Unilateral Tinnitus Possibly Caused by Headphones, Misophonia Making It Difficult to Ignore

[Jonno02]

Hi all,

I'm writing down my experience to date with tinnitus, perhaps as a form of self-therapy, but also to maybe help anybody else with a similar story to mine.

I've used headphones all of my life for both gaming and listening to music. Not so much recently due to having small kids, but I still manage a few hours of each a week. I don't particularly game at 'high' volume, but on reflection I certainly have been listening to music too loud with headphones; perhaps every other day for 15-20 minutes for the last few years.

I've always had some level of tinnitus - a sort of CRT monitor static that's only audible in total silence. Before becoming hyper sensitive to tinnitus, it never even registered with me and I thought everybody heard some level of this. It truly was a microscopic level of tinnitus and has never impacted my life.

I think around end of October / the start of November I started to hear a 6800 Hz beep in my right ear non-stop. It's audible above a loud TV etc and I ceased all headphone use immediately and avoided all noisy environments. Unfortunately, 2+ months later, the beep is still there as it was on day 1. Mid-December, weeks after stopping headphone use, my left ear also randomly started the beep at a slightly lower frequency, but this has now mostly gone.

I am obsessed with it, I also suffer from misophonia, so find it very difficult to ignore the beep. I have been taking vitamins B12, C, D, Calcium, Magnesium and Ginkgo biloba since onset with no improvement. White noise helps me sleep and luckily my wife doesn't mind the added noise at night.

I find it difficult to understand why this is only impacting my right right ear if it's from headphone use. I also have TMD (which I've had for all my life as far as I can remember) but beyond quite bad popping and clicking it's never been an issue. My right side pops and clocks the most, but on the left side there is a large sideways deviation before the joint moves downwards when I open my mouth. I've also had ETD for 4 years on my right ear, again, this hasn't been a huge problem beyond loud pops when I swallow or yawn. I'm using steroid spray for this but mine is from chronic sinusitis and I find a nasal rinse helps for a while but it never fully goes away.

I'm now 2 months or so into this journey with no reduction in volume and have found it exhausting, I have the utmost respect and empathy for those of you that have suffered with this for years. I have become a lot worse tempered and reserved since onset and have definitely changed as a person, for the worse.

Whilst I have no reduction in volume, I do find it hard to frequency match my tinnitus. I was positive upon onset it was 10 kHz, then 8800 Hz and now I'm fairly sure it's 6800 Hz.

I hope one day to return to this thread with the absence of the tone in my right ear, but I'm skeptical that will ever happen. Here's hoping Susan Shores device works and is easily accessible for home users.

 

[Joe Cuber]

Hey @Jonno02, just wanted to mention a couple of parallels with what you're going through and what I experience. I too have tinnitus in my right ear--for me it's a loud hiss. I also have mild reactive tinnitus in both ears. The second thing we have in common is that I've had the "CRT monitor static"-sounding barely audible tinnitus for a while (hard to gauge how long, years maybe?) prior to the onset of my intrusive tinnitus.

I was perplexed as your are as to how it could be unilateral if it were caused by headphone use. During COVID-19 lockdown, I used headphones quite a bit, so naturally I thought my tinnitus onset was due to headphone use. But I've since formed the opinion that mine wasn't the headphone use that caused my tinnitus to become intrusive. I've had hearing loss in both ears for a while, so that's what probably caused that low-volume hum that I've had for a long while. The triggering thing for me was months of workplace stress. I think the stress caused me to tense up quite a bit. My neck muscles have been really tense (my chiropractor says that they were "rock hard"). I still routinely have a stiff neck on my right side due to poor posture while sleeping (and while awake, for that matter).

So I wonder if whether your cause is actually the headphones and instead something to do with your TMJ or ETD or similar. Is yours somatic--like, can you modulate the pitch/volume by moving your neck or jaw around?

 

[Jonno02]

Hey @Jonno02, just wanted to mention a couple of parallels with what you're going through and what I experience. I too have tinnitus in my right ear--for me it's a loud hiss. I also have mild reactive tinnitus in both ears. The second thing we have in common is that I've had the "CRT monitor static"-sounding barely audible tinnitus for a while (hard to gauge how long, years maybe?) prior to the onset of my intrusive tinnitus.

I was perplexed as your are as to how it could be unilateral if it were caused by headphone use. During COVID-19 lockdown, I used headphones quite a bit, so naturally I thought my tinnitus onset was due to headphone use. But I've since formed the opinion that mine wasn't the headphone use that caused my tinnitus to become intrusive. I've had hearing loss in both ears for a while, so that's what probably caused that low-volume hum that I've had for a long while. The triggering thing for me was months of workplace stress. I think the stress caused me to tense up quite a bit. My neck muscles have been really tense (my chiropractor says that they were "rock hard"). I still routinely have a stiff neck on my right side due to poor posture while sleeping (and while awake, for that matter).

So I wonder if whether your cause is actually the headphones and instead something to do with your TMJ or ETD or similar. Is yours somatic--like, can you modulate the pitch/volume by moving your neck or jaw around?

Hi Joe.

I have the hiss in both ears, but I've had this for as long as I can remember, probably from loud music since my early teens using headphones. It's never really bothered me if I'm honest.

But anyway, my obtrusive tone in my right ear appears to have settled around 4100hz for the last few days. I'm unconvinced/kidding myself (?) that the headphones are the direct result of this new tone, as surely I'd have it equally in both ears?

Funnily enough, I was going through a period of serious stress at work for about 3 months before this new tone appeared. But when it did appear, I'd been de-stressing for about 2 weeks. But in the last week or so I have started some neck exercises to relieve muscle tension and also a small exercise to 'realign my atlas' to see if these help.

Mine is fully somatic, I've been able to modulate tinnitus since before I actually had it. I've always noted that when I yawn or move my neck to the extreme side I get a ringing (mostly) in my right ear. The somatic pitch is a lot higher pitched and louder than the new obtrusive tone.

Have you noticed anything that reduces/alleviates your new tinnitus?

I'm using an app on my phone called 'Tone Gen'. For the first few weeks my tinnitus would change pitch quite a lot, between 4000-8000 Hz. It's settled between 4085-4100 Hz now. I've noticed that when I play the same frequency on my phone and listen to it, for even a few seconds, my tinnitus goes away and will then slowly fade back in.

I've been listening to the tone, even when in public and I can't hear my tinnitus, for a week now. I've noticed I get periods when I'm in silence now that my new tone is absent. At first it was a "oh my god I can't hear it..." *cue it slowly fading in and me becoming aware of it*, to a "oh my god I can't hear it..." and I genuinely can't hear it until it returns anywhere between 30 seconds - 5 minutes later. I have even trialed this with the CRT-tinnitus between 10 kHz-15 kHz and it also disappears for a short time.

I do believe in the theory that the cells that detect certain frequencies are damaged/dead and so the brain turns up the gain on that frequency to try and hear it better and that's why we hear tinnitus at specific frequencies. I feel like bombarding my brain with that frequency externally is somehow training my brain to realise "Oh I can hear it... I can turn down the volume now" which lasts a short while before it panics again. Although I feel like the time between my stopping the tone and my brain turning the tinnitus back on is (very) slowly getting longer and longer.

I went months without any breaks in the tinnitus and just masked it with white noise/rain sounds to now, with the method above, having a few minutes silence a day but also whereby before I had zero change in tinnitus volume, I now also feel like the tinnitus volume is reducing. It's not a daily progression type thing, I mean it needs to be measured in weeks, but I honestly believe there's something to this. The thing for me is that the tone that matches the new tinnitus in my right ear feels to be the same volume in my left ear i.e. I don't think I substantial hearing loss at that frequency in my right ear, but maybe just enough to induce tinnitus.

I'm also still doing nasal rinses once daily and then shortly after using a steroid spray for my ETD. Sometimes I feel like I'm making good progress, then other days my ear pops and cracks non stop when I swallow. I have an ENT appointment mid-January so hopefully can get some answers as to any hearing loss and what's going on with the ETD and perhaps needing balloon dilation.

 

[Joe Cuber]

Funnily enough, I was going through a period of serious stress at work for about 3 months before this new tone appeared. But when it did appear, I'd been de-stressing for about 2 weeks.

Hi @Jonno02 - This is quite a similar experience with what I went through prior to the onset of my intrusive tinnitus (right ear hiss). I had about 5 months of workplace stress. 2 weeks after it ended, my tinnitus onset. Mine is readily somatic by simply moving my neck or jaw even a small amount, even pressing on my skull or moving my eyeballs around.

Have you noticed anything that reduces/alleviates your new tinnitus?

Yes, actually I have. The peculiar thing about my tinnitus is that I don't have it every day. I either wake up with it or I don't for the whole day. Because of that, I've been able to hone in on possible causes. I've learned that the thing that is most predicts whether I wake up with the hiss in the morning is my sleeping position--in particular, how my neck is positioned. If I'm careful about keeping my neck in a neutral position all night (a hard thing for me to accomplish since I move a lot in the night), I'm very likely to have minimal tinnitus the next day. Sometimes I wake up in the early morning, like 3am, and I catch my tinnitus spiking. If I adjust my neck position and lay still for about 20-30 minutes, I can calm the spike before it gets too far.

I've noticed that when I play the same frequency on my phone and listen to it, for even a few seconds, my tinnitus goes away and will then slowly fade back in.

I think this is called residual inhibition. "Residual inhibition (RI) refers to the phenomenon of transient tinnitus loudness suppression after exposure to an acoustic stimulus."

I now also feel like the tinnitus volume is reducing. It's not a daily progression type thing, I mean it needs to be measured in weeks, but I honestly believe there's something to this.

That's great, I hope you find a method for progress. Catching a break can be very relieving. My tinnitus unfortunately changes in character quite a bit day by day. Sometimes it's high-pitched, sometimes medium. Sometimes it's a hiss, sometimes it squeals.

 

[Jonno02]

After 3 months+ with my new 4100 Hz tone, which was extremely loud and constant, i.e. no wavering volume, frequency etc., I have had a strange development.

As soon as I noticed the tone, I tried to frequency match it. This is where I discovered residual inhibition. I read the success story about 'reclaiming the frequency' and kept playing the tone during the day; for 10 seconds, for hours, when I was outside and couldn't even hear the tone etc. I noticed that my residual inhibition started about 5 seconds and after a few weeks I had it up to a few minutes, but this is where I hit the wall and couldn't get any longer without my tinnitus returning.

Now, I very much believe that my form of tinnitus, being from loud music damage, is a result of my brain turning up the gain at certain frequencies due to not getting the input it expects any longer at those frequencies.

I decided to put my phone under my pillow at night, with the tone just above the level of being audible and, when I woke up the next morning, my 4100 Hz tone was absent until about an hour later. Very odd. I tried to play it again for a few minutes but as usual, it came back within a minute as per my residual inhibition findings above.

The next night, I did the same. Played the tone all night whilst I slept. When I woke up, the tone was absent until lunch time (about 5-6 hours). Again, I played the tone when it came back and it only disappeared for a minute.

I'm sure you can see the pattern now.

After 5 nights of playing the tone constantly, my 4100 Hz tinnitus has been completely absent for 4 days. And I mean gone. Earplugs in, nothing. Well, except my normal tinnitus.

In my first post I mentioned I already have CRT-like tinnitus in both ears. My left ear is a constant singular tone about 10,000 Hz and my right ear is a mixture between 9,000-14,000 Hz. I find it very difficult to frequency match at this level.

Anyway, this tinnitus, although I've had it for at least 10 years it's now very bothersome as I'm hyper-focused on it due to the piercing 4100 Hz tone. So I decided to try the same method.

I frequency matched my left ear as best I could and did the same method at night. I'm 3 nights in so far and my left ear is completely silent for about 10 hours a day. The right ear is more bothersome as it's multi-tonal and in my experience with this, you need to hit the frequency pretty much bang on so that will be some trial and error.

I wasn't going to post this so early, but I'm quite excited by the results. Not a clue what's going on. Something with my brain getting the stimulation it needs at those frequencies that only works whilst I sleep? Not a clue. All I know is whatever is happening seems to be working as that really annoying 4100 Hz tone hasn't come back even though I'm not stimulating that frequency at night now...

 

[Joe Cuber]

Fantastic news @Jonno02, nice bit of research you applied to yourself. I wonder if this lends credence to the often-espoused advice from audiologists to wear hearing aids to those with hearing loss to stimulate the frequencies that the ear is missing.