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The Organ of the Universe: On Living with Tinnitus

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Re: The Organ of the Universe: On Living with Tinnitus

#61

Post by sgt »

tylerjwilk00 wrote: post #45

There is a Visual version of tinnitus that goes by the name Visual Snow[1]. I developed both at the same time. The visual snow was maddening and tinnitus is unpleasant. There is apparently a link between the two and seems both are mostly noise artifacts of the visual and auditory systems of the brain. It makes sense that these systems would have some innate noise in the signals. Eventually I was desensitized to the n…

That makes floaters [1] seem like a piece of cake. I've had floaters for many years due to myopia. As a developer, I always seek out dark themes in IDE's and such because if I have a white background I see the little guys floating by.

Most of my life I managed to ignore them, but a few years ago I became obsessed with the floaters and I saw them a lot more than usual because my mind was constantly looking for them.

So take my advice; if you have floaters - do NOT try to think about them or actively seek them out. It's a dangerous path. It took me a couple of years to get back to where I am now.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floater

Re: The Organ of the Universe: On Living with Tinnitus

#62

Post by orionblastar »

When I was young I had many earaches, and they had to put in ear drops and a cotton ball to keep the medicine from coming out of my ears. I heard a noise I could not explain, it sounded like radio noise I said at the time. The doctor thought I said static but it was more like radio feedback.

I had a hearing test, and I was told I had normal hearing.

It comes and goes, and at times I can ignore it or it dies down for a while and starts up again.

Doctors say it is not Tinnitus, I am not sure what it can be?

Re: The Organ of the Universe: On Living with Tinnitus

#63

Post by arkh »

guhcampos wrote: post #38
mmastrac wrote: post #4

I think I've had it my whole life. It's that persistent high-pitched noise - almost like the imperceptably high sound old TVs used to make when they were turned on - when nothing else is making sound. If there's not a lot going on around me I can hear it quite well. I pretty much tune it out and it doesn't affect my quality of life. I sort of understand where the author is coming from. About ten years ago I ended up…

Mine sounds exactly the same! I usually describe it as the sound of "brightness" and it does feel like something coming from inside my head, instead of from the outside word. As many people, I cope with mine by just ignoring it, most of the time. Sleeping has been hard though, since I can remember. Today I resort to some kind of color noise, such as a fan, air conditioner, or white noise apps (brown noise works best)…

Add visual snow and you don't even experience darkness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow

Re: The Organ of the Universe: On Living with Tinnitus

#64

Post by tome »

figurehe4d wrote: post #13
Flands wrote: post #7

Place the palms of your hands over your ears with fingers resting gently on the back of your head. Your middle fingers should point toward one another just above the base of your skull. Place your index fingers on top of you middle fingers and snap them (the index fingers) onto the skull making a loud, drumming noise. Repeat 40-50 times. Some people experience immediate relief with this method. Repeat several times a…

Do you know why this works? Because it jostles the sternocleidomastoid muscle which connects to the base of your skull behind your ears. If this technique cures/helps your tinnitus its because you probably sit/stand with bad posture. You can attain more lasting results by regularly stretching that muscle (massage/pull on it). This will not cure hearing-loss related tinnitus. Personal experience: this not only cured m…

Ah, that's interesting. In the past I've had mild tinnitus only in my right ear, and I've had a sensitive sternocleidomastoid, but only the right one!

Re: The Organ of the Universe: On Living with Tinnitus

#65

Post by brentis »

mcguire wrote: post #23
Flands wrote: post #7

Place the palms of your hands over your ears with fingers resting gently on the back of your head. Your middle fingers should point toward one another just above the base of your skull. Place your index fingers on top of you middle fingers and snap them (the index fingers) onto the skull making a loud, drumming noise. Repeat 40-50 times. Some people experience immediate relief with this method. Repeat several times a…

I don't know if I did it right, but it changed the tone in my right ear.

Make sure it thumps on the back of the tendons attached to the skull. If it works, the silence is as much of a relevation as a deaf person hearing. Ok. Perhaps not,but having known no different for 25yrs, the silence was pretty epic.

Re: The Organ of the Universe: On Living with Tinnitus

#66

Post by zaarn »

arkh wrote: post #63
guhcampos wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine sounds exactly the same! I usually describe it as the sound of "brightness" and it does feel like something coming from inside my head, instead of from the outside word. As many people, I cope with mine by just ignoring it, most of the time. Sleeping has been hard though, since I can remember. Today I resort to some kind of color noise, such as a fan, air conditioner, or white noise apps (brown noise works best)…

Add visual snow and you don't even experience darkness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow

This article somewhat blew my mind. I always thought everyone sees this visual noise and kinda assumed it's like a digital camera in the dark...

Re: The Organ of the Universe: On Living with Tinnitus

#68

Post by blarg1 »

figurehe4d wrote: post #13
Flands wrote: post #7

Place the palms of your hands over your ears with fingers resting gently on the back of your head. Your middle fingers should point toward one another just above the base of your skull. Place your index fingers on top of you middle fingers and snap them (the index fingers) onto the skull making a loud, drumming noise. Repeat 40-50 times. Some people experience immediate relief with this method. Repeat several times a…

Do you know why this works? Because it jostles the sternocleidomastoid muscle which connects to the base of your skull behind your ears. If this technique cures/helps your tinnitus its because you probably sit/stand with bad posture. You can attain more lasting results by regularly stretching that muscle (massage/pull on it). This will not cure hearing-loss related tinnitus. Personal experience: this not only cured m…

I use to suffer from bad head aches, pain from my eyes as well as a throbbing pain. Though it was just from withdrawal from having too much caffeine/sugar and then going cold turkey on them which I was doing in cycles.

Re: The Organ of the Universe: On Living with Tinnitus

#69

Post by Nursie »

0xfaded wrote: post #56
Nursie wrote: post #24

The first rule of tinnitus club is... don't talk about tinnitus. Because then you remember you have it and start hearing it again. Had it about a decade now, I can ignore it most of the time.

I hate this. I always thought that if I had some ailment I would research everything about it and try fix it. I still do that with tinnitus, but when I do I'll hear it.

Yeah it sucks. I went through a few emotional states on my journey to 'meh'. One of the phases was a sort of desperation (there has to be a way to fix it! has to be!) and I did a lot of reading, went so far as to do stuff like notching my music collection...

But in the end all that actually helps has been acceptance with an undercurrent of mild annoyance.

Re: The Organ of the Universe: On Living with Tinnitus

#70

Post by dekhn »

I have two things- a constant, quiet hissing noise that doesn't bother me (can only hear it when things are completely quiet). And another, which happens sporadically- it will feel like a rapid pressure change in my head followed by a high pitched noise that gradually decays. Annoying, but not critically so.
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