Tinnitus revisited
 

Just a note here as I know this is a common issue with us older folks.

Track your triggers - Salty snacks, dehydration, stress, loud noises, strenuous exercise. Pay attention to what is turning up the ringing.

And a couple of new ones for me - calcium channel blocker meds, long hours in front of a computer.

I think mine is breathing. Nothing helps. I've pretty much gotten used to the ringing in my head.

I have it all the time too.
Exersize definitely makes mine worse - wind in my ears covers it up pretty well though, so I just ride faster.
Never thought about foods or medicines - I've not seen (heard) a correlation.

The only thing that varies is how much I happen to be ignoring it. I don't think the actual level of ring ever changes.

I do use a sound machine to help me go to sleep. I've had it long enough to kind of get used to it. I believe mine was from bowling, 5 nights a week, it's pretty loud on the alleys. When I shot handguns competitively I protected my ears, bowling never did.

I like it, especially at bedtime. I'm fascinated by the different tones and volume every night. I meditate on it and fall asleep to it. I hear it during the day sometimes. Until now I had not heard about triggers for it.

Sleeping = gone
Awake = present
Intensity = varies from severe to low -- sometimes exercise increases the volume and other times no effect, it's just there
Wear ear buds when cycling, listen to 95.5 The WOLF, helps drown the noise

Be careful with that. Wind noise could be causing more damage.

I'm not a medical professional, but I'd say it's best to see a doctor, particularly if one side is noticeably worse than the other. Asymetrical hearing loss and/or tinnitus can be a symptom of schwannoma.

Drug induced tinnitus often goes away after discontinuation of the drug, provided the drug was used short-term.
But you must consult your physician, there are often alternative drugs that may not effect you the same way.

This really hit home for me! I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember (late 50's now). I believe it may have been caused by 1) firing 105mm rounds from a main battle tank 2) .50 cal and 7.62mm machine guns 3) M1911 .45 cal and lastly 4) painfully loud punk rock shows for ~10 years.

A few years ago, I tried mindfulness meditation. Our guide had us focus on different things: Focus on any scents/aromas; then focus on how the air and temperature feel on your skin; then focus on sounds. All I heard was ringing, so I learned to focus on that. And that puts me into a great headspace, in turn I've actually turned tinnitus into a boost to my mental health. Funnily enough (not really), tinnitus completely disappears when riding.

JustaJoe I learned to meditate to my tinnitus from a reading about how people meditate in noisy environments, like the city. I figured if they can turn the constant white noise of a city to good then I could do the same with my tinnitus, and it's worked nicely.

I’m gonna give this a try. Thanks for the tip.^^^^

Hopeful the medical community gets a better handle on treating this…. My adult son has had it for over 4 years now and it started while he was on a long international flight. He has worked on it by focusing on staying destressed AMAP which does help a little… any other ideas that I can pass along are welcome! Thank you!

I have had tinnitus all my life but never brought it to mind because it was not very intrusive. That changed after a left ear infection, and since then, it has been in the foreground. The volume was turned to 11 on the left side, and for a while, it really impacted my life. One day I went to a therapist who manipulated my jawbone, and the tinnitus was moved more to the background by that treatment alone (so that tongue theory is proberly also not far fetched). It never got that bad afterward, but it's still there. I also did a retraining program that helped me ignore my tinnitus, and as a result, the brain started to filter the noise out as well. But...there is still some tinnitus left, especially when I'm tired or stressed. Considering to buy hearing aids online and hope that will solve the issue .

Would be nice, but until that happens, there are only coping strategies… not every strategy works for everyone.

Learning to ignore it and/or meditating has been quite effective in my case. The white noise device didn’t help. In fact, white noise interfered with my ability to fall asleep.

Was it a consequence of an injury of some sort?
Have you consulted an ENT physician? Good ones can help you with coping practices that are helpful.

I like the idea of learning to cope with it through various means. I used to try to enjoy it, but for me that was of limited consequence. Then my tinnitus got better after an ear surgery. The surgery itself was a failure, unfortunately. When I was researching the surgery, bad tinnitus was one of the listed possible side effects, so I won the lottery on that aspect. It does get worse when I do things that cause inflammation.

I have been seeing a lot of media about curing it. There are a lot of scammers out there, I'm pretty sure there are no legitimate cures. Except maybe hearing aids.

You are correct about no real cures.
The reason may have to do with poorly understood etiology of the syndrome.
Learning strategies to cope certainly helps. Use of hearing aids is included in coping strategies.
Usually tinnitus “sounds” are higher pitch, and this is the spectrum of sound that gets effected (or lost) as one ages. If an audiologist determines that the loss of hearing is gradual (let’s say 8,000 Hz and over) and not abrupt, you have a very chance to benefit from wearing hearing aids… and your audiologist and ENT doctor will recommend it.
You have to wear it during all or most of your waking hours to benefit from it.
A properly adjusted hearing aid increases signal to noise ratio in the region where you have suffered losses. The noise, generated by tinnitus, stays more or less at a constant level. So now it becomes easier for your brain to ignore tinnitus. As you wear the hearing aid. As you wear the hearing aid, you are are also training your brain what to ignore.
There was a hypothesis at one point that irrespective of causes of loss of hearing in higher frequency, once this input to brain is gone away, your brain is simply trying to amplify the non-existent or very low signal in that region as best as it can - and not succeeding too well, resulting the constant sounds one “hears”.
For now, learning to cope is all we have.
I’d certainly stay away from semi-magical recipes or formulations from food supplement industry proven by “an accomplished research team of scientist from a well-known university.”
Good luck with it!

Maybe this was mentioned earlier in the thread: has anyone correlated their tinnitus to their blood pressure? My blood pressure has risen in the last couple years, and my tinnitus has increased as well. At moments when my bp is lower, so is my tinnitus. Interesting.

I don't know about blood pressure, but my doctor said things like stress and anger can make it worse. I told him hadn't noticed that but exercise makes it worse, and he said that was also common.

Yes, I have. I think this is why when you eat a small bag of chips the result is REEEEEEEE it increases due to a BP spike. . Stress, salt, dehydration, loud noises. Having my inlaws LEAVE after the holidays has helped too. I have pretty good luck with magnesium gummies.

agreed about stress. It's not a coincidence that my bp and my anxiety-driven stress have both increased in the last 2-3 years.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...78bba18e44.png

I've had tinnitus since about 8 years old. It turned on and never turned off. Even as a guitar player hobbyist, I have been protective of my hearing. I have totally adjusted to this. For the first time I can remember, I heard silence after standing in the steam room of my health club. The steam jets can get loud, and I noticed they mimicked the tones of my ringing. After a couple of minutes of the noise, the jets stopped and for a few moments, I thought I heard nothing. I haven't been back, but will retest at my next steam. ( I'm not a big steamer).