New to Tinitus. Any help someone??

[Stevefire]

Ve'been nearly 3 months now with this noise-induced tinnitus with some slight hearing loss. Having a lot of other strange sensations like hyper sensitivity to everyday noises with ear pain, burning sensations, felling of pressure, can't stand 5 mins listening to my work then my ears get really fatigued and have to stop....

What is happening??? Had to stop from my production work and i've just finished a 30,000 euro studio project at my house. This really sucks man

it seems that tinnitus is raecting to noise as well, it's getting higher or competing with the level of noise....

I'm only 23 years old and this is really upsetting me, living with this condition all of my life can;t find any meaning to my life like this. Better dead.

Anyone gone trough these symptoms ? will i ever be able to at least do 1 hour work a day monitoring to at least 60db ??

thanks and hope for a positive reply....

Steve

[jahtao]

Damn! Sorry to hear that. Have you been to a doctor?

[Richie]

Get to a Doctor today. The classic Tinnitus, which I suffer from is not painful and does not respond to different loudness levels. Tinnitus has many causes but it sounds like you have a different problem. Infection and blockage in your inner ear can cause a ringing sound in your ears and the possibilities are many, but you need to be seen as soon as possible. Good luck, but don't delay, get seen by an MD.

[Stevefire]

I ve been to several doctors and ENT's but to no avail all they said is set used to it! they said it's hyperacusis caused by noise injury, it may fade away by time. but the fact that they say "it may" i believe that it also may not!!

F^ck man, this is really annoying, and the fact that there is no cure makes it even more unbearable!!!

For god's sake TAKE CARE OF YOUR EARS!!! do not monitor to DB levels more than 85 db cause i'm in a living hell day and night

[AdHawk]

As Richie said...make sure you get really checked up.
Check your jaws & bite as well. One can have problems in that area which makes tinnitus a lot worse than it has to be.

Make sure you dont mess with regular sleeping hours.
Sleep is really a fundamental for helping your body to repair itself.

btw..You will definitely be able to work again.... in time....:-)

All the best...
AdHawk

[Adda Audio]

Chin up m8 - you'll take care now - try to leave as many hrs between sessions 12-16. Which leaves you to do admin in the mornings before getting into the studio - for loud recording sessions wear musicians earplugs when in proximity to sources. Eat healthy, stay fit - coffee and nicotine are no good for the free radicals that cause the issue.

Who knows they might have a cure in about 20-30 yrs - so not in my lifetime then

Tinnitus is often reprogrammed in the brain by listening to low level white noise in studio downtime and when sleeping - don't wear earplugs in silent environments as the brain will detect the tinnitus like a bell! But I do tend to have earplugs always at the ready during downtime in case I watch telly at louder volumes with other people - or taking noisy car journeys etc.

You'll be alright - perhaps now mixing time will be done at low levels and your time in the studio always spent wisely - as well as the obvious benefit of taking regular and frequent breaks instead of stacking hours of listening

[Thomas W. Bethe]

Stay away from Caffeine and Nicotine in any form. Go to see a good ENT or Otologists and get your hearing checked by an audiologist. If this is caused by hyperacusis caused by noise injury then you may grow out of it or it maybe a lifelong problem. My best friend is an air traffic controller. He had problems with tinnitus his whole life. It was from the constant noise in his ears from listening on headphones. I had a bout with severe distortion in one ear that took about 3 months to clear up and that was back in the '80s. The ENT could not find any reason for the distortion but I could hear it plain as day. It finally left gradually. I don't listen to music over about 85 dBSPL but I was a concert sound engineer for a number of years. Best of luck and do see a good doctor one who specializes in tinnitus. They are sometimes hard to find but they are around. An Otologist may also be able to help.

[DonM]

Agreed, see a doc.

For me, I found out that Pepsi after 1pm was a big contibutor - so I went right off all caffine and sugar drinks in the afternoon. And I only have 1 cup of coffee in the morning. Also Beer seemed to have an effect .

But fortunately for me all has been fine for over a year.

You might also want to check out Scientific American's article from last month Observations: Music to the (ringing) ears: New therapy targets tinnitus

-D

[Stevefire]

I am from Malta and apparently here no one is qualified in tinnitus and hyperacusis. Think i'll book one in london there are for sure!

I cannot even stand listening trance music (which i produce) for 5 mins. it is really heavy on the ear since a lot of frequencies bumb in to the ear giving the hair cells lot of information to transmit to the brain.

F^ck man life sucks like this, i wish i'd never been born because living like this isn't worth it anyway

[Adda Audio]

Have you tried putting a high pass filter on ur master bus when producing trance? Bit off putting but it will be that relentless kick that's triggering this - and possibly over compressed or eq'd highs - perhaps write an ambient album for a month or so and slowly insert a little dance beatz from time to time until you find your happy place with the time allowance you can spend on trance before things cave in...

[Stevefire]

it seems that my tinnitus is competing with the sound level of the music. right now i'm monitoring at 65dbs and i can clearly hear my tinnitus as well....

Did this happen to anyone as well? Please tell me that it will fade away, feeling suicidal:(

[gmarinov]

Originally Posted by Stevefire

it seems that my tinnitus is competing with the sound level of the music. right now i'm monitoring at 65dbs and i can clearly hear my tinnitus as well....
Did this happen to anyone as well? Please tell me that it will fade away, feeling suicidal:(

I am sorry to bring bad news but the only way this has a chance of going away is if you start taking as long breaks as possible. Actually in my opinion you need to take a lasting break now. Think as many days as possible without any exposure to playback sound. The other thing is, since you're anxious about it at the moment, you will notice it no matter at what level you work. A friend of mine had this a while back and keeping exposure nearly down to zero was the only thing that seemed to help.

[Geert van den Berg]

I 2nd gmarinov's advice, take a rest, maybe you just have some sort of infection, this can also affect your hearing and could explain the pain you're feeling.

Are you having stress, needing to finish something quickly? This can also be bad for your health and hearing...

[rhumphries]

I came across a paper recently that claimed that by listening to music with the frequency of the tinnitus notched out tinnitus can be reduced.

Listening to tailor-made notched music reduces tinnitus loudness and tinnitus-related auditory cortex activity — PNAS

Best of luck. Don't do anything drastic.

-R

[questionable]

I first started experiencing my Tinnitus symptoms about ten years ago. They were terrible at first, but over time, my brain seems to have adapted a bit...if I think about the problem, I can hear it. Otherwise, I've managed to tune it out considerably. It does get better...but I would certainly recommend seeing a qualified MD ASAP.

Good luck.

[kiopo]

Sorry to hijack the thread somewhat, but would you guys say that excessive headphone use is a major contributor? I have moderate tinnitus currently (21) and I tend to have to mix 50 / 50 headphones / monitors just to keep the noise down for my girlfriend / neighbours. Is it the mere fact of using headphones or is it more to do with the dB level?

PS using in ear headphones when I was young was I think a major contributor.

[cltd]

Hello Steve,
Tinitus is more common ailment as one can supppose.
I got it. Don't fall into despair. Sometimes tinitus fades away in few months, but: months without sound overexposure and it will go to lower level but will not cease completly.

My tinitus, after some months without loud music went to tolerable level, but side effect is that I'm much more sensitive to some high pitch noises which were neutral to me earlier (i.e hoover, emergency car sirens, suddenly breaking cars, clinking plates in the sink etc etc ).
Every catarrh is hell, because it rises tinitus level. The same with coffee, strong tea, stres situations etc -> blood pressure.
Complete silence in room is also the enemy. I feel most comfortably when there is a silent radio or tv in background.

I'm really sorry that tinitus had hit you. But you're relatively young and your body still has a potential to regenerate. Finally, tinitus can be treated noninvasively because mostly it comes from brain behaviour, not from destroyed ear cells.

In my case that whole situtation pushed me to think about joining any foundation/NGO in order to make some info campaign for young people in schools. To make them realise that so popular ear-plug phones attached to mp3 players could be dangerous in the long term; that high level music is dangerous; that admittedly loud gig/party makes fun and ear ringing usually passes away in two days but some day it will not. Etc, etc.

I've been djing and gigging for years (industrial electro EBM music, really bad frequencies for ears ), but now ear-plugs are always with me. I don't monitor anything with headphones, only external monitors.
Last weekend I was in club, there was a great party. I spend whole night with ear-plugs; I've plugged it out for a moment, and... God! how could I stand without it for all those years!

Good luck! Keep the faith and just start to care about your ears.

P.S of course, sorry for my bad english etc cause I'm not native english speaker

[robcap]

Steve and Kiopo - I will concurr with the advice to minimize caffeine, stress, etc. cltd's advice is good as well - I think you need a long break if you can get it - consider it an investment in your future. There are some herbal remedies as well - use at your own risk of course.

I think it would be wise to invest in a pair of musician's earplugs )15dB and 25dB) - you can perform and even mix with them if you had to in certain conditions, thus minimizing your exposure to louder levels. I carry mine to any concert or loud event - I was at a Disney children's concert and sat too close to the speakers with my kids - the highs were screaming and they were distorted according to everyone around me - my earplugs saved the day. Essentially, i would recommend to never expose yourself to high SPL again. Where protection if you are mowing the lawn, using power tools, going to loud settings such as bars, concerts, etc.

Also, consider seeing an ENT speciaist and an audiologist yearly - for those who have no problems, but are in this industry, it would be good to get a baseline measurement. My audiologist has said there has been a huge increase in problems mostly attributable to iPods and headphone listening- simply a dangerous activity to do in the long term. If you must use headphones, consider noise cancelling ones such as the Bose - I have used them in flights and they are phenomenal.

My audiologist mentioned that someone in the US - Michigan state I think is gathering data on tinnitus for people who can actually make the symptoms go away by changing their head position or by changing the position of their jaw - I would try and see if you cna make your symptoms disappear in that way.

I had symptoms that were severe for a month and they gradually dissipated - took over a year.

[Jfriah]

Just another potential point: if you're taking any kinds of medications (especially 'headache meds' trying to aid the tinnitus), please always be cognizant of potential interactions.

6) What are some ototoxic drugs?

Good luck to you!

[Stevefire]

Yeah good idea to start a campaign to teach young children at schools about the risks of tinnitus..... Damn it how i wish i was informed about the risks and about the db levels I should monitor

It's insance how many young people go clubbing 3 days a week havin 4-5 hours in sound levels like 120 db without realising the damage!!!

I've always worn earplugs at gigs even when my ears were perfect....

I had a bad ear inflammation after a respiratory infection without knowing and all that was needed were 2 hours monitoring at 80 - 100db to damage my ears permanently. Damn my life turned upside down. i cannot even go and socialize with my friends now.

Thankyou for all your replies mates. But it seems that i;m suffering from a more worse thing which is hyperacusis... Anyone got trough hyperacusis??? I've heard of persons that healed from hyperacusis after 6 months or so.... Did this happen to anyone of you???

[Big Andy]

I was having a similar problem and I went 3 doctors and none of them could find anything wrong. I told then I had a burning/ itching on the top of the little nub covering your ear canal, it almost felt like hair was always rubbing it. I also had some hearing loss as well as a mild ringing. There was also a severe pain that shot through my ear at times and that was what I thought the real problem was. I'm pretty young as well, so this was very disturbing to me. The doctors eventually just brushed me off and told me it must be a nerve disease that they couldn't treat and I would lose my hearing. This scared the crap out of me, so I thought of mom.

Then I realized that my mother, grandfather and brother all have TMJ. Temporal Mandibular Joint Disorder. It's a little disc that is between your skull and jawbone that gets worn down because of grinding your teeth, clenching your jaw or opening your mouth to wide. I called my mom and asked her if she recognized the symptoms I had and she told me that's exactly what TMJ feels like before it is take care of.

So here is how you know if you are prone to this. When you open your mouth wide to yawn, do you feel your jaw bones pull out? Do you hear a dull cracking associated with that? If yes, try cracking your jaw by moving in side to side laterally. Don't use your hands, just your jaw muscles. After a few passes you will feel a sharp, pretty painful crack like cracking your knuckles for the first time. The pain, burning, itching, numbness and biggest of all high end hearing loss and ringing should be immediately gone.

Keep exercising the the muscles of your jaw afterword and stretch them too. If you get to tense the problem WILL return. Massage your jaw where it connects to your head and all the muscles around that area. Best advice of all, cool down A LOT. Stress will trigger your symptoms.

Remember, I'm not a doctor, but I've mix one for TV. Best of luck and happy cracking.

[robcap]

Jfriah - good advice. To add to that, I would like to point out some medications can add to tinnitus or cause them outright. In Canada, headache meds behind the counter, such as 222s which have codeine in them have warning labels pointing out side effects such as Tinnitus.

The other piece of advice that I do not see mentioned is rest periods after any loud exposure. For example; you have just finished mixing for a couple of hours, then you decide to go clubbing for another few hours. Then you drive home with the music up in your car. You might get a couple of hours sleep then mow the lawn the next morning. All levels may be moderate, but your ears require a rest period after any temporary threshold shift that occurs with regards to your hearing. This is advice for all ages, but that period of recovery needs to increase as you get older.

Here is a link to US labour standards for noise exposure;

Occupational noise exposure. - 1910.95

[Thomas W. Bethe]

Originally Posted by Stevefire

Yeah good idea to start a campaign to teach young children at schools about the risks of tinnitus..... Damn it how i wish i was informed about the risks and about the db levels I should monitor

It's insance how many young people go clubbing 3 days a week havin 4-5 hours in sound levels like 120 db without realising the damage!!!

I've always worn earplugs at gigs even when my ears were perfect....

I had a bad ear inflammation after a respiratory infection without knowing and all that was needed were 2 hours monitoring at 80 - 100db to damage my ears permanently. Damn my life turned upside down. i cannot even go and socialize with my friends now.

Thankyou for all your replies mates. But it seems that i;m suffering from a more worse thing which is hyperacusis... Anyone got trough hyperacusis??? I've heard of persons that healed from hyperacusis after 6 months or so.... Did this happen to anyone of you???

My niece listens to music so loud I don't understand how she can still have any hearing left and she is only 16. She has ear buds and she plays her music so loud I can hear it from across the living room. She took out the ear buds one time to say something and it was so loud I could not hear what she was saying, Her Mom says she has "given up" trying to tell her to "turn it down". She will probably be deaf by the time she is 30. When I ask her why she is playing so loud she says "cause it sounds good" I think someone may have to start a real ad campaign to combat this because we are going to be a country of deaf people fairly soon. I am sure the hearing aid people are rubbing their collective hands together just waiting for all these young people to need their services.

To the OP. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go to a good ENT and get the answers to your questions. With high resolution CAT SCANS and MRIs the ENTs today can see a lot of problems inside the ears and inner ears that just a few years ago would have gone unnoticed. BEST OF LUCK

[mikey boy]

I have had tinnitus for seven years and I can tell you there is absolutely no cure. I woke up one morning with a high pitched sound on my left ear which has continued to worsen. I have had a scan just to confirm it was not a tumour. Apparently a high pitched buzzing is not always tinnitus so I would also recommend asking your doctor to send you for a scan just to be on the safe side. I am assuming you have used headphones in the past, if so stop using them! Good luck

[andrebrito]

Get some pills based on Ginkoba, one of the brands is Ginkobden

These pills are based on a chinese tree for improving your mental abilities but it helps on the tinnitus in the long run... need to take this over a long period

Best of luck, I also have tinnitus and it was NOT due to noise but because I had an ear infection. It is annoying but you get used to it !

Andre

[Berolzheimer]

I second everything already said here, plus you might try NAC, I know some folks have had success with it.

NAC & TINNITUS

[Chris Lago]

I've had this before, and it was an infection. Go see your doctor asap though!

[FusionStrings]

Originally Posted by Stevefire

Ve'been nearly 3 months now with this noise-induced tinnitus with some slight hearing loss. Having a lot of other strange sensations like hyper sensitivity to everyday noises with ear pain, burning sensations, felling of pressure, can't stand 5 mins listening to my work then my ears get really fatigued and have to stop....

What is happening??? Had to stop from my production work and i've just finished a 30,000 euro studio project at my house. This really sucks man

it seems that tinnitus is raecting to noise as well, it's getting higher or competing with the level of noise....

I'm only 23 years old and this is really upsetting me, living with this condition all of my life can;t find any meaning to my life like this. Better dead.

Anyone gone trough these symptoms ? will i ever be able to at least do 1 hour work a day monitoring to at least 60db ??

thanks and hope for a positive reply....

Steve

Hi Steve,

I started having the exact same conditions like you describe now almost 2 years ago (aged 35)
- tinnitus (high pitched, about 13kHz)
- it's reacting to white-noise sound BIG-TIME (computer fan, supermarket noise, other stuff), and really competing with that noise, even at high levels
- hyperacusis

In the month before it started, I did use headphone much more than I ever had, and I'm now pretty sure that was the direct cause! Even though I've played electric guitar all my life, did an enormous amount of gigging, and went to clubs, with/w.o. plugs: headphones was the trouble-maker.

I went to see several doctors, and they were all telling me different stories, but in the end none of them could help me.
--> which doesn't mean they can't help you! So keep checking them.


And man, yeah, it sucks.

BUT, I'm 2 years further now and I'm back to normal life now man. Trust me, you'll get there!:

- hyperacusis is almost gone. As one ENT told me, it's something your mind seems to be able to fade out in time. And it has.
Only my 18 months old son seems to be able to trigger it, little screaming devil
- tinnitus is still there, lower levels than it was. It's still raised by white-noise conditions like computer fans, but when I feel it's getting up I put in earplugs (really, I do it at work); what I do is I put in wax-plugs with a very tiny opening, which causes only the lower frequencies to get into my ear. It stops my tinnitus from being started by the noise around me. And when it has started it almost always brings it down again.
(later on I found out by experimenting that my 13kHz tinnitus was caused by tones (noise) at around 5500 to 7500 Hz)
- when I'm stressed, it's worse. Try to prevent stress. I cannot always, but I found out there’s almost always a 1 to 1 relations between the two.
- if my tinnitus is getting back, I sleep with earplugs (same wax things) and somehow my mind get's used to the tinnitus this way at night, and it's much better in the morning. Try it for a couple of nights and see if it works
- I got used to the fact that I have T & H. Really!!!!! That is possible.
- Stay off those bloody headphones! As someone once said; headphones = weapons of mass destruction!
- There’s an awful lot of research going on nowadays, cause the pharmaceutics and scientific industry finally seem to understand the size of the problem. Some estimations say almost 10% of western popul. has tinnitus and/or hyperacusis. So, the one finding a cure has a big market. No guarantees, but serious research only seems to start just recently, and new theories about brain behaviour seem to emerge.
- I try to avoid loud music always; by using plugs at gigs, clubs, and sometimes crowded places.

Good luck Steve, and the rest, you will get used to it

Maurice

[jason kanter]

Something else to look into- silver fillings. I don't know how many cavities you have but there have been cases where people with excessive fillings will sometimes develop tinnitus as a result of the mercury gas constantly inhaled from the mercury amalgam fillings. This has been reversed when the metal fillings have been replaced with the non-mercury kind.

Don't give up hope, Steve. Give your ears a break for a while. Between rest and simply not focusing on it you'll get better.

[trubac]

Got Tinitus on both ears ...
You're young, there is quite some chance that it will go away be itself.
If you got an earing loss, then it could be a disfunction of the little bones in your ear, otosclerose, and one of the symptoms are tinitus ...

here is an interresting article for you to read, just found it this morning !

keep calm, the more your nervous the more they will be loud, try to unfocuse on them.

cheers
Gilles