tinnitus

doney84

DmcF wrote: »

Really not sure what's caused it, driving me mad trying to find out

Hope you find out the cause soon...

SpaceTime

DmcF wrote: »

So what if I have tinnitus (10 years now) and over the past year have started getting headaches, ear ache (kinda)? As well.

Then you should go see your GP.
The tinnitus may or may not be connected to it.
You could have an ear infection or something.

Only person who could give you proper advice is a doctor looking into your ear.

DmcF

Hi,
Believe it or not I've had 3 GP's, an ear specialist, a homeopath, even an osteopath check me out - The only one who says he sees some sort of a cause is the osteopath who says upper back or neck trauma may have caused my tinnitus.

Been getting treatment but it actually seems to be getting worse aarrrggghhh

mooseknunkle

I have a constant moderate ringing in my ears the last 2 weeks i suffer with migraines and 3 weeks ago i was prescribed Amitriptyline by a neurologist only 10mg dose and one of the side effects is ringing in ears,so i went back to my GP last week and he said to come off them for a week and see if it goes but now a week later and still no improvement.

I never really had problems with my hearing but due to my job i wear ear plugs for 7 hours a day and have my hearing tested every year with no problems,i haven't heard of tinnitus before i only looked on this forum out of curiousity so now after reading up about it im a bit worried that this is not a side effect of the medicine and more serious,its not something i think i could deal with forever its so annoying

Im not looking for any medical advice just wondering if anyone else has experienced this due to medicine they were taking?

SpaceTime

Get it checked out by all means, but just remember that the human hearing system is not a studio microphone. It's an active system, evolved over billions of years to operate in noisy, natural environments. It focuses on specific sounds and can pick them out of background and it does not produce pure, silent signals. It's actually quite internally noisy - clicks when you swallow, occasional ringing, your own pulse, digestive noises, breathing etc etc are all filtered out normally.

If you've got tinnitus, and it's definitely not being caused by some kind of active medical problem i.e. you've been checked out by an ENT specialist etc and given the all clear, the best solution is to train your brain to do its job and filter it.

If you focus on the tinnitus I can 100% guarantee that you will hear it, and you will hear it louder and louder as you're focusing on that particular sound. You literally have no options other than to learn to ignore it and it's very possible to do.

If you think about it, if you started to listen to your own breathing, you'd start to hear it. But, normally you don't hear it because you're not paying attention to it.

With tinnitus it's most likely some kind of glitch in your ear's internal systems that isn't anything dangerous or problematic, but you basically just have to learn how to not listen to it anymore.

mooseknunkle

Thanks for the great advice and detailed post,im going to leave it off until the end of the week and if it is still the same by Monday i will go back to my GP on Tuesday.

looksee

I completely agree with Spacetime, training yourself is the best way, once you have had checks done. Audiologists cannot usually see anything in relation to tinnitus, they rely on reports of the patient. The more you think about it the more you will hear it. I have a kind of high pitched hum (for want of a better word) which I haven't noticed for ages, it has just surfaced as I read this thread! I suspect it will go away when I get distracted.

SpaceTime

BTW, it's not psychosomatic - you are actually hearing the sound and it's most likely created by a minor audio-system glitch, but you absolutely can filter it and learn to ignore it very effectively.

I'd actually suggest the main thing to do is start actively trying to listen 'past' it - i.e. focus your hearing system on something else, like try to pick out all the notes of a song or try to hear bird song and pick out the individual components, or even to a radio turned down a bit so that you have to strain to hear it.

That all makes your audio processing system work harder to focus on something else. Your brain can actively process audio in a way that a computer really can only begin to do - it can strip out complex noise and find significant sounds and stuff like that which is only really starting to be something that can be done with technology in recent years.

So, use the processing power and train it to just tune it out.

I think the first step though is to accept that the noise is real, it's not something scary, weird, just a bit annoying then learn how to make your built-in audio processing system start to actually work around it.

Utopia Parkway

I've had it for 4 weeks now. Around late November I developed a persistent headache that lasted for 2 weeks. I don't usually get headaches so eventually I went to a GP who said it was probably a tension headache that should go by itself. Didn't really make sense to me as I had no history of getting headaches and was under no work or financial stress at all. A couple of friends said to me maybe I had some kind of viral infection or something? Shortly after visiting the GP the headache stopped and I was fine for 5 or 6 days until I noticed I was hearing a noise inside my head. Presumed it would go away after a good night's sleep or two or three but it didn't.

The noise is basically a high pitched whine (at it's worst). When it's at a lower pitch it's not so bad and I can ignore it but when it reaches a higher pitch it gets extremely annoying and distracting. I was driven absolutely demented the first 3 weeks. I was getting depressed and emotional about it. Luckily enough it hasn't affected my sleep at all. I can sleep completely normally with it. Can't imagine how bad I would have gotten if I had been struggling for sleep as well. I've been to 2 GP's and both of them said they expect it will go away by itself in time as it hasn't been affecting my sleep but I'm not quite as positive about it as they are. Figured it was something they would say to someone in my position.

The last week has been a bit better though. For most of today I could barely hear it at all which is the first time in 4 weeks although it has got bit louder again in the evening. I'm unsure whether it's actually going away though or am I just becoming used to it? Still unsure what to do about loud places like bars, restaurants, sporting events, etc or alcohol. I went out new year's eve and it definitely seemed worse the next day although my massive hangover made everything seem worse.

It's something very hard to explain to friends and family as you look perfectly healthy and fine but you are being driven half mad by noises in your head. Anyway got an appointment with an ENT in a few weeks. Figured I better get it looked at properly just in case.

Mars Bar

Did you start on any medications in that time?

Utopia Parkway

Mars Bar wrote: »

Did you start on any medications in that time?

The first week I actually picked up a gum infection after the dentist cleaned my teeth so I was on antibiotics for the gum infection.

My tinnitus was actually much more bearable this week and seemed a lot fainter from Sunday through to Thursday although all of a sudden it seemed louder again last night for some reason. It's a strange thing.

Was actually another another doctor this week who thinks I had a vital infection of some type which gave me the 2 week headache and that the infection spread to my ears. Said the tinnitus usually lasts for 4 to 6 weeks afterwards. Reckons he's seen it before. Well I've had it for 4 weeks now so I'm hopeful it will pass. Seemed fainter this week in general but it's not gone yet.

headtheball14

There was a piece o. News talk about tinnitus just before christmas, one sufferer who had participated in a trial of a new treatment, ill try to remember the name of the company

headtheball14

Found it, it was called mute button and i think it was on pat kenny show, it was expensive though, a couple of thousand euro from memory.

faceman

Just coming across this thread now. I've had tinnitus 23 years. It's in both ears and it's loud. However i learned to live with it. During my early 20s, it was hell. I struggled to cope with it. There was very few resources as the Internet was still new to us all.

I tried it all over the years. Medicines/pills, acupuncture, sound pillows but ultimately it was retraining my brain to accept that tinnitus is no different to the buzzing of a fridge that finally helped. But as you'd expect I still have off days.

I've used the Restored Hearing product and found it both useful and cheap. I haven't used Mute Button. The price is very high and I don't think they allow you to trial it first.

The British Tinnitus Association do great work and provide plenty of resources that may be of help.

Tinnitus is survivable. More and more doctors are being more understanding of the condition. Technology is constantly improving.

Eph1958

headtheball14 wrote: »

Found it, it was called mute button and i think it was on pat kenny show, it was expensive though, a couple of thousand euro from memory.

Has anybody any experience of the "mute-button" system? It's fairly new and expensive to take the plunge just yet.

Eph.

StonyIron

Apologies for digging up an old thread but it's the only one I can find on tinnitus.

I had ear surgery, nothing too complicated, just a tympanoplasty and canalplasty a good few years ago at this stage and I have awful tinnitus ever since.

It's a very high pitched noise that is usually tolerable but sometimes it just goes really crazy, like tonight.

It woke me up twice tonight and I gave been awake since 4:30am with a loud very high pitched set of noises that's much louder than the radio.

It's like a high pitched overlaid by several other high pitched tones.

Sometimes I just put on loud music (If I'm in the house alone) to drown it out and sleep.

I know this sounds a bit like I'm just being melodramatic but I really need sleep and this just keeps waking me up like an alarm.

Also sometimes it kind of incorporated into my dreams and I get these weird nightmares with the tinnitus noise as part of "the storyline".

Also if it starts up during the day I have actually turned my head towards "the sound" wondering what I just heard then I'll realise - oh no, here it goes again!

Any suggestions? I've tried hypnosis, tuning it out and everything else.

The only way i can get any sleep is by putting the radio on or listening to white noise but that tends to disturb anyone sharing the bed or even the house with me.

I mentioned it to my GP and he sent me to an ENT who basically said nothing can be done.

Went back to the GP and he started implying it was depression, which it absolutely isn't. It's quite simply a loud noise 24/7.

I'm just fed up with it and I really need proper sleep

roundymac

Yes I'm afraid you'll have to live with it. Every time they go poking around in your eardrum there is damage being done. I find that if I'm on the computer a lot it'll be very bad that night. Right now it's starting to "whistle" in my left ear. I find the best way is to try and ignore it if that's possible. I did'nt notice it this morning until I went on line and started talking about it. I know this probably no help to you but it's the best answer I can give you.

StonyIron

The other oddity is it tends to switch on dramatically. I've mentioned this to an ENT who kinda shrugged it off.

I could just be walking or talking to someone and the hearing just stops on one side very suddenly and gets replaced by loud very high pitched tinnitus.

Then it just switches back to mild tinnitus again after a few mins.

Closest thing I could describe it like is loose / damaged headphone cable effect. It just goes and comes back that dramatically.

Anyway, I guess I'll just have to come up with some way of getting sleep with it.

mooseknunkle

Its just under a year since i posted in this thread about having tinnitus and within that year ive kinda learned to live with it ,but in the last 2 weeks its got noticeably worse so i went to my GP on Friday and he referred me to hospital to get a brain MRI scan,ill have it done soon and if that doesn't help with a solution im going to go about the mute-button device thats been mentioned here.

StonyIron

Best of luck!

looksee

StonyIron wrote: »

The other oddity is it tends to switch on dramatically. I've mentioned this to an ENT who kinda shrugged it off.

I could just be walking or talking to someone and the hearing just stops on one side very suddenly and gets replaced by loud very high pitched tinnitus.

Then it just switches back to mild tinnitus again after a few mins.

Closest thing I could describe it like is loose / damaged headphone cable effect. It just goes and comes back that dramatically.

Anyway, I guess I'll just have to come up with some way of getting sleep with it.

I get that too, though only very occasionally, bit disconcerting when it happens. You can/do get used to it and its way more noticeable when you are thinking/talking about it. The universal view seems to be that there is nothing to be done about it I am afraid.

waynerooney

I've been living with it for over 20 years. Mine goes nuts too every so often and first time it happened it scared the bejesus out of me cos I thought that this was going to be a perpetual 'louder' version of my tinnitus... but no, it always goes back to 'normal' after about 1-2 minutes.

Don't ever let your tinnitus affect your mental health, is what I'd say. If it's just an annoyance to you, you're already coping with it really well. I've another post on this forum somewhere that elaborates on my story.

languagenerd

StonyIron wrote: »

The other oddity is it tends to switch on dramatically. I've mentioned this to an ENT who kinda shrugged it off.

I could just be walking or talking to someone and the hearing just stops on one side very suddenly and gets replaced by loud very high pitched tinnitus.

Then it just switches back to mild tinnitus again after a few mins.

Closest thing I could describe it like is loose / damaged headphone cable effect. It just goes and comes back that dramatically.

Anyway, I guess I'll just have to come up with some way of getting sleep with it.

Mine does that too. I tend to hold my hand over the ear and it goes back to "normal" in a few seconds but I have no idea what causes it. It seems fairly common in people with tinnitus though, so try not to worry about it. (It is really annoying though).

I have it permanently in both ears since I was about 19, with no obvious triggers. Three different GPs have looked in my ears over the last few years and seen nothing, but I'm gonna try get referred to an ENT next because I suspect it's linked to my sinuses...

roundymac

Could be fluid in your ears. See the ENT is the best bet,he may insert a gromet.

StonyIron

roundymac wrote: »

Could be fluid in your ears. See the ENT is the best bet,he may insert a gromet.

That's been checked by an ENT.

I had a 70% missing ear drum due to a bad ear infection as a kid causing a rupture and then endless ear infections in my teens, so the whole thing was pretty much reconstructed using tissue from temporal fascia (muscle just under your scalp slightly above the ear.

The ENT seemed to think the tinnitus was a result of the numerous infections over the years, the drum being open for so long without realising and also the surgery.

bullvine

Hi,

I wonder can anyone help, has anyone used a Hypnotherapist to treat their Tinnitus, I am skeptical but at this stage I'll try anything.

Thanks,

looksee

I have no idea, to be honest, but I imagine that while hypnotherapy will not get rid of tinnitus, you might find it helps you to ignore it.

Drat, everytime I hear the word tinnitus I immediately become aware of my ears 'singing' which normally I don't notice.:pac:

bullvine

looksee wrote: »

I have no idea, to be honest, but I imagine that while hypnotherapy will not get rid of tinnitus, you might find it helps you to ignore it.

Drat, everytime I hear the word tinnitus I immediately become aware of my ears 'singing' which normally I don't notice.:pac:

Thanks, am gonna look into it, nothing to lose except a few bob at this stage, will let you know how i get on. Cheers

Mike Guide 69

BUMP . Apologies for bringing this thread back up, but I am panicking and need some advice/reassurance. I got hit in the ear last week playing football, 7 days ago, ball hit my ear from behind, from a goalkick (dont ask!!!). Whats resulted is a whinning noise , high pitched noise in my left ear.

Went to the doctor yesterday, who had a look and basically said, that it does not look perforated, no blood or oozing substances. But slightly swelled, he said , the ear looks blocked with wax and he has now given me "Cerumol" Ear Drops and a combo of Difene tablets to work and see him in 3 days.

Basically my question is, has anyone experienced something similar and had similar symptoms and of course more importantly, has it gone away or how long does it take for the buzzing/noise to cease??

Thanks...

bullvine

Mike Guide 69 wrote: »

BUMP . Apologies for bringing this thread back up, but I am panicking and need some advice/reassurance. I got hit in the ear last week playing football, 7 days ago, ball hit my ear from behind, from a goalkick (dont ask!!!). Whats resulted is a whinning noise , high pitched noise in my left ear.

Went to the doctor yesterday, who had a look and basically said, that it does not look perforated, no blood or oozing substances. But slightly swelled, he said , the ear looks blocked with wax and he has now given me "Cerumol" Ear Drops and a combo of Difene tablets to work and see him in 3 days.

Basically my question is, has anyone experienced something similar and had similar symptoms and of course more importantly, has it gone away or how long does it take for the buzzing/noise to cease??

Thanks...

I have had mine 8 months, mine was from trauma to the ear probably not that similar. It can go away or it might not, really not much else to say. My advice, don't google the condition! Its the worst possible thing you can do and will only make you feel worse.

The buildup of Ear Wax could be causing it, might need to get it sucked out.

Good luck.