A Tale of Tinnitus

[Cloudschatze]

It began about a year ago, the ringing in my left ear. An occasional, very temporary drone, had ever been my experience until that point, and this too would pass... or so I thought.

July came, and the ringing persisted, prompting my first visit to the otolaryngologist. With nothing visibly wrong, I was prescribed a healthy dose of "wait and see".

September, and it's still there. Annoying mostly, but without effect; the results of a hearing test are "above average". Thinking allergies may be to blame, I become acquainted with various nasal sprays at the doctor's request. No effect.

October, and I notice during a nasty bout with a cold, that despite my ears being plugged/stuffed, the ringing has taken a sabbatical.

November, and change is in the wind. The ringing now subsides somewhat, but is generally replaced with a feeling of "stuffiness" in the affected ear during these times.

December, and I notice that I'm not hearing some high-pitched sounds in the bad ear - time to pay the doctor another visit! Another hearing test shows slight high-frequency loss in the left ear. L-o-v-e-l-y. The doctor isn't sure if it's permanent or not, and mentions that most people wouldn't even notice, and seemed surprised that I did. Wow, go figure.
An MRI test rules out any structural anomalies.

Life takes a paradigm shift. Whereas I'm a huge proponent of music, I'd already cut back or entirely stopped doing some of the things I loved. Electric guitar - gone. Acoustic guitar - now seldom played. Keyboards/synths - Some days, I don't even want to touch the things. Listening to music... In an entire year, I've only listened to one CD with headphones (Tom's Al Emmo soundtrack), and can count the total number of CDs listened to on one hand. I stop listening to anything in the car. Computer-music related activities are now few and far between.

Over-excessive? Gosh, I hope so. Despite the fact that the tinnitus hasn't been linked to noise exposure, I should loathe to have it worsen.

January, and I stumble upon a revelation: Soaking in a hot bath for ~15 minutes completely stops the ringing. It starts back up shortly afterward, but at least it's something.

February, and I pay the doctor another visit. Hearing test is the same, symptoms are the same. Arg. Allergies are mentioned again, and it's suggested that I have a reaction test done.

March. The allergy test confirms that I am allergic to everything under the sun (or, nearly everything), and allergy injections are recommended. The "allergy lady" is absolutely positive that my issue is allergy related.

June is upon us, and I've had the allergy desensitization shots for nearly two months. No real noticeable effect on the tinnitus, that I can tell. Allergic reactions are greatly diminished though.

The saga's latest began on Monday, with a trip to a chiropractor. While I'm not convinced that they practice much more than "voo-doo medicine", I was inspired to check into it anyway. After two days, I think this might be the answer...

[Alistair]

Wow, Eric!! <hugs> So sorry to hear, man.

My grandfather has tinitus, and it's no fun. he's a music lover too.

personally, I can also speak from bad ear experiences. I have bad ears (bad wax buildups), and have had a very nasty fungal ear canal infection earlier this year, which meant I could barely hear, and the canal was swollen to dangerous levels (hence, no SMC! ). A month of doctors and bills and medicine apparently fixed the probs.

In fact, last week I found out it hadn't gone away completely. (I was diagnosed mid-March). Even though that was shocking, at least apparently it had almost gone away.

So, I was put on more ear drops to kic kit on the head, and I found today when my wife looked in my ear to put more in, they'd cased my eardrum and blocked my ears again. To my surprise, when she put a cotton bud (or q-tip for you US folks) in my ear, a casing of my ear came out in the colour of my (expensive) medication and my eharing suddenly got better. I was shocked. I knew my doctor was only trying to kick the infection on its' head, but how did he not see this 3 days ago when I had a follow up (to see how the new meds were going)?

So, more specialists follow (4th July, lol). We'll see if my hearing ever returns to normal, because my ears hurt and my canal is swollen marginally, still.


Keep in mind when I get spare time, I want to f*$)#^( record Sierra music.



Anwyays, sorry to hijack Eric. That's really bad news, and your compositions are pretty incredible. What can I say, I've found myself touching my music equipment so little as of late (last 6-9 months) that my MU100R had dust on it when I recorded some QFG1 music last week.

Oh yeah, and I also have nasal problems (quote, "Mild to moderate sinusitis"), and am now on Nasonex (that 'dry up mucus' nasal spray), which is also expensive.


Eric, do you worry if your musical days are numbered? Sometimes I feel ready to give up.

At least I can hear. The hearing test they made me do at the specialist in late March showed pretty good hearing, after they removed all the wax/fluid from my ears. I'm pretty sure I was really good. But then again, I'm f$)&()% 19 years old!!!

From my grandfather's case, I'm fairly sure you just learn to live with it. But then again.. if it was me, I'd be having every surgery and checkup I could have.

I find listening with headphones is hwo I test my hearing. Shannon, my wife, bought me a new CD player for Xmas last year and it's so much betetr than the last one, it's like the SC-55 is a new module (when I listen to SC-55 recordings for example, the sound is so different!).


Sorry for the ramblings guys, just typing my thoughts here.

Regards,
- Alistair

[Tom]

Dianne was in an auto accident roughly 25 years ago, and has suffered from tinnitis in her left ear ever since.  In her case, it was a physical cause.  It's eased a bit over the years, but comes back in spades when she takes certain medications, like aspirin.  She still teaches and plays piano, but I know that sometimes it's a bit difficult.

I lost my ability to hear higher frequencies many years ago, which is why I needed beta testers for the Al Emmo Soundtrack CD.  But this is an inevitable part of aging that begins roughly in your thirties...

[NewRisingSUn]

Some people's hearing never seems to get worse over age --- my father (age 66) still hears up to 19 kHz.

On the subject of hearing high frequencies: try listening to these two fun audio files (48 kHz-capable sound card needed ):

http://graphics.nytimes.com/packages/audio/nyregion/20060610_RINGTONE.mp3

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/audio/mosquito_sound.mp3

Post whether you hear anything in the first, and anything besides the crowd in the second clip, and post your age.

[Cloudschatze]

I've been trying to figure out possible causes for the past year. The solution is all that really matters, I suppose.

Post whether you hear anything in the first, and anything besides the crowd in the second clip, and post your age.

I heard it with both ears, so maybe I'm not so bad off yet at 25.

Come to think of it though, we have a stereo that my wife says makes a high-pitched sound (even while "off"), which I absolutely do not hear. It must be an even higher frequency.

I really have tried to "baby" my ears, as much as possible. I've only gone to a handful of concerts (Yes (2x), Rush), and aside from the first, have used earplugs.

[Ari]

I'm really sorry to hear about this, Eric.
My mom has suffered a 70% hearing loss in her left ear in the last 3 months or so due to a very bad ear infection caused by Vasculitis . Her doctor is quite optimistic though, and says there's a good chance she'll get most of it back, but it's still very upsetting.

I, myself, have poor eye sight, so I kind of pride myself on my good hearing even though I spent 3 years in the army in the tank corps, and had had 120mm shells blasting away above my head quite regularly.  :roll:

I hate to think I might someday start losing my hearing.

I hope your treatment works.  

[jbltecnicspro]

Wow, Eric, I'm really sorry.  I used to have bad hearing when I was around 7 years old, due to fluid clogging of the ear.  Now that it's gone, I hear just fine.  I wouldn't know what to do if I started losing my hearing - I would rather lose my eyesight first.  I hope you find your solution.

What causes tinnitus, or are there mutliple, undefined causes.

[Cloudschatze]

What causes tinnitus, or are there mutliple, undefined causes.

There seem to be several different causes, both defined and undefined. Exposure-induced hearing loss is probably the biggest. I've done some extensive reading on the issue, and there are PLENTY of accounts of musicians with tinnitus. At least they know what caused it. Luckily, I have it extremely mild compared to some of these poor guys. A great many of them actually give up music as a result, which I hope never to do.

[Great Hierophant]

Some people's hearing never seems to get worse over age --- my father (age 66) still hears up to 19 kHz.

On the subject of hearing high frequencies: try listening to these two fun audio files (48 kHz-capable sound card needed Wink):

http://graphics.nytimes.com/packages/audio/nyregion/20060610_RINGTONE.mp3

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/audio/mosquito_sound.mp3

Post whether you hear anything in the first, and anything besides the crowd in the second clip, and post your age.

I heard the extremely high pitched tone of the first recording just fine.  As for the second, I heard and felt the tone, but the actual pulsing was more pronounced.  However, I had to turn up my speakers to almost 3/4 of their maximum volume to distinguish it.  But I don't listen to loud music that much.

[jbltecnicspro]

I heard both of the files' high frequency pitches.  The second one wasn't as pronounced, probably because of the background noise.  Nevertheless, I still heard the pulsating "mosquito" sound.

[Alistair]

Ironically, I was eating with my grandparents last ngiht, and so I brought you up in conversation, Eric.

My grandmother (who happens to be on various Government Health boards) says it's an initial onset of hearing loss (which would explain your poor hearing test result).

My grandfatehr says he's been to a zillion specialists, and that living with it is basically all they can do.

he did raise something interesting though, and that was, a masking device (which apparently costs $$$) can be used to help. Like, the principle behind using a sine wave to block the sine wave in your ear, or something like that. he said a friend of hsi had it and his refrigerator had a sine noise coming from it, so he'd sit in front of it and it'd cancel the noise and go away for a while.

Let us know if anything else happens man, we're all rooting for ya.

Regards,
- Alistair

[Ari]

Some people's hearing never seems to get worse over age --- my father (age 66) still hears up to 19 kHz.

On the subject of hearing high frequencies: try listening to these two fun audio files (48 kHz-capable sound card needed Wink):

http://graphics.nytimes.com/packages/audio/nyregion/20060610_RINGTONE.mp3

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/audio/mosquito_sound.mp3

Post whether you hear anything in the first, and anything besides the crowd in the second clip, and post your age.

I heard the extremely high pitched tone of the first recording just fine.  As for the second, I heard and felt the tone, but the actual pulsing was more pronounced.  However, I had to turn up my speakers to almost 3/4 of their maximum volume to distinguish it.  But I don't listen to loud music that much.

Well, I think I heard both just fine. I'm not sure what it is exactly that I was supposed to hear, but I heard 2 very high pitched noises. The second one was pulsating, but didn't sound much like a mosquito. It was very distinct though...
I'm 28 btw.

[shad0wfax]

There're lots of different possible causes for tinnitus, but I hope that yours isn't caused by some injury or disease of your ears, and I also hope that it doesn't imply a permanent loss of hearing. But it's anyway something very annoying.

I have a rather bad eyesight (6 diopters on each eye), but luckily my hearing is (still, thouch wood) quite good. I'd be very upset if I would also loose hearing, because it's perhaps my only good sense (I'm also quite prone to have sinusitis), and becacuse, like most of us here, I love music. But I tend to dislike the high volume levels that musicians tend to use when playing or hearing music, and I perfer moderate level (enough loud to hear all the details, but not LOUD), and perhaps that's the key for conserving a good hearing.

Hope you'll get better.

EDIT: I've made the test, and I think I've heard the noises (I say that because although I've clearly heard the high pitch tone (well, seem two joint tones in fact) of the first mp3, I couldn't say what is supposed to be heard on the second, although I've been able to hear some high pitched noises). On the other hand, I've made the test at work where I only have a couple of very cheap computer speakers, and the building is very close to a motorway and there's always  the traffic rumor. I'm 31.

[Marten]

I'm 34 getting close to 35.  Can't hear the tone at all.  Don't hear any pulsing, either.  Know it's there because a co-worker ran the noise through a filter to lower the frequency, to confirm that something was there.



Getting lots of white hairs too.

Cloudschatze, hope your hearing doesn't degrade further...

[Wodball]

Cloudschatze,

Sorry to hear about your problem. It sucks that you've even cut back on listening to music. Tinnitus seemed pretty bad when I first read about it about 6 years ago. I was researching it because I hear, not necessarily ringing, but long high pitched tones in both ears (though not extremely loud). It was never serious enough for me to consider talking to an ear doctor about it, but at times, especially during crunch time before finals, I'd hear it in the library and get extremely frustrated that it wouldn't go away. By that time though, it had gone on for so many years (I think I first noticed it in an empty warehouse when I was about 12) that I was somewhat used to it. It was doubly irritating as a kid since I have very sensitive ears. Sensitive in that I listen to very low amplitude sounds and can hear microtones in tuning, which helped in my years in a college a cappella group. (Go tenor 1s!)

I really hope that you find something that works well. It stinks that it comes on so suddenly and everything has to change.

Oh, and I hear those high frequencies in those files very clearly. I'm 21.

--Woody

[HondaSiR]

On the subject of hearing high frequencies: try listening to these two fun audio files (48 kHz-capable sound card needed ):

http://graphics.nytimes.com/packages/audio/nyregion/20060610_RINGTONE.mp3

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/audio/mosquito_sound.mp3

Post whether you hear anything in the first, and anything besides the crowd in the second clip, and post your age.

Just finished going through the listening test with my ACS-33 Altecs set at 1/4 to 1/2 volume. The first sound is very loud to my ears and high pitched as it is...is quite annoying to hear.

Second sound I hear besides the crowd noise. The high pitched pulsing  sound. There's a background rumbling noise. There's also some sort of hyena laughing and two loud clapping/clanging sounds somewhere in the middle of the clip. I'm 37 btw.

[Alkarion]

Sorry to hear about this, Cloudschatze. Has it become better by now?

Being some kind of a hypochondriac, I closely monitor both my hearing and my seeing abilities. Playing around with Adobe Audition, I concluded that at my current age of 26, I can hear on both ears sinus tones up to about 16.5 kHz. That's probably not bad, but not stellar either (20 kHz is assumed to be the upper limit for humans). My girl friend has an excellent hearing though she has had acute hearing loss once. She is able to hear lots of high pitched noises I don't notice.

The high tones in the hearing examples are rather easy to hear for young people I guess. The ringtone has about 15 kHz and the mosquito ranges from about 15 to 17 kHz.

[Tom]

Okay, Mr. Tom is 51.  No problem hearing the high frequency squeal  of the first sample - either for Dianne or I.  With the second file, I could only "feel" a pulsing; faintly audible above the crowd and the two "clang" noises.  We don't hear the high-pitched 'mosquito' sound.  We're listening through headphones and speakers.  Though I don't know the frequency range of the speakers...they're cheap, and probably not capable of reproducing sound  >16000hz, but the headphones should be a bit better.


When I was 35, I had already began losing the ability to hear higher frequencies, based on hearing tests we'd give ourselves at work.  No, not everyone loses the ability to hear higher frequencies as they age, but it is certainly the norm that they will.  Hearing typically begins to degenerate by your early thirties.  Like everything else, it varies considerably with each individual.

P.S.  The pic was taken yesterday, on one of the trails where we bike ride -- on the shores of Lake Michigan.  ("Can you hear me, now?")

[Cloudschatze]

Sorry to hear about this, Cloudschatze. Has it become better by now?

Hey guys, thanks for all the support/comments. It's still too soon to say if the chiropractic work is going to resolve it completely, however, it very much appears to be a circulatory-system issue.

Eventually, I believe it will be resolved - that is, I have it on very good authority.

[Alistair]

Eric, let me know what happens with it- I'd very much like to know what eases your symptoms, for my family member.


Tom- LOL! I swear to God, you look like Jessie Bains from Police Quest II. I'm waiting for mafia men at my door, telling me they're making me an offer and all that.

- Alistair