Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I have tinnitus. I don't recommend it

blog.greg.technology

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 233 posts

Re: I have tinnitus. I don't recommend it

#101

Post by D13Fd »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #90

I get a weird transient tinnitus where my hearing drops out in one ear or the other for about 15 seconds, and is replace by a tone, which slowly fades as my hearing comes back. It sometimes happens multiple times per day, and sometimes not for weeks at a time. I've seen a couple specialists about it, but no known cause. I also notice a low-level tinnitus when I'm in very quiet places. I keep white noise machines arou…

I have this. It’s pretty uncommon for me but happens every once in a while. I have heard it’s no big deal. My imagined explanation is that it is a muscle that spasms and temporarily blocks sound to the ear, but actually I have no idea.

Re: I have tinnitus. I don't recommend it

#103

Post by sheepscreek »

plaidfuji wrote: post #64

I “got over” mine after many months of “tinnitus meditation” (there’s a short book on this written by a guy who has some crazy disease that causes extra-bad tinnitus). Basically, you meditate by purposefully focusing on your tinnitus. It starts to flip your brain’s response from one of fear to one of relaxation. Even within the first session, you’ll find that when you try to focus on the noise for as long as you can…

I’ve had it since I was a kid. One day I just noticed how strange it was that silence sounded like this. I was maybe 6 or 7? Eventually just got used to experiencing silence like this. However, I usually only become aware of it when I’m alone - more so indoors at night time.

Re: I have tinnitus. I don't recommend it

#104

Post by philiplu »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #59
labadal wrote: post #49

I feel terrible because I never did anything wrong. I never went to a concert. I never worked around loud things for prolonged periods. I never listened to music too loud. I have tinnitus. It seems to go up in intensity when my TMD acts up, but it never goes completely away. Mine isn't nearly debilitating, but I worry that it's going to get worse with time.

I have had tinnitus for as long as I have been forming memories. As a child I called it "the sound of silence" and thought everyone heard it. Never bothered me much. Its much worse now at times. Still doesnt bother me much

I've had tinnitus since my teen years, half a century ago. At least, what I normally hear is, I assume, tinnitus, but it comes in two forms. There's a constant sort-of grey noise, not too loud (definitely softer than people talking in the same room), which wavers in amplitude over a sub-second period. The more annoying form is a pretty pure sine wave, much louder, which thankfully is more infrequent. Not really sure if that quieter form is something everyone gets, or an actual tinnitus form. Anyway, after 50+ years, it's not a big deal to me.

Re: I have tinnitus. I don't recommend it

#105

Post by Kivern7 »

nozzlegear wrote: post #60

I've got the typical high-pitched ringing kind that I've had for as long as I can remember, along with pulsatile tinnitus that developed several years ago, meaning I can hear a whooshing sound in my ears to the rhythm of my heartbeat. When I tell people about the pulsatile tinnitus, I like to joke and compare it to the heartbeat from Edgar Allen Poe's story "The Tell-Tale Heart." Luckily neither of these tinnituses b…

[dead]

Re: I have tinnitus. I don't recommend it

#106

Post by ehrjfjrjrfjn77 »

nozzlegear wrote: post #60

I've got the typical high-pitched ringing kind that I've had for as long as I can remember, along with pulsatile tinnitus that developed several years ago, meaning I can hear a whooshing sound in my ears to the rhythm of my heartbeat. When I tell people about the pulsatile tinnitus, I like to joke and compare it to the heartbeat from Edgar Allen Poe's story "The Tell-Tale Heart." Luckily neither of these tinnituses b…

I'm embarrassed to say I spent the first week or two with my pulsatile tinnitus fascinated by how rhythmically the wind was gushing through the trees outside my bedroom window. At some point I must have rolled over, the whooshing noise switching sides along with my left ear, and realised the noise was not coming from outside at all.

About 6 months after onset it disappeared as quickly and mysteriously as it first appeared.

Re: I have tinnitus. I don't recommend it

#108

Post by EvanAnderson »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #59
labadal wrote: post #49

I feel terrible because I never did anything wrong. I never went to a concert. I never worked around loud things for prolonged periods. I never listened to music too loud. I have tinnitus. It seems to go up in intensity when my TMD acts up, but it never goes completely away. Mine isn't nearly debilitating, but I worry that it's going to get worse with time.

I have had tinnitus for as long as I have been forming memories. As a child I called it "the sound of silence" and thought everyone heard it. Never bothered me much. Its much worse now at times. Still doesnt bother me much

I wonder about a genetic component. I've had the "sound of silence" for as long as I can remember. I don't remember how old she was, exactly, but my daughter confirmed she was experiencing something similar at a pretty young age (under 5 y/o). We were always very careful with her hearing (to the point that we had very small earmuffs we'd have her wear in potentially loud situations), so I don't think it's the result of physical damage.

I'm sitting alone in a quiet room typing this and I've got a cacophony of >12kHz whine going in both ears. The left is slightly louder and lower than the right. It's not debilitating but it would be really neat to hear actual silence once in awhile.

I played w/ doing hearing range tests on myself and my friends using an old NEC V20-based laptop during my high school days (mid-90s). I wrote a little BASIC program that played sounds of increasing frequency and asked you to report if you could hear the sound. Sometimes it indicates it's playing a sound when it isn't. By playing (or not playing) sounds repeatedly I would build up a "score" for the user's high frequency hearing response.

I have notes showing I could hear between 16 and 17 kHz back then. Today I struggle to hear more than 12 kHz. Interestingly, my tinnitus presents frequencies high than I can actually hear now.

Re: I have tinnitus. I don't recommend it

#109

Post by memsom »

I have had tinnitus for most of my life. When I was a child I had a massive ear infection that burst my eardrum on the left side and that is the worse side. Honestly I can just tune it out and it seems normal. It mainly causes issues in louder environments because it can be difficult to hear what people are saying. And it doesn’t need to be very loud. A bar with music and lots of people talking around me can be enough.

It is totally possible to exist with it though.

Post reply on HN