With Tinnitus Since 1999 — The Worst Shit of My "Life"

[Cookie83]

Hello.

The story of this 36-year-old male is here:

I had on one weekend in 1999 a dose of very loud music in a few days, I remember hearing tinnitus after that for like 2 days or so, then it did go away. Then, 2-3 weeks after it at a summer job we were building stuff and hammering nails... after that the tinnitus came back. I was barely 16 years old then, you can guess how much you will protect your hearing at that age, not sure I had even heard of ear plugs...

Anyways, since then my tinnitus has only gotten worse.

First I noticed it to get worse when I drove with a moped, started to use earplugs while driving.
Well... it's now lot worse.

But the current level is not the problem, my problem is that it has constantly keep getting even worse.

The level of tinnitus is rising now almost by itself (just figure of speech, it always needs some exposure to noise, it won't go up if I sit at silent at home.).

At start I could for example do some stuff by just avoiding loud voices, music etc and it did not get worse.
Well... now I try to protect my hearing the best I can and it just gets worse all the time. And never goes down.

I have bit through this pain, and it's ruining my life... I would give up my hearing just to not get my tinnitus level up anymore. What I understand about hearing, correct if I am wrong, but... you could in principle get rid of your hearing if you had your ossicles cut or removed?

I gave up all loud stuff ages ago and started cutting off noise from my life by paying attention to what's too loud, but it's quite hard to say what is too loud, when no sound ever hurts, it only rises up the level of tinnitus.

Anyone else experience same stuff?

 

[Digital Doc]

Humans are not too good at figuring out when stuff is too loud. There are apps for the smartphone that can provide db readings to help with that.

You sound noise induced as the cause of your tinnitus. You need to identify the loud sounds that are setting it off, and eliminate them. It took me months to do so, and my list includes the electric razor, paper shredder, vacuum cleaner, air compressor, and hammering. Other more obvious ones included the lawn mower, weed wacker, blower, and not only when I use them, but also when the neighbor's have their equipment going and I am outside. I use both ear muffs and ear plugs to protect from these louder exposures as I was still spiking a little bit with just the earplugs.

It can be difficult to identify the triggers as the spikes can be delayed by hours to up to several days. I tended to spike at about 72 hours was the peak, which confused things quite a bit for me initially.

While there is some controversy, it is safer IMHO to stop using any headphones. Also reduce phone time and use it on speakerphone as much as possible.

What is your job? Any noise exposure at work?

 

[Bill Bauer]

it's quite hard to say what is too loud

Just assume that anything that's louder than a normal conversation is too loud.

 

[Lilah]

The level of tinnitus is rising now almost by itself (just figure of speech, it always needs some exposure to noise, it won't go up if I sit at silent at home.).

How are you measuring this?

 

[linearb]

I've had tinnitus about the same length of time, though with basically only one significant worsening, following a significant trauma. You may have worse problems than I do, and I am sorry.

What I found was that the "reactivity" you're describing, and degree of annoyance, went away significantly when I moved from an urban environment to the woods -- to a degree where I can now do a large number of things which are not damagingly loud, but loud enough that I wouldn't have been able to tolerate them at all 7-8 years ago (splitting wood, small motorcycles, etc).

I realize this isn't especially useful if you're not in a position to set yourself up for quiet days for the long haul, but there are always options of one kind or another. When I was still forced to live in the city, one summer I rented a room in a lady's house way out in the sticks for practically nothing and spent all my weekends there. It was a dark and difficult time, but being able to do this (and learn what it changed, vs what it didn't) was very helpful.