Hurrah! It’s National Tinnitus Awareness Week! It’s also a fair bet that those of us who suffer are pretty much constantly aware of tinnitus; that’s what makes the condition such a bugger to deal with.
I’m sure there are many here, like me, who generously donated some of their hearing in the cause of loud rock music. In my case I think I’ve always been susceptible to occasional tinnitus, possibly related to my metal youth, but it has been a constant presence for the last several years. I blame Jake Stigers (brother of the more famous Curtis) and the Velvet Roots, whom I saw in a tiny club with my head near a speaker when I was more than old enough to know better.
And you? I SAID – AND YOU?!
https://www.tinnitus.org.uk/taw2017?gclid=CKnBmqOQg9ICFUy37QodAwcPkg
Here’s an online tone generator so you can experience other’s tinnitus in the comfort of your own home. Actually, possibly because I’m using an iPad, I couldn’t get this high enough to replicate mine. It seems to top out at 2500 hertz, and I would guess mine, at least in the left ear where it is higher and more intrusive, is about 3000.
http://www.onlinetonegenerator.com/
Half past four…
Given its prevalence in the industry, it’s surprising tinnitus doesn’t get namechecked more in songs. The only example I can think of is The Fall on Evetything Hurtz, where Mr Smith tells us “I’ve got the disease tinnitus”.
Tinnitus is one of those symptoms that you think you have had, but realise you didn’t once you actually get it. I’ve had it since my spinal cord surgery in 2003. I saw a doctor on Harley Street (it’s great having a job with private medical benefits!) who did all the tests and scraped my eardrum, which is every bit as painful as it sounds, but they couldn’t find a reason for it, so they have put it down to the stretching of the nerves when they cut my spinal cord to get the tumour out. The constant noise (it usually comes in the form of several sounds at a time – hushing, whistling, etc) took some getting used to, but eventually you learn to ignore it. The only thing that really works is distraction. Can be annoying when you are lying in bed at night though.
Like all my other symptoms (pain, loss of feeling, loss of balance, loss of power, neuropathic sensations, etc), it has increased since January 2015. I have always said that of all my symptoms, if I could have a day off from one of them I would choose the tinnitus over the loss of feeling or pain. Pain can be relieved by taking enough medication, for example, but the tinnitus never goes away.
On other people’s recommendation I requested a referral to hearing services and got a hearing aid. The tinnitus and hearing loss was almost solely in my right ear, so I got a hearing aid for that ear…only for the sounds to switch to my left ear! So I went for a second one for the left ear, hoping it would go altogether, but sadly it just balanced it back out. What I’ve therefore decided to do is just ignore it for 6 months and try not to think about it. I’ll then take stock and see whether it has gone or reduced. If I think about it and tune into it now I can tell it hasn’t gone, so concentrating on it every day isn’t going to do any good. A bit like watching a kettle boil. So I’ll leave it and let it continue trying to train my ears to listen to outside sounds, rather than internal (which the lady explained is the problem).
Mates of mine say their tinnitus went immediately after getting the hearing aids though, so I am quite jealous! Or maybe they didn’t actually have tinnitus in the first place?
I get episodes of tinnitus in my right ear which over time have got worse and worse and arrived in parallel with increasing right side deafness. I can agree absolutely with your comment about a day off. I’m fortunate that although it never completely goes, does vary and most of the time is manageable, but when it really kicks in it’s a level of discomfit beyond anything I ever knew before. Mine might be prompted by too much salt, too little water, or phases of the moon. It usually ends with dizzy spells and some throwing up.
Getting a hearing aid has helped, and distracting noises work well; in fact being on an airplane seems to balance things out nicely. It sometimes stops me sleeping. I found a free iPhone app that will play white noise or sounds like rainfall that help (until the earphones fall out anyway).
I hope you get some relief soon.
Mine isn’t nearly as severe as yours sounds, for which I’m grateful. A soundtrack to fall asleep to is pretty much essential (unless I’ve been drinking alcohol, which often seems to make the tinnitus worse in the short term). Ambient music, nature sounds, or a podcast – any will do the trick, played through the radio alarm rather than buds. For podcasts I used to listen to Sleep with Me, but it began to grate so my current favourite is The Londonist. N Quentin Woolf has a wonderfully soothing voice, but the podcasts usually take the form of a chat with a tour guide, and they often see it as their mission to enthuse rather than lull.
Mr F8,
I think you may have Meniere’s Syndrome.
Do check it out.
ps I have that and the symptoms are identical to mine.
Oh my @geacher, you have my sympathy. A friend and colleague had it in one ear, then the other, and had to give up work in the end after years of struggling. Hope you aren’t as bad as that.
Thanks @geacher
My GP said in might be Meniere’s some years back, when the dizziness and throwing up were more rampant and the hearing loss occasional. Over the last 8 years or so, the deafness has become more constant and pronounced and the Meniere’s symptoms less frequent. The official diagnosis now seems to be “it might be”.
I’m not aware that you can do much to alleviate Meniere’s. Does anything work for you?
@fortuneight – your symptoms and experience sound similar to my colleague’s. He spent many years of having spells of being unwell and then long periods of having no dizzyness etc., meanwhile his deafness gradually worsened. We were able to help him cope at work until both ears were affected and he had operations in the end – good luck and I hope it doesn’t get worse.
Mr8, nothing really *works*, it is there and you just have to live with it. I think that a positive mind set helps also…I knew a guy some years ago who moaned constantly about the noise in his ears, the loss of hearing etc, and I mean constantly, so a positive mindset is essential.
For me, plenty of sleep is the key, the more rested I am the easier the symptoms are. Exercise also helps, as the healthier I am the less it seems to bother me. I took up running after a few years off about three years ago and I have not had one serious visit from Mr Meniere…. a few (and mean a few) dizzy spells that necessitated taking some stemitil and sitting down for a moment or two.
Cut down on fluids and salt also. If I have a night on the beer, I suffer the following day, but a night on the red wine affects me much less.
I have been on stemitil for 27 years now, horrible side effect of nausea so I only take them as and when and I cannot remember the last time I had to take some…6 months ago? Longer?
If you do not have stemitil, go see the Doc, they do work.
I wish you well, and let me know how you progress!
@Nigel T, thanks for the kind words.
Forgive me, Geach, it sounds that you possibly have BPV, benign positional vertigo, tho’ benign it ain’t, during an episodic, um, episode. Menieres is the full-on, full house triad of tinnitus, vertigo and, ultimately, deafness. That’t the rub: the cure is it’s own progression. Eventually you stop hearing the tinnitus, but have stopped being able to hear anything else at all either. Sure, you have been probably told you have menieres: even otherwise reasonably well-versed Drs will call BPV menieres, much as their patients call colds the flu.
NigelT’s mate sounds the business, tho’, less dizzy, less noise and more deaf. As F8.
Retro, no need to ask for forgiveness…I do hope you are correct! In the early days it was a fucker, a full on vomit on the pjs and holding on to the bed dizziness, the full triad (as you put it) I put that I have not had THAT for about 20 years down to me *managing* the disease. Google here we come!
“Changes in barometric pressure — patients may feel increased symptoms up to two days before rain or snow
Lack of sleep (required amounts of sleep may vary widely)
Stress”
Retro, you are that man!
I owe you a beer or six!
I got tinnitus after a shocking cold about 4 years ago when my sinuses were unbelievably blocked up. It’s fairly low level and I can ignore it most of the time but as you’ve mentioned it, I’m very aware of it right now. If I had to choose between tinnitus and the back pain I also have, I’d get rid of the back pain. Incidentally, my wife had tinnitus for a few years due to Menieres disease but has been in remission for more than ten years now.
Yep. My right ear, being the one facing the drummer in a loud band I was in for some years. But what did it I think was being too close to the PA at a Pistols tribute gig in Watford. My head felt numb on that side the next day and whilst it varies from day to day is always there. I have the high pitched whistle.
Whistling for me too. After sitting a few feet from the right speakers at a Deep Purple gig in Sheffield in about 1972 – though I think it was Steve Gibbons Band who did it (they were standing in for Nazareth that night; I’m sure that Dan McAfferty’s screams wouldn’t have been quite so damaging as Steve Gibbons’. Though I don’t think Ian Gillan helped). It does seem to be getting louder recently, though I can ignore it most of the time.
I guess what did it for me was a motorhead tribute, ACE OF SPADES at the “running horse” in Nottingham.
given the tiny stage, the band played with fullhouse drumkit, two full ampeg bass stacks, and TWO marshall stacks featuring 2x4x12 cabs each powered by 2 100 watt heads.
the stage was so cramped with kit, the drummer had to climb THROUGH his drums to reach his perch.
I once saw a sr71 blackbird at mildenhall airshow……I think on the night the band pipped it!!
FISH
Mrs Moose started having hearing problems on her right side about five years ago. They got worse and worse. Then…. pains.
She had scans… turned out to be something called an acoustic neuroma.
It’s a brain tumour!
She had radiosurgery which has shrunk it quite radically and the pain is under control, so there’s no danger. But the hearing on the that side is never coming back… and it’s also had a disastrous effect on her balance. She uses sticks when she’s out. It’s changed our lives.
Beware, folks. Be vigilant.
Big hugs to Mrs Moose.
(I bet those sticks come in handy for dishing out a good thwacking when your jokes miss the mark.)
…Christ yes . And the other thing is, her right ear is generally the one facing me, so she isn’t missing much. (Her idea of a joke, that)
I may just possibly get away with a thank christ it wasn’t an electric neuroma. Then again…….
Tinnitus seems quite common amongst us – it seems to come and go with me, but that might be down to becoming aware of it by, say, reading a post about it! I’m also going a bit mutton, but my Dad did around this age too, and he didn’t listen to too much loud music, so fear that’s hereditary. The tinnitus seems worse when fatigued or unwell in my experience…? Mine is a high pitched rushing sound.
An old acquaintance of mine is the communications manager for the British Tinnitus Association.
She’s been pretty busy just lately, what with it being Tinnitus Awareness Week. Radio and press interviews etc.
People who are under the illusion that national charities have loads and loads of staff sitting around in plush offices might be surprised to know that the BTA has just 12 staff. That’s it. They still manage to reach out to over 335,000 people a year.
Here’s their Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/BritishTinnitusAssociation/?fref=nf&pnref=story
http://www.tinnitus.org.uk is their website.
I’m fortunate in that despite abusing my hearing for many years in noisy work spaces and at very many loud gigs, I have only suffered a little bit of hearing loss but escaped tinnitus.
I just woke up with it one day. My ENT consultant reckoned it was most likely a build-up of wax jamming into my eardrum that set it off but there was no way to know for sure. I remember the first few months being very hard going but once I’d come to terms with the idea that it wasn’t going away, it got easier. Now I can go whole days at a time without thinking about it, which means whole days at a time without hearing it. I would love to hear silence again though.
Yes, I miss silence too.x
No idea how that x ended up on the post above. I’m not usually that fond in my blog posts here. Still, take your affection where you can find it. Hugs to all x
Mine started about 5 years ago and has got gradually worse, even though I use ear plugs or in ear monitors (quietly).
It hit me hard and I had to go on anti depressants for a good while. Mine sounds like very loud tape hiss and sometimes a high pitch whine like the back of an old TV Set.
You have to give in and let it become a part of you, but sometimes when It’s particularly loud I struggle.
Mine came from an ear infection (right ear) about 5/6 years ago.
I had to get my wife to drive me to A&E around 11:00 at night because I couldn’t wait to try and see a GP.
During my four hour wait something akin to 5th November took place in the ear canal. Bangs, pops etc followed by some sort of discharge of gunge.
I’ve had it to a greater or lesser degree ever since. Reading this thread has made me conscious of it. A lot of the time I can forget about it.