Worried About Hearing "Microphone Feedback" in Reaction to PC Fans, Running Water, etc.

[DimLeb]

Hello there.

I'm a 27-year-old male from Greece and I've been working with music for almost a decade. I've been doing (electronic) music production since 2013 and have been playing in some bands + gone to several concerts. The last 4 years or so I had been wearing earplugs at noisy places, metro, etc and didn't go to many concerts. I just made music at home at reasonable volumes.

I got tinnitus 3 months back (on March 14th). A faint cicadas/crickets sound in my left ear. I got checked by an ear doctor and he found nothing concerning hearing loss. I even did an MRI (base of skull, ears, brain) and it was all normal.

Anyway, just as I was getting used to it, 5 days ago it seems to have changed. 1-2 new pitches appeared (very faint, very low volume), at 5 kHz-10 kHz, occasionally in one ear, and sometimes in the other. It's still very faint, and not happening all the time.

But what really worries me is that a single pitch seems to appear when I hear moderate sounds (PC fans, running water etc). Like microphone feedback or something on top of the sound in one or the other ear.

It's still not that severe, but I'm really anxious in case it becomes worse.

These 3 months I was masking that first cicadas sound and all, but now I don't think this can be masked... it's better to be in silence I believe.

So this is my story so far... Thanks for having me here. Your forum seems so helpful.

Anyone knows anything about this? I've booked an ear doctor visit, but for tinnitus they don't seem that helpful after all.

 

[MindOverMatter]

@DimLeb, short answer: that feedback, or noise on top of the noises that you experience, is a degree of hyperacusis. Sound sensitivity and/or reactive tinnitus.

This may fade for you in time. But your ears need rest from loud sounds, so maybe you have to take some time off work? Hopefully you will feel get better within the next 3-6 months.

 

[DimLeb]

Thanks for your answer! It's true that I had been working with music way too much the last few months, but still at reasonable levels in my room. Making music I guess takes its toll now I will take a break from it as long as it takes.

I just returned from an ear doctor visit and still tympanogram/hearing test/etc all are normal. I just had some earwax that was removed but the sounds still persist. I guess it's a matter of time now. Hope it recovers.

I'll have some more ear doctors' opinions in the next few days, but no one even mentions these terms "hyperacusis," "reactive tinnitus" and such... It's really disheartening that so little is known/researched/practiced about it all. I haven't been so down in my life, this is tough.

 

[DimLeb]

Hello guys,

A brief history and update on my original post:

My tinnitus started on March 14, 2021 as a mild hissing/white noise/crickets sound only in my left ear which was very manageable. After 3 months (June 17, 2021), it spiked to 2 new pure notes alternating, 1 tone reacting to moderately loud external sounds, plus the hissing, in both ears. It was not that severe, but it put me into hell (trouble sleeping + panic mode).

That spike subsided by 95% after 1 week exactly (June 24, 2021) and kinda returned to baseline but there is some very mild stuff in both ears (hissing + very vague tones) now. I'm almost back to normal hopefully since I can barely hear it. I don't want to call it a success story yet, as I don't know what to do from now on.

My case is probably caused by noise and loud music since I do music production + played in bands (27 years old male). Tested my hearing and it's all good even at high frequencies above 8 kHz. Since that horrible spike on June 17, I'm having a lasting break from music, all possible loud sounds and headphones. Plus I get Ginkgo Biloba, vitamins C and others, Magnesium, eat healthy, stopped coffee/alcohol.

But I'm in need of your valuable support on this. Based on the above, what do you think there's to do from now on? I know I'm not free yet as I still got some stuff going on mildly deep in my ears (hissing + vague tone).

All opinions and experiences are welcome, thank you for your time reading this!

 

[ajc]

I'm almost back to normal hopefully since I can barely hear it. I don't want to call it a success story yet, as I don't know what to do from now on.

Sounds a lot like a success story to me. You know how people are contemplating suicide (and some have committed it) here over their tinnitus and ear issues?

Based on the above, what do you think there's to do from now on? I know I'm not free yet as I still got some stuff going on mildly deep in my ears (hissing + vague tone).

I think there's nothing to do. Eat healthily, exercise, enjoy your life, and protect yourself from loud noises and ototoxic medicines for eternity.

IMHO.

 

[DimLeb]

@ajc, yeah, I have read a lot of the stories on here and I truly feel for all these people. And the most terrible thing is that there is so little to no awareness/publicity about this suffering. Unfortunately, someone has to get it to really know that it's serious or people go "just live with it" on you (even ENT doctors).

I believe I was lucky I got it (relatively) lightly to a little moderate, but I don't want to say big words yet. I see that you have quite a history with it (from your avatar). How do you do now? I hope it's all better and thanks for the response!

 

[DimLeb]

Hi guys. Just thought about posting a little update here. It's now been 1 month from the big 7-day spike.

For around 20 days I've been doing just fine. The tinnitus, what remained after that horrible 7-day spike (mild hiss + mild/vague 2-3 tones), is still very low in volume to the point I have silence except when I close my ears and look for it. Occasionally I maybe feel it a bit louder, but maybe it's just my idea. Also, that distortion/feedback tone from external sounds is gone. However, last few days I got a strange physical sensation that like my tympanis (or whatever) clicks/flutters when hearing moderate sounds (not always), which maybe is from increased sensitivity from avoiding noise. I don't really know.

BUT, yesterday night after a car ride, I had an episode of fleeting tinnitus which left me with a new tone for a few hours that made me worry so much that I hardly slept all night. I think the tone was gone (and is gone now 12 hours later) or it was buried in volume so much that I couldn't detect it.

Also, I think I got a new higher pitched tone as distortion riding on to external sounds. But I'm not sure because I may be focusing on tones too much now (being a music producer and analyzing sounds at frequency level is maybe turning against me now). I feel all this that happened is a setback/spike, even though I don't know what caused it.

I've been protecting myself from all moderate/loud noises, rarely listen to music these days (only 1-2 songs at low low volume), rarely go outside, eat healthily, get Magnesium/Ginkgo/Vitamin C/Vitamins B complex and Memovigor (antioxidants supplement). Do you think I should add anything? Thinking of NAC.

For what it's worth, the 2 ENT's I've seen the past few weeks, since they didn't find any hearing loss or anything, they told me it can be reversed and most probably it's just my "hearing nerves" misfiring, from exhausting them with long hours of music making... If that makes any sense at all *shrugs*.

I know this hell of a condition is likely to fluctuate/change/evolve, but I would totally appreciate if you guys share any advice or information. Thanks for your time!

 

[Tau]

It could just be what people call 'reactive tinnitus' - you get a tinnitus sound over other sounds like a tap running, etc. I have this. Some think it's a form of hyperacusis. I've had this since the onset of my very faint tinnitus in 2019. It had almost gone away, but I then purchased a pair of high-end headphones and listened to music at too high a volume. My tinnitus increased, the reactivity also increased. I then had an acoustic trauma (my own fault) and now I have multiple reactive tones and hidden hearing loss.

If you have no hearing loss (you can search this forum for hidden hearing loss or cochlear synaptopathy), your tinnitus is likely to recede if you protect your ears!

 

[DimLeb]

@Tau, yeah I have experienced reactive stuff (the ENT called it distortions), as one pure tone was appearing over the sound of outside cicadas (living in a suburb) or over the sound of running water. But that went away within a week (as 90% of the other new tones I had).

It's just that now after 20 days of "silent/healthy living", I think I got these again. But anyway, it's very hard to know for sure because I'm just suspecting every sine wave / tone I'm hearing. Anxiety and stuff...

Have you had any improvement by the way? Are you on any treatment, be it supplements or way of living, etc? It's really disheartening to see how things can change with this shit even with stuff that everyday people do.

I have read on these forums about hidden hearing loss, but I have concluded that there is no way to really know or much you can do unfortunately...

 

[DimLeb]

Hello again guys! Got a new update for my case.

Today I visited an ear-neurologist (ear+neurology doctor), who possibly found the cause for my case. In contrast to what the previous ENTs had told me, this one's results were a kind of (mild) cochleopathy from genetic causes, combined with dizziness. He gave me a hearing test (full spectrum, not only to 8 kHz) and some dizziness tests with how my eyes roll. He found some mild hearing loss (10 dB) at a few frequencies, and some clues for dizziness. He said that by the looks of it, my tinnitus is not caused by external noise exposure, but some kind of small damage coming from the pressure of brain's nerves (how I understood it at least).

So, he rejected the possibility of this being noise induced and I can continue with my life/music making and need to avoid increasing the pressure of my head (lifting weights, stress etc).

This is something else than what the other doctors told me. One other ENT also did a full spectrum hearing test and found a small fall at only one frequency, so she told me it's nothing to be concerned about. And I'm now confused, because audiograms are so unreliable. Those dB falls may (or may not) have been a mistake of mine (fail at signalling that I hear the pitches or something) due to the anxiety or whatever at the time of the test.

Anyway, I'm still well in terms of tinnitus. I still got the high hissing/cicadas, which no longer annoys me, and a few vague high pitch tones at around 8% ish volume, that I mostly need to close my ears and "look for them" in a quiet room. Hope it gets even better.

Thanks for reading! I truly hope for fast recovery to everyone from the bottom of my heart.

 

[DimLeb]

Hello. I thought I'd post another monthly update on this.

It's been a weird month since the end of July. I'm mostly well in terms of tinnitus, but it has changed and tends to change throughout the day into 2 modes. Generally it's some layers of gentle high frequency white noise and a mid to high tone coming from the centre of head (mode 1). In very quiet environments (20-30 dB), it's like a "mild and vague buzzing" noise, but still can hear the "silence" through. If I plug my ears, well, it's all there but not a big deal.

Now the weird thing is, some days (especially nights) it changes to a wavering buzzing which is like more of a sensation than it is sound (mode 2). Maybe a frequency so high up that I can't hear? Don't know. The first few times it happened, it was really scary, but it was not that bad in the end and happens occasionally for a few hours, especially in the middle of the night.

During the day, either tinnitus mode is mostly no issue, but unfortunately some nights now I had some trouble sleeping and staying asleep because I'm a side sleeper and it keeps magnifying on the side I'm on. I'm not quite sure if the volume really increases or it is just me that I'm sick of all this, the pillow getting noisy and all...

Also, I keep having some TTTS-ish spasms in the ear (mostly on the right one), when around short HF sounds like kitchen cutlery. Anxiety? Overprotection? I don't know.

All in all, I'm well with the situation, even though I still hope it will improve as time goes on. The worst thing is that I keep living mostly isolated, avoid sugar/salt/coffee, take vitamins, go out cautiously etc... it's getting tiring. Also, I have put my music production projects aside due to bad mood, even though I'm fine with listening and making music on my studio monitors (not headphones of course). Noise doesn't spike me in any sort of way (so idiopathic diagnosis probably right), but loud stuff is out of the question.

Tried to keep it short, but here it is lol. Thanks for reading! All the best to you guys!

 

[Tau]

I would say try to avoid loud noise regardless.

I have similar symptoms to you, but my condition is definitely noise-induced. At first noise would not spike me (I was still doing Zoom calls with 40 dB max volume, driving everywhere and so on), but in a month or so my ears started feeling pressure at the end of the day and sometimes even pain. So my hyperacusis got worse even from moderate sound exposure.

 

[DimLeb]

@Tau, yeah I'll definitely do! I always have ear defenders with me and gonna make some custom earplugs for less loud situations. And that's the tricky part. One can't really predict whether a sound will cause damage or not...

I still can't be sure if it was noise or idiopathic brain pressure. I'm taking measures for both anyway! These days I'll be visiting a neurosurgeon to investigate if one brain arachnoid cyst that I have since ever has anything to do with it all. No more MRI's though... I was so lucky in April that I went through without issues.

I have occasionally read about your story man, and I truly feel for you. Also, I read about the stem cell treatment you're going for and I really wish it all goes successfully!

 

[baz14600]

Now the weird thing is, some days (especially nights) it changes to a wavering buzzing which is like more of a sensation than it is sound (mode 2). Maybe a frequency so high up that I can't hear? Don't know. The first few times it happened, it was really scary, but it was not that bad in the end and happens occasionally for a few hours, especially in the middle of the night.

I feel like I experience this. My tinnitus has been improving greatly but it is high pitched, constant. It is in my ear that has otosclerosis. I don't think I can actually hear sounds this high frequency, so it seems to appear above certain sounds too.

But it seems like you are improving and have to often focus on it to hear it?

Best of luck.

 

[DimLeb]

@baz14600, it feels like the whole head (or better both ears) is very very slightly waving/vibrating and there is an indication of high frequency but not really much of a sound. And when that happens, tilting my head to the left or right down makes a kinda louder white noise sound in the ear of that side... Very weird stuff really!

Well, in my almost 6 months of tinnitus, it has been changing a lot up and down. First 3 months, it was a mild soft hissing in one ear that I quickly habituated to even though that's the loudest of all. Then it spiked to 2-3 new moderate high pitched tones and distortions to external sounds for 1 nightmarish week in June. Then those subsided by 90% and continue to subside. And now I have these 2 modes of tinnitus with a central tone and white noise hissings.

To be honest, at dB levels of 40-50+, I don't think I can listen even if I focus. It's mostly the near-silence places or when I put my ear on the pillow that it becomes listenable. But it also fluctuates depending on sleep or time of day I think. Good sleep makes it even more silent.

Thanks for the interest my friend! Good to hear that yours is improving! I see that yours is fairly new and has high chance of going away. Also, for otosclerosis I learnt that there is at least an operation that can be done.

 

[baz14600]

@DimLeb, I'm a side sleeper too, for me I feel as though sleeping on my good ear quietens it, it's as if my brain turns its amp up if I sleep with the good ear exposed.

At this point I almost feel as if it's just mind games, maybe I always had a slight bit of tinnitus that I was used to & now my brain is seeking to return to absolute 0 after having it bad for a week or so.

Last night I had a slight burst of fleeting (sort of bell sound) tinnitus, but oddly I woke to complete silence. Only when I went outside did I notice some head noise.

& yes there is an operation available to me, seems like its effect on tinnitus is a gamble.

Anyways it seems as though we are both experiencing improvement and it is very promising, some people don't see for improvements for months to years or ever!

 

[DimLeb]

@baz14600, yeah sometimes I feel the same thing, that I had like 1% of tinnitus since ever and now they somehow came up in volume.

For me at least, it's going up and down a lot but within reasonable limits. But it's the very unpredictable nature of this damn condition that causes me anxiety and all. I guess it's good that it's not something constant. *shrugs*

I get a lot of fleeting tinnitus as well, but I believe they are nothing to be scared of, because it happens to everyone. Let's hope only for more improvements and finally a medical solution!

 

[DimLeb]

Update: 7th month since tinnitus first started, 4th month since the 7-day moderate flare up:

All in all, I'm doing fine. The tinnitus is in the very mild level. I can hear it quite well with earplugs or earmuffs on (20 dB attenuation), but still not very overwhelmingly. In a very quiet room, I can notice it but it still seems to expand in volume, but I kinda got used to it.

I still got multiple tones: 1) The soft "air exhaust" hissing in the left ear which fluctuates by the day, either being continuous or a bit intermittent like folding a paper (this one is what started 7 months back and probably is the loudest but the softest, so I got used to). 2) The head 2 kHz tone (seems to go either towards left, right or middle). 3) Some sparse, occasional other tones, maybe at 1 kHz or 6-8 kHz eee's which appear randomly. 4) Another white noise layer underneath which sometimes changes to more "metallic" (lowest in volume). Thing is all these are very mild (thank goodness) and I may notice them at a quiet room with ears plugged.

After sleep in the morning, the tonal sounds are a lot quieter or even not there and they buildup towards the evening.

I also still have TTTS symptoms when listening to short, high pitched sounds (cutlery, plates smacking etc) at a quiet setting. Not so much or not at all at louder settings like outside, which is weird.

I don't seem to get spikes from loud sounds fortunately, as I've been exposed to some, like loud car horns, bikes, loud object falls etc), so maybe my otologist was right about it being an internal nerve damage from brain pressure and not a noise thing. But I don't want to push it.

I believe since August, the condition hasn't changed much, and I kinda habituated, but at times I sink into deep depression thinking about it... I still find it annoying when putting my ear on the pillow to sleep, even with sound enrichment from my studio monitors a few meters away (e.g nature sounds). Also, my sleep still sucks since June, as I wake up several times (maybe 2-4) in the night. I don't know why, but it seems I can't sleep for more than 2-3 hours at a time, but I can fall asleep again quite easily. Any suggestions on this are welcome!

I still avoid loud sounds by rarely going outside, eat healthily (lots of fish, veggies, fruit etc) and I take Gingko Biloba, Vitamins D, B Complex, Magnesium & Zinc Citrate. Not that they seem to be doing anything but anyway...

On a side note, lately I'm becoming a bit paranoid with my vision since I've been reading about visual snow, floaters etc and connection to tinnitus. In fact, I may have very very mild VS, random small light flashes etc, but it's been like that since always I think. And about floaters, I always had but never bothered me, but maybe they increased a bit these past months. Obsessing isn't very helpful about these...

Thanks for reading guys, I hope you are all doing well. I really really wish for a medical relief in the near future! Just something at last!

 

[DimLeb]

Update: 10th month since tinnitus first started, 7th month since a 7-day moderate spike:

So I thought I'd write an update as a little diary here.

Not much has changed with my situation. My tinnitus is still what I was writing above. Multi-tonal, bilateral, very mild, a bit fluctuating etc. A sound I have (air exhaust/white noise hissing) also seems to increase a bit (objectively, not only in my perception), consistently when I put earmuffs in a quiet room or stay in silence, concluding that maybe I need to have sound to stop the brain increasing the noise threshold? I don't know? TTTS, mild visual snow, floaters all still present as well.

The only big thing that happened that was SCARY AF and caused a huge psychological setback to my otherwise good gradual habituation, was an episode of diplacusis I had 2 weeks ago (January 9) and wrote about in "Support" section. Out of the blue, my left ear started hearing a band of frequencies (around 950-1200 Hz) some Hz lower, creating a disturbing dissonance (between the two ears) when hearing sounds that had those frequencies. It lasted 4 hours and thankfully it went away.

I still can't figure out what caused it, since I stay at home 98% of the time, making music/listening to stuff/having sound enrichment at low reasonable volumes. The following days I had hearing tests at 2 ENTs and my hearing was perfect even at the extended high frequency test that only showed a slight (-20 dB) dip at 2-3 kHz at left ear I always had that the doctor said it was a "scratch" from music and all.

They only found lots of earwax (as always) which they cleaned a bit with a curette. So one said the diplacusis event could be due to the wax, and the other said it was due to (maybe) a small episode of ischemia at some blood vessel that quickly fixed itself. Note I had no other symptoms (ear pressure, loss of hearing, dizziness, etc etc).

I started again taking supplements (Vitamin D, Zinc, Magnesium, Ginkgo Biloba) and started a more serious diet with less salt, no coffee/sugar and more antioxidants/anti-inflammatory stuff.

So that's it for this update. I hope you all doing well and thanks for reading!