tinnitus doing this but it is much less bothersome. Do keep in mind that everybodys tinnitus gets louder when laying down completely flat. Mine goes to jet engine status but I have learned to not let it bother me. Don't panic when this happens and just learn to accept this as the new normal. Just writing this right now I am looking back saying I cant believe I am writing this but thats exactly what you have to do.