I have mild tinnitus and the best advice I've ever read on the internet for it is: Stop reading. Don't look up information about tinnitus. Don't think about it. If you happen to notice it, try to distract yourself immediately. There maybe legitimate hearing damage but for the psychological aspect, the more you think about it the worse it becomes. I think I saw a quora answer somewhere where the doctor said "Nobody complains about tinnitus while playing Playstation". And it's very true. Until this post just now, I hadn't thought about it in weeks (months?).
This! Said it before here but also consider than right next to each ear drum is a huge artery. When you run you might hear your heart beating in your ears, but generally we totally tune it out. But it is always there.
Once I realised that I could also tune out tinnitus, I did just that - but a big part of that was just not thinking about it/dwelling on it.
Been nearly 20 years now and tinnitus rarely troubles me, in the way it used to really upset and stress me.
Or further, if you do read stuff about it and start thinking about it, don't sweat it.
You'll eventually stop thinking about it, and life will go on.
When I first started dealing with tinnitus, it sucked. Until I realized it didn't.
Would I rather not have it? Sure. But life is not near as bad as I thought it would be at first, and I'm perfectly fine several years after it started.
It turned out to be caused by an improperly filled root canal; some root material remained inside the tooth, the flesh above and around the tooth was inflamed and this was applying pressure inside the skull and bringing tissues which would otherwise not have been into contact, or firmer contact.
I had the root canal re-made, and the tinnitus ended.
I also had tinnitus, as a result of a gum infection. It was a low grade infection for a while which made me not make much of a connection, but when I finally got antibiotics after the infection got way worse, the infection and the tinnitus cleared up within 3 days
"...improperly filled root canal; some root material remained inside the tooth..."
UGG. I've been experiencing noticeable tinnitus this motorcycle season. It is to the point I'm now actively investigating. Recently I read neck pain or tension can cause tinnitus. I have a terrible mattress. I'm contemplating a move, so I've been holding off on replacing it. Trying exercise and stretching in the mean time.
I also had a root canal in November 2023. The tooth was sensitive and this only abated somewhat after about six months, which is coincidentally when I noticed the tinnitus.
I had very slight intermittent tinnitus that went away after being treated with an ALF appliance for TMJ and sleep apnea. I think my jaw joint was pressing on a nerve by my ear somehow. My bite was fixed by tilting it slightly back to horizontal to open up the joint and allow the teeth to erupt a bit until they met again.
As a former drummer who bashed way too many Chinas without proper ear protection, I had some scary tinnitus for quite a while. My advice;
- First make sure that the frequency is not dancing around. If it is then probably it is one of those things your brain making up then it is relatively easier to fool yourself back again. Check it when it happens https://audionotch.com/app/tune/ (disclaimer I am not related to website, just first google result).
- If it is constant then try to counter it with noise especially when trying to sleep. Just give yourself one of those nice YouTube colored-noise videos like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SHf6wmX5MU
- Avoid in-ears altogether, especially the bass-boost ones make sure that it does not fit airtight. More bass does not mean you pulsate your ear-canal with an airgun. If you want proper bass sound, invest in hi-fi stereo and listen to it in a good room.
- As mentioned, distract yourself. Even if it is chronic and actually has a pathological cause, the brain finds a way to cope with it, like the glasses on your nose not noticing the weight.
I have had tinnitus since I was about 20 and I am now 50. Its always been there until last year when I had a slight reprieve for about 10 seconds. I was sick, the sickest I had been for years. I came down a with bad flu and was on a cocktail of drugs... antibiotics, painkillers etc. So there I was, lying in bed staring out the window when suddenly everything went peaceful and very quite. I then realised that i could no longer hear the ringing in my ears. I was sick but not delirious. Try hard as I could, i couldn't hear the ringing in my ears for about 10 seconds when suddenly as quickly as the ringing appeared, it re-appeared again.
I got a tinnitus which severely impacted my life only to find out that it is connected to my posture and neck issues, something which wasn't mentioned almost anywhere until I found out by myself and the specifically searched for.
At glance, again I don't see mention about that in this article. Apple has accelerometers on AirPods Pro, I hope they incorporate head position into the study.
Nothing helped until I got serious into fixing my posture. Now it's almost cured.
the newer generations of AirPods absolutely trigger tinnitus for me. The gen 1 AirPod Pros are the best. I really have to crank the volume to trigger it. The Gen 2 AirPod Pros are the worst. Even low volumes rip apart my ears. Constant ringing all of the time. The USB-C Airpod Pros Gen 2 are ok at low to mid volumes, can't use them at high volumes what so ever though, they also let in a terrible amount of wind noise for outdoor activity which makes them unusable since turning up the volume to mute the wind noise causes tinnitus for me.
The AirPod Pro Max also get too loud, they are ok at low to mid volumes, high volumes = extreme tinnitus.
HomePods are similar, I can only have them on at volume levels I appreciate for short periods of time or I get tinnitus.
Compare this with my old sennheisers and audeze headphones, 0 tinnitus even at extreme volumes. Similar for my in ear Mochi headphones.
Or compare the HomePods to my Panasonic Surround Sound Speakers for my TV from 12 years ago that I still use, I can make the walls shake with no tinnitus. If I turn up my homepods to a volume close to that my ears will be ringing for hours or days after. It really bums me out, I wish I understood what is changing about the technology. Like are they going from Analog to Digital and is digital more harsh or something? I don't know.
"triggered" tinnitus from in-ear headphones or normal headphones is not necessarily from the sound level. Try to massage ears (pull earlobes forward, back, up down, and massage muscles around ears) head and jaw muscles. Stretch your neck muscles.
If you do it from time to time and tinnitus eases even a little, it might come from how the AirPods or headphones press your ear or head causing tensions.
I had really bad Tinnitus for years. Then I took a hearing test. Doc concluded that I needed a hearing aid. Then I got the Lyric hearing aid which sits deep inside your ear canal 24/7 and it immediately did not only fix my hearing but also my tinnitus.
Its an analoge but digitally programmable hearing aid which needs to be replaced every 3-4 months or so.
I think I suffer from this. My theory: There are muscles in the ear canal that try to modulate the sound and those muscles tense up and cause issues. I also have sore muscles that get a lot better from use of magnesium supplements and the tinnitus also get slightly better from this use. (It get a lot worse if I stop taking it)
It's so subtle that I don't really notice it in my day to day life, and with corrective lenses I experience almost no vision problems.
But God damn it, there was this one ophthalmologist I had. He became convinced that I was at high risk for glaucoma and kept subjecting me to visual field tests to assess my peripheral vision. The machine he used for such tests was so ancient it still took 5 1/4" floppy disks, and it worked by shining lights of various brightness onto a plain canvas. You were supposed to stare at a point and click a button held in the hand (like a Jeopardy! buzzer) when you saw one of these lights.
Well, this exercise presents pretty much the exact conditions for my visual snow to put me at a disadvantage, and that meant I had bizarre, inconsistent test results with strange gaps in my visual field. Of course, that only further convinced my ophthalmologist that I was a glaucoma risk, and when I told him about the visual snow, he just looked at me like I was from space and ordered more tests.
I was so glad to find a nice, 34-year-old ophthalmologist some years later who used the air puff machine during the standard eye exam to measure eyeball pressure and found I was nowhere near having glaucoma. No visual field tests, no visual snow confounding the results.
I can ignore my tinnitus during the day fairly well. It just doesn't bother me that much. I've never really used earpods, no longer use over the hear headphones, and keep the volume down on my speakers.
But at night it's a completely different story. With a quiet house and nothing to distract, it was causing a huge problem in my ability to get rest.
The solution was to play Spotify all night long at a low volume. The music keeps the ringing to a minimum. The genre of music doesn't really seem to matter. It all works.
Random question for someone with tinnitus: do you hear the sound if you hum?
Supposedly the mind doesn't think while humming, at least the inner monologue tends to cease, similar to meditation, and both can be used simultaneously:
I find that even the act of beginning to hum, by tensing my throat without making a sound, quiets my thoughts.
Some other things you might try:
* tapping practice of the fingertips on temples, eyebrows, shoulders, etc for anxiety relief.
* consciousness brain hemisphere shifting (don't know the name), where you cross your eyes slightly to look at two different images, then concentrate on bringing one image to your attention and then the other, causing focus to move between hemispheres. doing this while meditating on difficult thoughts can help the non-dominant hemisphere solve the problem.
* head to toe relaxation: start with the top of your head and scan down your body, identifying any tense muscles and relaxing them, until fully relaxed. so real the forehead, drop the tongue from the top of the mouth, relax into the chair, etc.
Mine started in one ear after a problem while ascending during a scuba dive. Something remained different in the region around my ear afterward.
Then COVID did some sh*t to my sinuses which left them changed.
Now I have relatively low tinnitus in one ear and very noticeable tinnitus in the other ear. The pitch is high... reminiscent to the squeal that an old CRT or tube TV would make if it had no signal.
The tinnitus is some function of my blood circulation, because I can clearly hear my pulse in the worst ear... just this constant pulsing squeal. On occasion it is so loud that I wonder if my head is about to blow open. Blood pressure is good when tested though.
Who knows... that's all so complex and interconnected, and then there's the possibility that some of it is imagined or phantom.
I have vertigo issues and have wondered whether scuba might have contributed to the inner ear damage that causes it. It was either that or, also like you, sinus issues.
During the diagnosis phase of my vertigo I learned a few things about how primitive medicine still is when it comes to inner ear issues. If the problem isn't BPPV, some large growth they can cut out (e.g. a fistula) or something that can be "solved" by just destroying your inner ear (gentamicin therapy) there is almost nothing they can do -- and in fact they can't even really diagnose the issue, just test out different therapies to try to find anything resulting in some mild improvement. Most doctors have no idea what the possible diagnoses even are; the specialist who eventually helped me was a neuro-otologist, which already seems unreasonably specialized, and he said he only really had an idea because his son had the same issue as me.
You claim that "20% of tinnitus cases caused by loud noises" without providing citation, then suggest there's more research do all in the same breath - well done.
I have tinnitus and hearing loss. I've found that wearing the hearing aids itself silences the tinnitus. I've read that the hearing aids add enough of the background noise back so your auditory system is stimulated and tinnitus is drowned out.
Wonder how will they deal with AirPods themselves losing ability to emit frequencies over time, to prevent false positives/negatives. AFIK they continue to replace AirPods after testing them for sound being out of range.
Do the Airpods perform some kind of self-diagnostic to confirm that it can emit needed frequencies for the hearing test? It would be a PR nightmare if Apple was giving diagnoses for hearing loss, when in reality people were being asked to hear a sound that the Airpods could not emit.
This is anecdotal info, but if you're suffering severe tinnitus to the point where it cannot be ignored, meaning ≥8/10, a short course of memantine for a few weeks could bring it down by about 2/10, making it more tolerable. The course may have to be repeated as needed about once a year. There probably exist other milder medicines that too could help make it less severe, e.g. mild SSRIs, but their effect usually goes away as soon as you stop taking them.
Is there any science out there to support it? Gabapentin is also supposed to be a miracle cure but it only works (anecdotally) for very few people and the studies are inconclusive.
How come when i say "hey test your vit D and everyone probably needs more D supplementation" i get called out and downvoted, but this memantine comment goes unanswered?
One of the side effects is aggression. here i'll try this, anecdotally my neighbor was prescribed 5mg (20mg is max dose) for short term memory issues, and he said "it's a good thing i wasn't prescribed more, i would have killed my wife." This was so out of character for him, i've never heard him raise his voice or say anything in anger in the 10 years i've known him. He and his wife are a normal happily married (like 4 decades!) couple of awesome people.
So, yeah. I'm starting to notice a bit of a double standard on this site with more things than "google bad."
That's the expected behavior, if you want to use it with just one they have a solution for you:
> To use Active Noise Cancellation with one AirPod only, use your iPhone or iPad to go to Settings > Accessibility > AirPods, and turn on "Noise Cancellation with One AirPod." Then press and hold the force sensor to switch between noise-control modes.
[+] [-] ChrisArchitect|1 year ago|reply
AirPods Pro 2 adds 'clinical grade' hearing aid feature
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41491191
[+] [-] extr|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ljf|1 year ago|reply
Once I realised that I could also tune out tinnitus, I did just that - but a big part of that was just not thinking about it/dwelling on it.
Been nearly 20 years now and tinnitus rarely troubles me, in the way it used to really upset and stress me.
[+] [-] 2f0ja|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jader201|1 year ago|reply
You'll eventually stop thinking about it, and life will go on.
When I first started dealing with tinnitus, it sucked. Until I realized it didn't.
Would I rather not have it? Sure. But life is not near as bad as I thought it would be at first, and I'm perfectly fine several years after it started.
[+] [-] neilv|1 year ago|reply
Some days it's noticeable on its own, and on rare occasions, it's annoying.
I avoid alcohol, caffeine, heavy sodium, and (when possible) heavy stress, since I've heard those might be contributors.
I also try to avoid really loud noises (but that's impossible where I live in the city right now, and is an almost daily 'adventure').
[+] [-] casenmgreen|1 year ago|reply
It turned out to be caused by an improperly filled root canal; some root material remained inside the tooth, the flesh above and around the tooth was inflamed and this was applying pressure inside the skull and bringing tissues which would otherwise not have been into contact, or firmer contact.
I had the root canal re-made, and the tinnitus ended.
[+] [-] switch007|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] focusedone|1 year ago|reply
Thanks!
[+] [-] xtiansimon|1 year ago|reply
UGG. I've been experiencing noticeable tinnitus this motorcycle season. It is to the point I'm now actively investigating. Recently I read neck pain or tension can cause tinnitus. I have a terrible mattress. I'm contemplating a move, so I've been holding off on replacing it. Trying exercise and stretching in the mean time.
I also had a root canal in November 2023. The tooth was sensitive and this only abated somewhat after about six months, which is coincidentally when I noticed the tinnitus.
[+] [-] zackmorris|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] codesnik|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ilayn|1 year ago|reply
- First make sure that the frequency is not dancing around. If it is then probably it is one of those things your brain making up then it is relatively easier to fool yourself back again. Check it when it happens https://audionotch.com/app/tune/ (disclaimer I am not related to website, just first google result).
- If it is constant then try to counter it with noise especially when trying to sleep. Just give yourself one of those nice YouTube colored-noise videos like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SHf6wmX5MU
- Avoid in-ears altogether, especially the bass-boost ones make sure that it does not fit airtight. More bass does not mean you pulsate your ear-canal with an airgun. If you want proper bass sound, invest in hi-fi stereo and listen to it in a good room.
- As mentioned, distract yourself. Even if it is chronic and actually has a pathological cause, the brain finds a way to cope with it, like the glasses on your nose not noticing the weight.
[+] [-] las_balas_tres|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] pas|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mrtksn|1 year ago|reply
At glance, again I don't see mention about that in this article. Apple has accelerometers on AirPods Pro, I hope they incorporate head position into the study.
Nothing helped until I got serious into fixing my posture. Now it's almost cured.
[+] [-] cocacola1|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] outside415|1 year ago|reply
The AirPod Pro Max also get too loud, they are ok at low to mid volumes, high volumes = extreme tinnitus.
HomePods are similar, I can only have them on at volume levels I appreciate for short periods of time or I get tinnitus.
Compare this with my old sennheisers and audeze headphones, 0 tinnitus even at extreme volumes. Similar for my in ear Mochi headphones.
Or compare the HomePods to my Panasonic Surround Sound Speakers for my TV from 12 years ago that I still use, I can make the walls shake with no tinnitus. If I turn up my homepods to a volume close to that my ears will be ringing for hours or days after. It really bums me out, I wish I understood what is changing about the technology. Like are they going from Analog to Digital and is digital more harsh or something? I don't know.
[+] [-] radicaldreamer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nabla9|1 year ago|reply
If you do it from time to time and tinnitus eases even a little, it might come from how the AirPods or headphones press your ear or head causing tensions.
[+] [-] umpalumpaaa|1 year ago|reply
Its an analoge but digitally programmable hearing aid which needs to be replaced every 3-4 months or so.
[+] [-] lalalandland|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] beefman|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] bitwize|1 year ago|reply
It's so subtle that I don't really notice it in my day to day life, and with corrective lenses I experience almost no vision problems.
But God damn it, there was this one ophthalmologist I had. He became convinced that I was at high risk for glaucoma and kept subjecting me to visual field tests to assess my peripheral vision. The machine he used for such tests was so ancient it still took 5 1/4" floppy disks, and it worked by shining lights of various brightness onto a plain canvas. You were supposed to stare at a point and click a button held in the hand (like a Jeopardy! buzzer) when you saw one of these lights.
Well, this exercise presents pretty much the exact conditions for my visual snow to put me at a disadvantage, and that meant I had bizarre, inconsistent test results with strange gaps in my visual field. Of course, that only further convinced my ophthalmologist that I was a glaucoma risk, and when I told him about the visual snow, he just looked at me like I was from space and ordered more tests.
I was so glad to find a nice, 34-year-old ophthalmologist some years later who used the air puff machine during the standard eye exam to measure eyeball pressure and found I was nowhere near having glaucoma. No visual field tests, no visual snow confounding the results.
[+] [-] xoxxala|1 year ago|reply
But at night it's a completely different story. With a quiet house and nothing to distract, it was causing a huge problem in my ability to get rest.
The solution was to play Spotify all night long at a low volume. The music keeps the ringing to a minimum. The genre of music doesn't really seem to matter. It all works.
[+] [-] zackmorris|1 year ago|reply
Supposedly the mind doesn't think while humming, at least the inner monologue tends to cease, similar to meditation, and both can be used simultaneously:
https://www.livestrong.com/article/13771650-bhramari-benefit...
I find that even the act of beginning to hum, by tensing my throat without making a sound, quiets my thoughts.
Some other things you might try:
* tapping practice of the fingertips on temples, eyebrows, shoulders, etc for anxiety relief.
* consciousness brain hemisphere shifting (don't know the name), where you cross your eyes slightly to look at two different images, then concentrate on bringing one image to your attention and then the other, causing focus to move between hemispheres. doing this while meditating on difficult thoughts can help the non-dominant hemisphere solve the problem.
* head to toe relaxation: start with the top of your head and scan down your body, identifying any tense muscles and relaxing them, until fully relaxed. so real the forehead, drop the tongue from the top of the mouth, relax into the chair, etc.
[+] [-] Kerbonut|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelteter|1 year ago|reply
Then COVID did some sh*t to my sinuses which left them changed.
Now I have relatively low tinnitus in one ear and very noticeable tinnitus in the other ear. The pitch is high... reminiscent to the squeal that an old CRT or tube TV would make if it had no signal.
The tinnitus is some function of my blood circulation, because I can clearly hear my pulse in the worst ear... just this constant pulsing squeal. On occasion it is so loud that I wonder if my head is about to blow open. Blood pressure is good when tested though.
Who knows... that's all so complex and interconnected, and then there's the possibility that some of it is imagined or phantom.
[+] [-] telchior|1 year ago|reply
During the diagnosis phase of my vertigo I learned a few things about how primitive medicine still is when it comes to inner ear issues. If the problem isn't BPPV, some large growth they can cut out (e.g. a fistula) or something that can be "solved" by just destroying your inner ear (gentamicin therapy) there is almost nothing they can do -- and in fact they can't even really diagnose the issue, just test out different therapies to try to find anything resulting in some mild improvement. Most doctors have no idea what the possible diagnoses even are; the specialist who eventually helped me was a neuro-otologist, which already seems unreasonably specialized, and he said he only really had an idea because his son had the same issue as me.
[+] [-] matharmin|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] zzzeek|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jerlam|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] buffington|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] pkaye|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] cromka|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jerlam|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] raverbashing|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] OutOfHere|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] etiennemarcel|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] genewitch|1 year ago|reply
One of the side effects is aggression. here i'll try this, anecdotally my neighbor was prescribed 5mg (20mg is max dose) for short term memory issues, and he said "it's a good thing i wasn't prescribed more, i would have killed my wife." This was so out of character for him, i've never heard him raise his voice or say anything in anger in the 10 years i've known him. He and his wife are a normal happily married (like 4 decades!) couple of awesome people.
So, yeah. I'm starting to notice a bit of a double standard on this site with more things than "google bad."
[+] [-] rustcleaner|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] dr_dshiv|1 year ago|reply
2. What tone or tones are typical? What frequency or frequencies? Sine wave? Sawtooth?
3. Can anything shift the tone? Eg, drugs? Attention?
[+] [-] hooverd|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] blackeyeblitzar|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Jtsummers|1 year ago|reply
> To use Active Noise Cancellation with one AirPod only, use your iPhone or iPad to go to Settings > Accessibility > AirPods, and turn on "Noise Cancellation with One AirPod." Then press and hold the force sensor to switch between noise-control modes.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/108918
[+] [-] bobbylarrybobby|1 year ago|reply