[HN Gopher] Tinnitus linked to undetected auditory nerve damage
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Tinnitus linked to undetected auditory nerve damage
Author : beefman
Score : 659 points
Date : 2023-12-02 03:52 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (scitechdaily.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (scitechdaily.com)
| beefman wrote:
| paper (open access):
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-46741-5
|
| older report (2016) from one of the authors:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27108594/
|
| planned study: https://oto.hms.harvard.edu/news/dr-zheng-yi-chen-
| named-prin...
| jader201 wrote:
| Cue all the top comments about why this isn't news, or how we're
| no closer to a cure.
|
| I've just accepted that there won't be a cure anytime soon, and
| come to terms with it.
|
| Would love to be proven wrong, but I think they'll find a cure
| for tinnitus when they can cure baldness and cancer.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| I get the point but we _can_ cure many many forms of cancer and
| have treatments for baldness so it feels like a moving
| goalposts situation.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > we _can_ cure many many forms of cancer
|
| We can try. Sometimes the cancer doesn't come back, and
| sometimes it does, and in no case do we understand why. This
| is not what most people mean by "cure".
| noirbot wrote:
| Earnest curiosity - when someone is cured of cancer, and it
| comes back, is that different from me being cured of the
| flu and then catching the flu again later? Obviously it's
| different sorts of malady, but is it that the same cancer
| comes back, or is it just that if you had kidney cancer
| once, it's likely you might get it again? Or do we just not
| know enough about cancer to say/it varies on the sort of
| cancer?
|
| It's not like being cured normally means "and you'll never
| get that again ever".
| beeboobaa wrote:
| You don't typically catch cancer riding the bus.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| That's kind of a flippant answer. I hope you know that
| viruses (particularly the herpes family) cause at least
| some forms of cancer and herpes is super transmissible
| and most people have some form (in particular familial
| herpes but also chicken pox). Can you catch it from
| riding a bus? Probably not. But I don't think you were
| talking about literally from riding a bus but we don't
| know if it's a viral infection that's untreated and has
| flare ups or if you can treat the viral infection and get
| reinfected. It wouldn't surprise me if it's both -
| typically it's a flare up but even if you cured the viral
| infection you could get reinfected and get cancer
| expressed again.
| noirbot wrote:
| Yea, no shit. That's not the question I was asking. You
| can choose to be an annoying literalist, or you can be
| informative, or you can be quiet. You've chosen the least
| socially reasonable of them.
| mlyle wrote:
| We're mostly talking about it coming back. A treatment
| might eliminate the vast amount of cancer cells, but some
| can be lying dormant and wake back up at some later time
| (and since they survived, the ones that are more
| resistant to treatment have been selected-- prognosis is
| then much worse the second time around). Or sometimes
| those "seeds" of recurrent cancer never awake.
|
| Of course, people who get one cancer are, on average,
| more genetically and environmentally exposed to cancer
| risk. Cancer treatments themselves can even increase the
| risk of new cancer in some cases. So getting an entirely
| independent cancer is possible, too.
| noirbot wrote:
| That was mostly what I had in mind. There's plenty of
| diseases where you're cured in the sense that your body
| can passively take care of it from here, but there's a
| chance it flares up again. I was unclear if most cancers
| were a "you got rid of it, but a different part of your
| kidney developed a cancer now" as compared to "that
| cancer you had before is back"
| zdragnar wrote:
| Sometimes you get better from a sickness, but it stays
| idle in your body and resurfaces later. If you get
| chickenpox as a child, it'll stay in you and eventually
| come back as shingles when you're an adult.
|
| Others like herpes are lifelong afflictions whose
| symptoms can clear up, become inactive and eventually
| reactivate and flare up again.
|
| Cancers can be like that too.
| mlyle wrote:
| I don't think we have very many treatments that are 100%
| efficacious and durable for most conditions, even ones that
| are generally considered curative.
|
| If you take antibiotics-- sometimes it doesn't seem to work
| at all, and some other times the infection comes back after
| the cessation of treatment. This is true because of some
| reasons that are well-understood, and others that aren't.
|
| Yes, most cancers are worse on these metrics than most uses
| of antibiotics, but not always ridiculously so. There are
| cancers with 5 year survival rates of >95%, and with very
| low recurrence rates after 5 years.
| _factor wrote:
| Diseases without the possibility of animal testing are going to
| take a long time.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| You could study auditory nerve regeneration in animals, it
| would just be difficult to determine whether or not it cures
| any tinnitus that they have.
| petra wrote:
| You could probably be possible to create an animal model by
| destroying some hearing cells/sensors in the ear.
|
| As for creating a device to detect what the animal "hears",
| similar to how there's some research that used fmri with
| machine learning to "see dreams",it might be possible to do
| that for animal hearing.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I don't think that's a very good comparison. Cancer strikes at
| the very heart of what we are (a bunch of cells which are
| expected to cooperate and sometimes don't). Compared with that,
| tinnitus seems pretty hackable.
| labster wrote:
| Baldness seems like a good comparison, though, given how
| hearing involves hair in the inner ear. Cancer is thousands
| of different disorders so it's unlikely there will ever be a
| single cure; making hair grow where we want it is a simpler
| task.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| It's cilia, not hair, growing from the hair cells in the
| inner ear.
|
| Other than that nitpick, sure.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Can't wait. With me it is ups-and-downs, at times it's great for
| months at a stretch and sometimes it is so bad I can't listen to
| music (or play).
|
| There are many different forms of tinnitus and usually some
| mechanism or cure operates only on a fraction of all cases so I'm
| hoping that this is as broad as possible. Note to younger self:
| stay away from loud concerts.
| nzoschke wrote:
| Sorry to hear. You're not alone and I'm constantly surprised to
| learn how many people I know are dealing with hearing concerns
| once I started talking about mine more.
|
| My note to younger self is similar: get great earplugs and use
| them diligently.
| strogonoff wrote:
| A note of caution regarding earplugs: they can introduce
| infection, which in turn (I suspect) may play a role in
| triggering or causing tinnitus. It probably depends on
| individual predisposition and climate (to me it happened in
| hot humid environment), but I recommend caution.
|
| I wish I could use earplugs (or IEM headphones with good
| sound isolation) a lot of the time, but I found out the hard
| way (after infection subsided I have intermittent tinnitus as
| well).
| monkpit wrote:
| > Sorry to hear.
|
| Phrasing...
| jacquesm wrote:
| I thought it was funny.
| hanniabu wrote:
| Have you been on antibiotics since you had it? If so, did it
| make it any worse?
|
| I have a slight case of tinnitus and need to do a 2 week round
| of neomycin. Doctor says it shouldn't make it worse since it's
| a short course, but I'm still concerned/anxious about it.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's been with me for 20+ years now, originally triggered by
| a concert in Paradiso in Amsterdam that I got free tickets to
| on account of repairing a bunch of cabling under the stage.
| The next day there was a really loud buzz on top of
| everything else that only slowly went away. After that it
| periodically recurred, usually right after exposure to some
| loud noise (especially: grinder, that one does it every
| time). I do what I can with ear protection to keep what I've
| got (which is a slowly losing battle), without any sound
| around me there is this very high pitched whine and with some
| low level masking sound that becomes manageable.
|
| But e5 on the piano played loud is an instant trigger, that
| particular frequency is really not working for me. Never made
| any link with antibiotics but if I ever have to do a cure
| I'll be sure to pay attention. What mechanism are you
| concerned about? Is this a well known thing?
| hanniabu wrote:
| I think it's less of a concern for someone like you where
| it was brought on by loud noise vs someone like me where
| it's likely due to an imbalanced microbiome where taking
| antibiotics could potentially damage your microbiome
| further, leading to worsening tinnitus.
| schiffern wrote:
| Do you have an audiologist regularly look at your ears?
| Obstruction and buildup can make tinnitus worse.
|
| I find I really should wear earplugs _way_ more often than
| I think. Putting dishes away, shoveling snow, scraping ice,
| even just running a sink. For everyday wear I cut down
| cheap foam plugs to ~half length (and reduce the depth of
| insertion), and I also wash them beforehand /periodically
| with plant-based soap. This removes additives in the foam
| which I find can cause skin irritation and reduce
| breathability.
|
| Hope you get some relief.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Do you have an audiologist regularly look at your ears?
|
| I did in the past, haven't in years so thank you for the
| reminder, I really should do that. I think in part it is
| because I've simply given up on ever seeing an
| improvement, just a very slow rearguard fight.
| schiffern wrote:
| >Note to younger self: stay away from loud concerts.
|
| Or try those "concert earplugs." They reduce the overall sound
| level while better preserving high and mid sounds. It also
| reduces the booming sound ('occlusion effect') when talking.
|
| I paid $15 for a pair recently, but experimentation shows it's
| mostly just silicone earplugs with a hole through the center
| and a small mesh screen.
|
| Removing the fancy "audio filter" and stuffing a tiny (tiny!)
| wisp of cotton in the hole seems to do the same thing,
| honestly. You can probably reproduce these using 30C/ HF
| silicone earplugs if you find a way to "drill" a hole through
| them...
| flippinfloppin wrote:
| If the solution to concerts is that you have to protect your
| ears yourself then I would argue that the concerts themselves
| should be held accountable.
|
| I have tinnitus and it SUCKS. The people who threw the
| outdoor music festivals I went to in my 20s should be brought
| to trial...
| lemper wrote:
| good stuff, mate. it's been 8 goddamn years since my right ear
| ngiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiings all the time. I'm fine with waiting for
| another or two 8 years, but please, show some result. pretty
| please with cherry on top.
| localghost3000 wrote:
| I've got multiple tones in both ears. Most of the time I don't
| notice it but sometimes... well it's hard not to panic when you
| realize you can't escape it. I would very much like to experience
| life without the ringing again before I kick the bucket. I'd
| honestly probably cry.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Makes me realize I should not take even the most mundane things
| for granted
| hanniabu wrote:
| Facts. I used to take a lot for granted. Now I not only have
| tinnitus, but also muscularskeletal and digestion issues. I'd
| love to go back to being healthy again, but sometimes you're
| dealt a shit hand. And you never know what will happen
| tomorrow that will change the rest of your life.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| It's almost always been there for me if a room is too quiet,
| but somehow it just doesn't bother me no matter how much I
| notice or think about it. It's just there.
| cmehdy wrote:
| Have you ever tried the back of the head tap thing?
| https://lifehacker.com/this-weird-trick-might-give-you-brief...
| fermentation wrote:
| I wish all of these weird tricks worked. I'm sure all of us
| tried them during our initial panic
| LoganDark wrote:
| I don't think I have tinnitus, but I made a bad choice of power
| supply for some of my audio equipment, and it emits an annoying
| whine from one of its fans. Which is bad because this is
| supposed to be audio equipment.
|
| I may simply remove that fan in the future.
| nehal3m wrote:
| I'll assume you know what you're doing, but I still had a gut
| reaction. Careful not to burn your house down.
| LoganDark wrote:
| It's a MEAN WELL industrial power supply, brand new. I
| needed 12 volts DC to power a "car" amplifier, but it's not
| easy to get 50 amps of that from the wall. My guess is it's
| built for industrial automation, not audio equipment, but
| it's not like the other option of repurposed server PSUs
| would have been any quieter.
|
| Removing the fan may or may not be relatively safe
| depending on how much airflow a 12 inch sub can push
| through a ported enclosure when it's running anywhere near
| full enough power to actually heat up the power supply.
| technothrasher wrote:
| I've had it for as long as I can remember, I suspect it's been
| there since birth. As a small child, I thought it was normal
| and that it was what the Simon & Garfunkel song "The Sound of
| Silence" was talking about. Anyway, I think I may be lucky in
| that I've never experienced not having it, so it doesn't bother
| me at all. It's just there.
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| Same here. The sound's always been there and it's the only
| thing I can control my attention towards perfectly. Kind of
| like how you can't not think about pink elephants but through
| a lifetime of practice I can do it with this one specific
| thing.
| someNameIG wrote:
| Same with me, can't remember when mine started. I knew pretty
| early it wasn't normal though as for me it's only in my left
| ear.
|
| Unless I'm actively thinking about it (like now), most of the
| time it's nt an issue, and it's quiet enough to be easily
| drowned out.
| anonporridge wrote:
| It's unbelievably depressing in the initial onset.
|
| Couldn't sleep. Couldn't do my job. Forced to take extended
| time off. Terrorized by the possibility that I would never be
| able to work again.
|
| Closet I've ever come to suicide.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Yep same. My mental health has been sigificantly worse across
| the board since it started.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| I recently bought a couple of audiomoths for monitoring or
| tracking birds passing through my area. It records up to 192kHz I
| think so it can pick up ultrasonic chirps from bats. Anyway while
| passing the recorded data into Audacity to search for bird calls
| I was able to finally nail down the bandwidth where my tinnitus
| overwhelms all other signal and to begin to understand the depth
| of my work-related hearing loss. I use the low and high pass
| filters to extract the signals across discrete frequencies and
| then track the level of gain I need to apply in order to be able
| to hear the calls that are in each extracted band. This is quite
| useful for me as before I knew that there are sounds I cannot
| hear unless there is almost no background noise but I had no idea
| where they were spectrally or just how much hearing loss I had in
| each band.
|
| I could potentially use this information to design a hearing aid
| that boosts sounds in the affected bands so that I can hear them.
| I am not sure I can inverse filter the tinnitus-related noise
| since it is random intensity though a notch filter could be an
| option since it is narrow band.
|
| I hope the tinnitus discovery thing in this article ends up being
| useful.
| mnemotronic wrote:
| Mine reminds me of the high-pitched sound made by old, tube
| TVs. I think it was called the flyback transformer. 16Khz.
| LoganDark wrote:
| 15.625KHz to be exact. I can hear this sound quite well, to
| the point where I prefer not to be in the same building as
| any CRT that emits it.
|
| There are those that don't, mainly newer models I assume. I
| think it has to do with the exact shape of the waveform that
| drives the (horizontal part of the) deflection yoke. Some of
| them are noisier than others.
| therein wrote:
| I remember enjoying that sound as a child. Muting the TV
| while falling asleep.
| LoganDark wrote:
| One of the power supplies I own makes a high-pitched
| whining sound from its fan. It's the most terrible,
| obnoxious sound, but I somehow don't mind it. It blends
| into the background after living in it for years. Still,
| when it goes away, there is nearly unparalleled silence.
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| It's the PAL and NTSC (480i / 240p) sets we can hear. VGA
| (480p and higher) screens scan at > 30khz so we can't hear
| them.
|
| I like the sound and can hear when a shop has a CRT
| security camera when I walk past lol
| jeffparsons wrote:
| Same. As a child, I could be reading a book at one end of
| the house and I would experience discomfort (experienced as
| a slightly painful "pressure" in my ears) when the
| television, which was 4 rooms away, was powered on. My
| family didn't believe that I could tell, because to them it
| was silent. So they challenged me to a double blind test,
| and were surprised to find that yes, it really was the TV
| that was bothering me.
|
| Related, we did a hearing range test in a high school
| science class. I could detect the tone generator at a
| frequency well beyond what anyone else in my class could
| pick up. I couldn't hear it as a sound anymore after a
| certain point, but could still feel it as an uncomfortable
| "pressure" inside my ears.
| drmpeg wrote:
| The _exact_ formula is 4,500,000 / 286 =
| 15734.265734265... Hz.
| pezezin wrote:
| That is for NTSC, for PAL the formula is 625*25 = 15625
| Hz
| petesergeant wrote:
| Took me a while to realise that I could hear those, but also
| that I have tinnitus at the same level. For quite a while I
| assumed someone had turned one on nearby, until it dawned on
| me that no, I also have tinnitus
| smegger001 wrote:
| That reminds me of the old crt tv my parents had for ages in
| their room that i could hear from the other side of the house
| but they couldn't that made the most awful high pitch whine.
| and as the screen would go black in some sort of sleep mode
| but it kept making that horrible noise with the only
| indicator that is was on still other than the noise, that
| apparently only i and dogs could hear, was the color of a
| small dim recessed led. they got rid of it a about three
| years ago but whenever i would visit I'd hear it as soon as
| the door opened and it would drive me nuts till i got the
| chance to turn it off.
| eps wrote:
| For what it's worth, I had that and pretty all my friends I
| bothered to ask could also hear old TVs back when were
| kids. It is exceedingly common.
| LtWorf wrote:
| I couldn't charge my macbook at night because the official
| apple charger made that noise and it bothered me.
| luplex wrote:
| Honestly you should probably just get a professional hearing
| aid, they do a hearing test and adjust its frequency response
| to your ears.
|
| The longer you wait with getting it, the harder it will be for
| your brain to adjust to processing the full corrected sounds.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| I've been considering this more often lately. I was hoping
| for an inexpensive option since hearing aids are just earbuds
| with a custom tune.
| ozborn wrote:
| Hearing aids are much better than most earbuds, especially
| with regard to power consumption. I have tinnitus, mild
| hearing loss, but wear cheapish Costco hearing aids as
| earbud replacement and the hope my tinnitus won't progress.
| 392 wrote:
| They're not really, but I can see why Beltone stores would
| give you that impression. Go see an audiologist.
| thfuran wrote:
| The frequency response of a healthy ear isn't flat across all
| audible frequencies, so you'd need to reference normal hearing
| to determine the extent of damage rather than just looking at
| minimum audible db at various frequencies.
|
| >I am not sure I can inverse filter the tinnitus-related noise
| since it is random intensity though a notch filter could be an
| option since it is narrow band.
|
| Are you talking about basically using active noise canceling to
| silence tinitus? I don't think that's possible.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| >The frequency response of a healthy ear isn't flat across
| all audible frequencies, so you'd need to reference normal
| hearing...
|
| Isn't the normal frequency response of a healthy ear
| dependent on the shape of the ear cartilage and the
| configuration of the ear canal and the ear drum? It would be
| different for every individual. Kinda like how Mom could
| always hear everything we did and said after bedtime while
| Dad, without even using his selective hearing, wouldn't even
| know we were still awake.
|
| >Are you talking about basically using active noise canceling
| to silence tinitus?
|
| Yes. Model the tinnitus and design the inverse filter based
| on the bandwidth and inject that inverse filter to become an
| active subtraction of the tinnitus response. I know it
| probably isn't possible because the noise is variable and
| originates in the brain instead of external to the ear so it
| is not easily quantifiable therefore the inverse operator
| will not be exact, optimum, or anything else. However, if you
| can model the signal then you should be able to design the
| inverse operator. Since the signal is just a band-limited
| input there is no reason why you can't dink around until you
| have a close enough model to be able to design the inverse
| filter which you would then inject as an external input thru
| an earpiece or some other sound generator.
|
| I'm a geophysicist with hearing problems, not an audiologist
| or otolaryngologist. It sounds reasonable to me. We deal with
| convolution/deconvolution and other signal processing as a
| regular part of the job process.
| thfuran wrote:
| >Isn't the normal frequency response of a healthy ear
| dependent on the shape of the ear cartilage and the
| configuration of the ear canal and the ear drum? It would
| be different for every individual
|
| Yes, there's some individual variation, but human ears are
| all generally roughly the same structure, so there are
| known baselines for how they work. There's about 40 dB
| difference in minimum audible threshold between 50 Hz and 5
| kHz. Same with near the top end of the hearing range,
| though where exactly that lies is more subject to
| individual variation (and age)
|
| >so it is not easily quantifiable therefore the inverse
| operator will not be exact, optimum, or anything else.
| However, if you can model the signal then you should be
| able to design the inverse operator.
|
| It's not originating from actual sound, so I think the
| approach fundamentally doesn't apply. Active noise
| canceling relies on destructive interference to actually
| physically remove the sound before it is perceived. Once
| you have the nerve signal, I think there simply isn't an
| anti-sound that would result in some other nerve signal
| that adds up to perceived silence.
| NotMichaelBay wrote:
| I've definitely read anecdotes about people with tinnitus
| listening to noise to reduce it. It may not be the same
| effect as destructive interference but it seems like
| there's something at work there.
| thfuran wrote:
| As I understand it, for certain types of tinnitus,
| listening to a sound of the right frequency may
| temporarily suppress the tinnitus for some time
| afterwards. But the triggering sound is still audible, so
| it's not like noise canceling.
| thibaut_barrere wrote:
| It's a great idea - and a more detailed diagnosis compared to
| what some professionals do. I had no idea audiomoths were a
| thing by the way! Will look into that.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| I'm really liking these audiomoths. Broadband recording at
| high fidelity with long, unattended recording possible. I'm
| trying to see whether I can identify individual crows among a
| family of pecan-stealers active in my area. I almost have
| them accustomed to checking my porch for raw peanuts as part
| of their regular rotation. I probably need cameras to be able
| match the bird to the call and identify individual birds and
| I don't yet have that but I will in time. For now I am
| getting familiar with all the normal noises out here and the
| frequencies they occupy so that I can visually separate bird
| calls at various frequencies from ambulances, airplanes,
| helicopters, automobiles, barking dogs, etc so I can spend
| more time analyzing interesting signals from the birds out
| here.
|
| If you have time to acquire a new hobby, an audiomoth is a
| great tool.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Tinnitus is so strange. It's like depression. You can't will it
| away, but if you start to feel better it also gets better. And if
| you feel worse it gets worse. And both reinforce each other.
|
| It's not just perception and it's not just physical. Physical
| symptoms make it seem worse and when it seems worse it actually
| gets worse.
|
| The best thing to do is accept that you have it and try to never
| hear it, so that you don't think about it. Then it might actually
| (not just psycholgicy) get better. It won't be cured, but it can
| have a huge improvement.
| ohm wrote:
| Mine has gotten pretty bad it's constant now. Before hitting the
| back of skull worked for a bit and listening to YouTube tinnitus
| scrubber worked but not anymore. Hoping this can be fixed one
| day.
| adamddev1 wrote:
| Here's a very interesting study about how manual osteopathy on
| the temporal bones could help the auditory nerve/tinnitus. It's
| been a huge relief for me.
|
| https://norcaloa.com/CAOT/articles-in-press/CAOT-101018
|
| I've suffered from tinnitus that's gotten worse at times, and for
| me it definitely feels like there's some sort of nerve that's
| pinched or damaged because my hearing is totally fine but when
| certain muscles are tight in the area it gets louder, when I yawn
| it squeezes something and I get this loud tone, and sometimes it
| gets worse with pressure or impact. I had a very nasty and loud
| lower tone but I found physiotherapy around the neck and
| especially osteopathy around the temporal bone very, very
| effective in reducing/eliminating that lower tone. Osteopaths
| will talk about how if the temporal bone is stuck in rotation it
| can pinch/damage the auditory nerve. I don't fully understand the
| mechanics but whatever they do WORKS for me in taking away the
| loudest tone of tinnitus.
| htamas wrote:
| I told my doctor about this effect of yawning and he said
| that's just a reflex, unrelated. However my tinnitus started
| when they removed my wisdom teeth and that's also when my TMJ
| started, so I'm pretty sure they are somehow related, and my
| tinnitus is generated by some kind of a bone/ligament alignment
| issue.
|
| It's very interesting what you said about ostheopathy, I would
| try it out except I'm afraid it can just as well make it worse
| as it can make it better if the ostheopath doesn't know what
| they're doing. At least that's what dentists told me when I
| asked about if fixing my TMJ would fix my tinnitus.
| adamddev1 wrote:
| Ya I also have had wisdom teeth removed and TMJ issues for a
| long time, and it also seems related. The nice thing about
| Osteopathy is that it's very gentle so it shouldn't be as
| dangerous as more aggressive or invasive treatments. Some
| Osteopaths are especially experienced with ear-related
| things. I've had very, very good results from it personally.
|
| For me the biggest help has been that as well as general
| physio/exercises (especially eccentric neck muscle exercises
| with a exercise band) around the neck getting all hose
| muscles healthy and relaxed.
| htamas wrote:
| Could you link a video or something on the exercises you
| do? Not sure what eccentric means in that context.
| adamddev1 wrote:
| Here are the streches:
|
| https://1drv.ms/b/s!AkOl7L0amzk1gZJkufVhfYr8q1vtbw?e=tjuB
| WD
|
| And for the resistant band thing, kind of like this
| video. But I put the resistance band in a door at a 90
| degree angle to my head and I focus on the "eccentric"
| movment, slowly bringing it back into upright position
| and letting it pull the muscles and lengthen them.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EG7z_qsYNY&ab_channel=Re
| hab...
| beingfit wrote:
| > Here's a very interesting study about how manual osteopathy
| on the temporal bones could help the auditory nerve/tinnitus.
| It's been a huge relief for me.
|
| > https://norcaloa.com/CAOT/articles-in-press/CAOT-101018
|
| Is this something that only a medical professional should do?
| If not, I'd love to see a video of this. I can't figure out
| from the figures what one is supposed to do.
| adamddev1 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it's just something that trained osteopaths
| could do. Cranial osteopathy takes a lot of practice and
| learning as I understand.
| mongol wrote:
| I got tinnitus in one ear after a fall where I hit my face hard
| on a table. After being careful with loud music my entire life
| this feels like a bummer. But accidents happen and it could have
| been worse. I also got some numbness in other parts of my face
| that slowly got better so I have some hope the tinnitus may
| improve.
| janmo wrote:
| Most people having a peeep tone tinnitus including myself can
| experience complete silence for a few seconds (up to 30) by
| listening to a tone at the specific frequency of their Tinnitus.
|
| For example listen to the following, at a level that it isn't
| uncomfortable and your Tinnitus might be gone for a short time:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNf9nzvnd1k
|
| This is called residual inhibition. You can Google "tinnitus
| residual inhibition" and find many papers about it.
|
| Benzodiazepines work also very well in some cases, when taking
| them I have no Tinnitus at all, but that's ABSOLUTELY NOT a
| viable long term solution because of the long term negative
| effects.
|
| I am not sure about this paper, but what I've read and believe
| the most is that the Tinnitus is caused by neurons in the brain,
| that have lost nerve input signals from the ear (due to hearing
| loss, nerve damage etc..), and start to emit parasite signals.
|
| Benzodiazepines reduce the brain activity thus reducing/silencing
| the tinnitus. Residual inhibition seems to work by stimulating
| the region where the hearing loss has occurred, the neurons
| responsible for the Tinnitus all the sudden get stimulated and
| stop emitting noise signals for a few dozens of seconds then
| resume. But so far there is still a lot of research to be done
| and we are decades away from a cure that is SAFE enough. Benzos
| work but are just not worth it, this is like fighting back pain
| with opoids.
|
| Until then I think it is best to protect our hearing, you can buy
| custom made earplugs which are comfortable to wear, last about 5
| years and cost around 200 USD. I use them when I am in loud
| environments like on an air plane, train, at a bar etc...
|
| Also it is best not be in completely silent environment as this
| is where you will notice the Tinnitus.
|
| When listening to music with headphones it is important to take
| regular breaks and not to push the volume too high to give your
| ears some rest.
|
| Edit: Last advice, don't try to listen to your tinnitus, but
| focus on other noises/sounds, if you are listening to the
| Tinnitus you are telling your brain that the signal is important,
| when you should be telling it, that it isn't.
| moribvndvs wrote:
| My tinnitus has a very recent onset. So far it's pretty mild
| but I expect it to get much worse. Your advise is the most
| practical, at least for mild cases: baby the ever living shit
| out of your hearing (I have spent decades in the underground
| metal scene and didn't wear ear plugs until the past 5 or so
| years. What a colossally stupid thing to do. Please: if you're
| young, remember you are not invincible, you're merely borrowing
| heavily from future you) and avoid complete silence. I've also
| noticed that it will occasionally hit me hard in bursts. When
| that happens, I can make like I'm covering my ears with my
| palms and tap my finger tips on the back of my head for a few
| seconds and the roar will die down. Doesn't go away permanently
| but so far it provides a little relief from those painful
| stabs.
| xivzgrev wrote:
| Agree. I also made poor choices, drumming as a kid without
| hearing protection. By time I was in high school I already
| had tinnitus. Since then I've also babied my hearing
| (earplugs at concerts, playing music in headphones as quietly
| as possible or avoiding headphones), it's fortunately stayed
| about the same over the ensuing years.
| 3abiton wrote:
| Given how spread tinnitus is, I wish there were more
| campaigns to help to spread awareness. Funny thing, ghe
| first gike I remember developing tinnitus, was following a
| evening where the fully pressurized soda stream bottle was
| not fully closes, so it emmitted this wheezing sound all
| evening, high pitched. I was too tired to figure out the
| source, or even if it was real up until the next morning.
| jcalabro wrote:
| Same story here. I'm pretty young and I'm quite concerned
| about it as I age, but since I stopped drumming about 10
| years ago, it hasn't progressed at all.
| schiffern wrote:
| >When listening to music with headphones it is important to...
| not to push the volume too high
|
| I've started referring to this experiential phenomenon as "The
| Call of the Loud"
|
| (of course a reference to https://www.livescience.com/what-is-
| call-of-the-void)
| LoganDark wrote:
| Heh. I felt it so strongly that I built my own subwoofer. I
| get noise complaints if I set it anywhere near half volume.
| At least a transducer really helps, and doesn't often result
| in complaints.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Well if tinnituses arises from the brain not having an input,
| then it seems like the proper way to fix it is to restore the
| input. Now restoring damage to the nerve or those little hairs
| inside the ear, I'm sure that's tricky, but it also seems like
| it should be quite doable if you just throw resources at it.
|
| This seems promising? https://hms.harvard.edu/news/scientists-
| regenerate-hair-cell...
| janmo wrote:
| Mammals cannot restore hearing, but other animals such as
| Chicken can. A few years ago there was a drug called FX-322
| that was able to regenerate inner ear hair cells in guinea
| pigs, it made it into human trials, but was unable to improve
| hearing, meaning that the cells were probably not functional.
| musha68k wrote:
| I remember full well that music was much richer to me until
| maybe my mid 20s. It would be amazing to get that back
| somehow.
| anjel wrote:
| Seems neurological and reminiscent of phantom limb pain after
| amputation. And they treat that now by fooling the brain with
| mirrors...
| Naijoko wrote:
| there is also this similar project from the EU
| https://www.regainyourhearing.eu/ this is very interesting.
| They put hair regrowth stuff in the ear
| ck_one wrote:
| Biggest project to restore hair cells and ultimately hearing
| is probably this one:
| https://hearinghealthfoundation.org/hearing-restoration-
| proj...
|
| It was shown in a couple of papers that we can restore hair
| cells in mammals. Damaged hair cells are the root cause for
| the majority of people with hearing loss & tinnitus. The most
| promising path seems to use so called supporting cells in the
| inner ear and convert them into hair cells. Researchers are
| getting closer and closer every year. I think we are now at a
| point where it's not a question of if but rather when.
|
| Here is a quote from one of the leading scientist in the
| field:
|
| What is needed to help make HRP goals happen? Frankly,
| funding to keep our research moving forward. A postdoctoral
| fellow with five to six years of training starts out on a
| modest salary of about $45,000, plus $12,000 in benefits. So
| that's $57,000 before they even pick up a test tube in the
| lab. Each person will typically use between $15,000- $20,000
| a year in supplies and chemicals. Simply maintaining a single
| cage of mice for one year costs $210, and my lab can use
| between 300-500 cages of mice for our experiments! HHF and
| its donors have been extremely generous in their support,
| however with additional funding the output from the
| consortium could be significantly greater and accelerate the
| pace to a cure.
|
| Link: https://hearinghealthfoundation.org/spotlight/groves
|
| Overall the field of hearing restoration still only receives
| tiny amounts of funding (<200 Mio). The research is in a
| vacuum phase. It's not proven out enough for Big Pharma to
| come. Relying on small government grants makes it difficult
| to get the research to a stage where it's attractive enough
| for Big Pharma.
|
| Best bet at this point is probably when a former big tech
| executives would get hearing loss/tinnitus and then decides
| to put real money behind the problem. Bryan Johnson who
| created the Blueprint program has hearing loss but I guess he
| is not wealthy enough to make a difference.
|
| EDIT (to put numbers into perspective):
|
| The size of the problem: Sensorineural hearing loss disables
| over 360 million people worldwide. Irrespective of its cause
| and severity, hearing loss can have a large impact on
| people's health and well-being. The treatment of hearing loss
| is currently limited to the use of hearing aids or devices
| surgically implanted in the middle or inner ear. These
| devices often perform poorly in noisy environments and can be
| very costly. It has been estimated that the costs of
| untreated hearing loss are EUR213 billion in Europe alone
| each year.
|
| The funding (EU): An international consortium of 7 partners
| has been awarded a EUR5,8 million European Commission Horizon
| 2020 grant to develop and test a new drug to treat hearing
| loss caused by the loss of sensory hair cells.
| sgbeal wrote:
| > Most people having a peeep tone tinnitus including myself can
| experience complete silence for a few seconds (up to 30) by
| listening to a tone at the specific frequency of their
| Tinnitus.
|
| What "works for me" but your kilometrage may vary...
|
| i listen to LOTS of white noise. All night when i sleep, when
| i'm out and about and might normally listen to music, and
| sometimes just randomly throughout the day.
|
| For whatever reason, listening to white noise over long periods
| seems to tone down the volume of my beeping, _sometimes_ to the
| point where i have blessed silence for several days at a time
| (recently a full 2 weeks, though that was a new record in my
| 13-ish years of beeping).
|
| Whether or not the white noise _genuinely_ plays a factor is
| difficult to say, but it's been my experience, the past three
| or four years, that the volume of The Beep and the duration of
| the rare Quiet Periods seems to be affected by how how much
| white noise i listen to.
|
| (Sidebar: "quiet" is never quite silent, but The Beep sometimes
| (thankfully) fades to the point where i have to actively listen
| to hear it, exactly as it was when this all started out around
| 2010.)
|
| (Sidebar: though the tone of my beep is near-constant, wavering
| only very slightly, the volume varies wildly, from minor
| background noise to headache-inducing and concentration-
| shattering.)
|
| That said: "white noise" is a generic term here. i often get
| better results with what my phone's white noise app call "pink
| noise" or "blue noise" - they're just different frequencies of
| the same style of noise.
|
| Edit: FWIW, i've heard from two other tinnitus sufferers that
| white noise has a similar effect on them. That doesn't mean
| that it definitely helps, but it seems to help for some of us.
| lutorm wrote:
| My tinnitus, both the one that's always present and the one I
| can provoke with my jaw muscles, is not a single-pitched tone
| but more like band-limited noise. I did a hearing test and we
| tried to match it to various frequencies. None of the models
| they had really fit, but the best one was a sort of
| moderately-wise noise.
| lutorm wrote:
| I've always assumed the tinnitus arises from some sort of AGC,
| automatic gain control, in the auditory system, such that when
| something is damaged and the signal disappears, the brain will
| just turn up the gain until the noise is about the level it
| expects the signal to be.
|
| At least my experience with AGC is that it's useless because
| times of silence ends up just being filled with noise... "audio
| system tinnitus..."
| groestl wrote:
| And I have the suspiction, this can happen with visual
| signals as well. See "visual snow".
| Naijoko wrote:
| mdma does the same for some reason. Total quit for 8h ... but
| also totaly high.
| scoot wrote:
| I tried the YouTube video and was slightly alarmed to discover
| that I appear to be deaf above about 13.5KHz. I wondered if it
| might be the frequency response of my laptop speakers, but
| according to this site [0] it's pretty flat up to 20KHz.
|
| It didn't make the tinitius go away, but perhaps subdued it
| slightly. Hard to say.
|
| But if as one of the other posters suggests tinnitus is a
| neurological response to lack of input, deafness in higher
| frequencies tallies. Like others though, jutting my jaw forward
| makes the tinnitus louder, so not sure how that interaction
| works for something originated in the brain.
|
| Something I haven't seen mentioned here is _very_ occasional
| short periods (seconds) of apparent deafness, typically at
| night, in a quiet room, and only when very tired or sleep
| deprived. I say apparent because since it's quiet, it's hard to
| know if it's the tinnitus momentarily stopping, or all sound;
| and the presence of sound may prevent it from happening.
|
| [0] https://www.dxomark.com/apple-macbook-air-15-m2-2023/
| gonesurfing wrote:
| Your advice about not listening to your tinnitus is spot on,
| but easier said than done. I found the guidance in the book
| Rewiring Tinnitus really helped me in this respect
| https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rewiring-Tinnitus-Finally-Relief-Ri...
| hackernewds wrote:
| you can also try this exercise for very low risk temporary
| tinnitus suppression
|
| https://youtu.be/2yDCox-qKbk?si=eEjtlP97v8UiubX4
|
| it works reliably well
| hackernewds wrote:
| nice that worked for 5 seconds
|
| this works for 2-4 mins for me
|
| https://youtu.be/2yDCox-qKbk?si=eEjtlP97v8UiubX4
| petersumskas wrote:
| I have tinnitus. I had brain surgery to remove an acoustic
| schwannoma. The doctor said that I would lose all hearing in the
| ear due to the unavoidable damage to the acoustic nerve.
|
| Well, at least that will get rid of the tinnitus, I thought.
|
| No such luck! I still have tinnitus.
|
| As such I think there may be more to tinnitus than undetected
| nerve damage.
|
| It isn't clear cut though: I have some hearing in that ear after
| all (to the surprise of the doctor). But the tinnitus came back
| (or never went away) before any hearing returned.
| janmo wrote:
| You are not the only one, in fact removing acoustic nerve is
| known not to fix the tinnitus / sometimes making it worse. The
| research has has shown so far that it appears the Tinnitus is
| coming from within the brain, neurons that have lost the input
| signal from the acoustic nerve aren't stimulated anymore and in
| response start to emit noise signals on their own.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| This makes sense in a "phantom limb" way.
| eecc wrote:
| Makes me wonder if nervous transduction is based on PLL
| resonant circuits
| dh3 wrote:
| I have the same tumor on the auditory nerve on both sides
| (NF2). Had surgery on one side. Lost full hearing on that side
| (so auditory nerve almost fully severed). Always had tinnitus
| but after surgery it's gotten much worse on that side. Not
| unbearable but a constant source of noise. I can see there
| being some sort of connection between the nerve and tinnitus.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| My dad had one of those. They used to be called acoustic
| neuromas. He lost hearing in one ear because of the lack of
| microneurosurgey at the time and the way it was wrapped around
| CN 8.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| It reminds me of what sometimes happens in an electrical
| circuit if you disconnect an input and leave it floating.
| theonemind wrote:
| I have tinnitus and strangely, I have no real idea when it
| started, much less what caused it. Maybe it just started softly
| and got louder. I think it appeared in my early 20s, couldn't
| swear that it didn't start way before then, and I'm pretty sure
| it was there when I was about 30. It seems strange somehow that I
| just don't actually know.
| keithnz wrote:
| mine just suddenly happened. It really bothered me to start
| with, now I barely notice it even though its actually kind of
| loud.
| timlod wrote:
| I've had Tinnitus since I was 14 (when I went to a concert and
| stood in front of the speakers).
|
| A couple of pieces of advice to people who might be struggling
| with their tinnitus:
|
| 1. You need to learn to cope with it - once you're used to it, it
| will mostly fade into the background and be manageable. Accepting
| that it'll never be silent again was very difficult, but that's
| the only thing hat helped me feel better in the end.
|
| 2. Wear ear plugs when it gets too loud! It's too easy to get
| irreversible damage to your hearing, and that's the only thing
| you can really do - prevent it.
|
| Curiously, yesterday I woke up at night because the tinnitus had
| gotten louder again - stupidly, I played drums the other day at a
| jam session without earplugs. I could punch myself for that one,
| and see it as (yet another) wakeup call to be more careful.
| jchook wrote:
| Is tinnitus really just "freaker by the speaker" syndrome?
| Naijoko wrote:
| No. Many people got it because of burn out stress for
| example.
| philjohn wrote:
| No - I had tinnitus from when I was quite a young child.
|
| As OP said though - it's a case of, if you focus on it, it'll
| weigh you down.
| Gare wrote:
| Prolonged exposure to loud sounds, short extremely loud
| sounds (explosions), ototoxic drugs (some antibiotics,
| chemo..) and substances (toluene..) and viral infections that
| spread into inner ear can all cause cochlear damage and
| therefore tinnitus.
| collyw wrote:
| Covid vaccines as well.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8788157/
|
| I know, I am a heretic for drawing any negative attention
| to our savior from the deadly pandemic.
| dahart wrote:
| Covid vaccines do sometimes lead to increased tinnitus
| symptoms. But you can't draw any conclusions from that,
| because getting COVID often leads to increased tinnitus.
| I'm not sure whether it's known yet, but it very well may
| be that on balance there are fewer cases of tinnitus
| associated with the vaccine than with the virus. Also,
| BTW, flu vaccines and catching the flu both have reports
| of tinnitus increase. My theory: any inflammation event
| may be likely to increase tinnitus symptoms.
| collyw wrote:
| What difference does it make if covid causes it? Most
| people took the vaccine, pretty much everybody got covid
| anyway. The vaccine was voluntary (with a lot of
| unethical coercion).
| Gare wrote:
| I got vaccinated three times (with Pfizer). No ill
| effects on my hearing/tinnitus (I was monitoring it).
| Then I got COVID (Omicron), was quite sick for several
| days (lost smell) and it seems the tinnitus worsened a
| bit in one ear. So... your mileage may vary, as with
| everything.
| collyw wrote:
| Th vaccine worked well then. Let me guess, it would have
| been so much worse without it...
| collyw wrote:
| Earplugs often give me tinnitus when I am wearing them.
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| Have Tinnitus.
|
| I had the ever common thinking it was caused by a visit to the
| dentist or the antibiotics that were prescribed. Maybe it was,
| maybe it wasn't.
|
| It was also possibly when I walked behind a server rack and the
| fans were blowing air and the sound from the fans were loud, both
| into my ears. This could could have caused the damage that caused
| the tinnitus.
|
| Took about two days to kick in fully. Tinnitus started, then
| stoped. Then started like it wanted to kick in fully and then
| stopped. Then started and never left.
|
| 99% of the time I never notice it. 1% of the time I do notice.
|
| I also think it has something to do with neck pain and the
| muscles behind the head and around the neck. If I sleep in the
| wrong position and get a sore neck, then the tinnitus is crazy
| loud.
|
| I remember thinking my life would never be the same. I was stuck
| with this forever. Pretty traumatic event. To anyone else out
| there, please find comfort that you'll get used to it. You won't
| notice it. It's not the end of the world. Don't stress. You'll be
| fine.
| talldrinkofwhat wrote:
| The beauty of our race is it's absurd ability to accept
| uncomfortable situations as "normal".
|
| the obvious exceptions being chronic pain, and the jets'
| imperative to steal defeat from the jaws of victory.
| bandola wrote:
| Thank you. I needed to hear the last part.
| teh_infallible wrote:
| I'm surprised no one has suggested noise canceling headphones as
| a possible cause. There was an HN post about this awhile back
| jomamasayknocku wrote:
| I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned noise canceling
| headphones as a possible cause. There was an HN thread about this
| awhile back. This has been mentioned on many forums, google it.
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| We had tinnitus before anc was common
| abdela wrote:
| My tinnitus (from a single loud party), which I had before
| noise canceling headphones, gets worse with noise canceling
| headphones, but only temporarily, like 2 or 3 days.
|
| I found out as well that my headphones plays my own voice back
| to me so that I dont shout, but was able to turn that off in
| the settings (Jabra 2), which seems to help.
| teh_infallible wrote:
| I'm not saying it's the only cause, but it may well aggravate
| it.
|
| https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250886390
| mrtksn wrote:
| I have tinnitus which I managed to cure(almost. In complete
| silence I still can hear a teapot-like sound but the original
| single tone high volume sound is no more).
|
| Turns out it's about my neck. I religiously paid attention to my
| neck position and fixed my posture, and as a result, my tinnitus
| gradually disappeared.
|
| If I sit in a bad position or sometimes do some weird move, my
| tinnitus can return but I immediately start a neck massage and
| fix my posture, and it goes away. Sometimes it can be very severe
| and lower volume version remains, but it goes away the next day.
|
| I think it happened because I used to move my head forward when
| sitting in front of a screen. There are chiropractors, who claim
| to fix tinnitus by fixing the head position and say that it's
| associated with some nerve in the neck.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Can you describe in more detail how you adjust your position?
| You move your neck back, I guess, and anything else?
| mrtksn wrote:
| IIRC, when I was trying to mask the sound with the shower I
| noticed that it's not working when the water is cold or when
| I'm not comfortably under it. Then I had a few days of road
| trip without the laptop and noticed improvement when I was
| driving, sitting up straight.
|
| So I decided to work on this and bought a keyboard and a
| mouse and made myself a rule that I will always use the
| laptop with a stand or external display so I don't lean over
| the laptop and sit straight up the way it is ergonomically
| recommended, pretty much like it says on articles like this:
| https://healthandbalance.com.au/workstation-desk-posture-
| erg...
|
| I also begin doing neck exercises, recommended to me by an
| orthopedist(I got some neck pain for a few days, the
| orthopedist gave me a couple of movement I should do
| regularly to increase the straight of my neck muscles, I will
| leave links to the leaflets of the movements). I also did the
| push the chin to push your head back movement because
| although I didn't have clinically severe situation with my
| head moving forward I noticed that on my old photos my head
| wasn't leaning forward that much.
|
| After a week or so after I started sitting right, my tinnitus
| begin to improve rapidly. I even began sleeping the
| orthopedically correct way and avoiding any stress positions.
| After some time I tried experimenting stress positions, like
| using the laptop the way I used to and the tinnitus returned
| in full force until I fix the posture and do some massages.
| After a year or two the tinnitus was almost completely gone
| and stress positions don't immediately bring it back anymore
| so I can use laptop again but if I'm not careful and overdo
| it, get carried away and lean into the screen it returns.
|
| the leaflets:
|
| https://imgbb.com/XWnTZVB
|
| https://imgbb.com/r6PBbTK
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| For me it's about tightness in the SCM (Sternocleidomastoid
| muscle) and scalene muscles. If I can successfully get them
| to loosen up through some heat and massage, I can make my
| neck pop (very loudly in fact, sometimes it makes my arm go
| numb for a second) and whamo, tinnitus gone. It returns as
| soon as the neck stiffness/tightness comes back though.
| t4h4 wrote:
| Mine was caused by my neck as well! At some point I was
| contemplating suicide because it got so bad. Completely healed
| with dry needle theraphy.
| mrtksn wrote:
| The worst part, no one takes your condition seriously. Glad
| to hear that you are well too.
| tom8opot8o wrote:
| I had tinnitus my entire life and it's really annoying. I always
| thought everyone had it too, until I found out they didn't,
| which, in a way, was even more annoying. At the same, I can say
| my hearing is pretty sharp. I often hear sounds that are too
| subtle or far away for others to hear. So I'm not sure if in my
| case the ringing has to do with hearing loss. But I'd be so happy
| to give anything a shot
| LoganDark wrote:
| I can hear ringing in dead silence, and if I pay close
| attention I can hear it without silence, too. But some say
| that's just blood flowing, and real tinnitus is much more
| obvious.
|
| Regardless, I can't escape it either. If I focus on it, I can
| make myself dissociate from the pain.
| nomy99 wrote:
| its diabetes in disguise is what my doc said
| JPLeRouzic wrote:
| Hey, this is very interesting. Do you have any pointer?
| nomy99 wrote:
| The inflammation in your body can be picked up by your ears
| if you are sensitive to it
| JPLeRouzic wrote:
| Yes, a quick search through Pubmed shows that 25% of
| Diabetes patients have Tinnitus.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35261656/
| beltsazar wrote:
| I have a relatively minor tinnitus, which I thought was caused by
| my drum lessons in my early twenties.
|
| But when I tried to remember it, I always heard something like a
| tinnitus sound (albeit quieter) whenever I closed my ears with my
| hands since my childhood, during which I was never exposed to any
| loud music or sound.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I sometimes have a difficult time trying to tell if I actually
| have tinnitus, or if I can simply detect something that's there
| for everyone. Plenty of websites say that you will always be able
| to hear the blood flowing through your ears, and that doesn't
| count as tinnitus. It's just that most people subconsciously
| filter that out, to the point where it can't be detected even if
| they look for it, except while in a completely silent, noise-
| deadening room, such as an anechoic chamber.
|
| It's similar to how I don't have any issues with color in my
| vision, yet when I look at a completely solid and flat color, I
| can see noise in it. It's not visual snow, because it obstructs
| nothing and I can easily tell the difference between even very
| similar colors, but I don't seem to experience the "noise
| reduction effect" where if I stare at a solid color, it is
| completely and entirely solid and unchanging and has no noise at
| all.
|
| I believe I'm simply observing entropy, and that noise is
| supposed to be there, because it's impossible for light to always
| explore all possible paths instantaneously and exhaustively. But
| I'm not supposed to be able to notice or perceive it, I don't
| think.
|
| I think it has to do with me being autistic, but it's hard to
| find any descriptions of similar experiences online, and it's
| also hard to communicate about it with others.
|
| Exception: my right eye has significantly more noise, to the
| point where it's difficult to actually see and read through that
| eye, even though I can still see all colors and text perfectly
| sharply. If I close my left eye, I will see the darkness through
| my right, to the point where it's distracting. I think this was
| an error caused by me being cross-eyed at birth; my right eye
| just sorta deteriorated, and now it only exists for depth
| perception.
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| I see the same noise, but I think it's along our nerves rather
| than the light it's self. High rest camera don't pick it up for
| example.
|
| There's a lot of filtering happening in the visual cortex all
| the time. Your nose for example is visible but gets ignored. (I
| hate it when I remember this and suddenly notice it lol)
|
| There's also the blind spot in each eye which gets covered by
| what the other eye can see. If I close one eye now, I can alway
| see exactly where that blind spot is now.
|
| After I had an eye test where they flashed a light in my eyes,
| I perceived the blood vessels. Now I can sometimes perceive
| them if I look at a white TV screen and pay attention.
| LoganDark wrote:
| > Your nose for example is visible but gets ignored
|
| To me, it's anything that's covered in one eye, but visible
| by the other, that can get "ignored". It's just binocular
| vision at work. Similar to the blind spot thing you
| mentioned.
|
| I've seen my blood vessels too, but they didn't just flash a
| light in my eyes, they had me look into a machine that did a
| full retinal scan. Now that was fun, because it was 15
| minutes of "wtf your eyelashes are too long they keep getting
| in the way. keep trying"
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| > It's just binocular vision at work.
|
| Agreed, these are just binocular vision. But here's an
| interesting one.
|
| A relative had a pituitary tumor crushing her optic nerve,
| and went to a specialist who ran some tests as she was
| seeing Van Gogh style patterns everywhere. It turns out she
| had no color vision in the periphery, but she didn't know
| this. It was only when she couldn't correctly identify the
| color of some lights until they were right in front of her,
| and she got freaked out by it.
| LoganDark wrote:
| That's really cool. It's similar to how I can only read
| what's in the exact center of my vision, but I don't
| really notice because I'm always looking at what I'm
| trying to read. When my eyes move, my brain still
| maintains the illusion that what I'm reading has not
| actually moved, I look where I am focusing, so the data
| is there when I need it.
|
| This is all really cool, honestly.
|
| I can read fine from my left eye, but if I try to read
| with my right eye, then both eyes will be superimposed,
| and sometimes I'll get confused when my brain is trying
| to parse two sentences at once and it forgets which eye
| it's reading with.
|
| My right eye is defective, lol. Even though it can see
| perfectly clearly and sharply, my brain just doesn't
| treat it properly. Everything that relies on having two
| eyes works fine, like depth perception, but anything that
| relies on only one eye, can only really be done with my
| left.
| nostromo wrote:
| A lot of us also spend too much time in quiet environments.
|
| When I'm outside, my tinnitus is barely noticeable. It's only
| when I'm in my silent office does it drive me crazy.
| jader201 wrote:
| I don't know if this is a clue, but I can do muscle movements in
| my head/face/jaw to make the tinnitus worse (only as I make the
| movements, immediately reverting back to "normal" tinnitus as
| soon as I relax).
|
| Some examples:
|
| - jutting my jaw forwards
|
| - moving my ears back with my face muscles
|
| - pushing downward on the top of my head with my hands
|
| Another possible clue: this has been true since I can remember --
| even as a child, well before I developed tinnitus. I always
| thought this was normal, until mentioning it to others, and it
| seems no one I know shares this experience.
|
| This, to me, suggests that (my flavor of tinnitus, at least) may
| be due to physical/muscle related causes, and not necessarily
| associated with hearing damage or neurological. Or that I was
| "destined" to get tinnitus at some point, as if I was born with
| some defect that others weren't.
|
| Or, it could just be that there is something else unrelated with
| how my muscles are connected to my hearing that cause the same
| tinnitus (e.g. same frequency), and that the persistent tinnitus
| actually is hearing damage.
|
| I've not looked into it much, and have really only mentioned this
| to my doctor (who mostly blew it off as irrelevant), and others
| in my family. But thought I'd share here in case anybody
| experienced something similar, and may have insight into what
| causes this "muscle-related tinnitus", and if it's somehow
| connected or unrelated to the persistent tinnitus.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Interesting. I can "play my eardrums", which I describe as the
| ability to consciously control something in my ears that causes
| a loud fluttering, ringing sound that is something like wind
| entering my ear canals combined with a bell.
|
| After some research I've found some people can control
| something called the "tensor tympani" and generate sounds
| described as a "roar" but being a subjective experience I am
| not certain this is exactly what I am doing.
| huytersd wrote:
| That _is_ interesting. I assumed everyone could hear that. I
| can hear the sound (roar, ocean, wind) when I move my jaw
| forward but I can also just directly control it without
| moving anything else. It's a muscle I can feel myself
| controlling and contracting in my inner ear.
| hackernewds wrote:
| I think that is the experience of _everyone_
| smegger001 wrote:
| yeah i think i do the same thing as you with my ears. a
| flutter is probably the best description of it i had thought
| of it as clapping or clicking my ears but that is to sharp a
| sound to really describe it
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| I can do this too. It also does the same thing as yawning
| when your ears get blocked on a plane or driving up a steep
| hill. It unblocks them.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I'm wondering if this is something different, or if it's
| a more intense level of the other thing. I'm able to pop
| my ears without any apparent tensioning of my jaw or a
| yawn reflex. But I can do it while also making the
| rushing sound or not.
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| Yeah okay, that must be something different (that I can't
| do) then.
| matsemann wrote:
| Yeah, it's two different muscles for the rumbling vs
| clicking. Tensor veli palatini opens the eustachian tube
| and makes a click. The rumbling is from the tympani.
| ce4 wrote:
| Stapedius reflex? Some can control this muscle
| volintarily (me as well), it dampens incoming noise by a
| few dB to protect the ears.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_reflex
| sedatk wrote:
| I can do that too.
| luplex wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that's the tensor tympani. I also think your
| description sounds closer to what I do. For me it sounds like
| wind, but only lower frequencies.
| cjsme wrote:
| Ditto! Very useful for relieving ear pressure at altitude.
| bartvk wrote:
| Yeah, I also use it for that. I've asked people the
| question, "can you click your ears"? Of course, they don't
| understand me, because it's such a vague question. I
| started asking, "can you relieve your ear pressure without
| moving anything else", and most people answer no. One
| person who dived, answered "yes, of course!" like it's
| something all people can.
| jaeckel wrote:
| If someone doesn't know how to do it, they could still
| learn it
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valsalva_maneuver
| metafunctor wrote:
| That's not the same thing, I believe.
| jaeckel wrote:
| It's not the same thing, but it would allow them to
|
| > "[...] relieve your ear pressure without moving
| anything else"
| jaeckel wrote:
| And I just realized that I meant the Frenzel Maneuver,
| which I always forget the name of. OK you need a nose
| clip, but besides that it's hands free.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frenzel_maneuver
| matsemann wrote:
| Frenzel is not done by controlling the muscles in the
| ear. It's done by controlling your epiglottis and your
| tongue and push air against a blocked nose. So while it's
| hands free, it's not the same.[1]
|
| With controlling the muscles in the ear, one can do it
| without a nose clip. It's called BTV (or VTO sometimes in
| English)[2], and instead of forcing air in to open the
| eustachian tube, you just open it by muscles.
|
| [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear_clearing [2]:
| https://www.freedivinginstructors.com/article/204
| sanitycheck wrote:
| I used to scuba dive, and yes - can "click my ears" while
| breathing freely through my nose and/or mouth. We were
| taught to use Valsalva when feeling pressure during
| ascent/descent, and after a while I found I was able to
| just use the right muscles voluntarily instead.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| BTV or Jan Dow sound closest to what's being described in
| this thread.
|
| To me, it "feels" kind of like moving the base of my
| tongue sideways and tensing my bottom jaw (in the same
| way I would pre-yawn).
| blincoln wrote:
| That second link is a gold mine. Thank you so much for
| sharing.
|
| I've known how to do the basic BTV/VTO for many years,
| but it wasn't quite enough for me to equalize pressure
| while diving (without descending _very_ slowly, I
| suppose). Just a few minutes with the techniques on that
| page has already improved my ability dramatically.
| matsemann wrote:
| Cool, hope it will be of use! I freedived for years
| before trying scuba, so for scuba I have no issues. With
| the head up and all air going there, my VTO is good
| enough.
|
| But for freediving with the air going towards the stomach
| and much faster descent it's still a bit tricky. One
| thing is if I'm not equalizing quickly enough, no amount
| of force I can muster will open the tubes again without
| actually doing a more classic pinch nose technique. Doing
| a classic equalize you will often "overblow" air in and
| can descend a bit before needing to equalize again. But
| with VTO you're only equalizing to a perfect balance so
| will need to make sure to keep equalizing to not get
| under pressure. But of course not as much hassle hands
| free, I try to just do click-click-click continuously,
| almost every kick down to remind myself to keep it open.
| But yeah, if I get too much under-pressure I'm not able
| to open it again hands free.
|
| I also feel head angle matters a lot, so trying to not
| bend the neck too much to look down, but instead swim
| down while looking "straight ahead" instead of where
| you're actually going helps for me.
| david-gpu wrote:
| That only allows you to _increase_ the pressure in your
| inner ear, but not _decrease_ like opening them does. For
| example, it would be useful while an airplane is
| descending, but it wouldn 't help while ascending.
|
| There is, however, a simple trick anyone can do to
| equalize the pressure both ways: swallow. Works wonders
| with babies and toddlers.
| hackernewds wrote:
| valsalva involves moving your hands
| atombender wrote:
| I can do that, as well, and it has a practical purpose
| when going hiking in the mountains or scuba diving. But
| nobody I've talked to about it understand what I mean,
| and I can't even explain what the technique is; I'm
| tensing of some muscles, certainly, but I can't explain
| how and which ones they are.
| riversflow wrote:
| I learned to do it by isolating what made my ears pop
| when I yawn. I explain it as "kinda like yawning without
| opening your mouth" which seems to work.
| ingenium wrote:
| This is how I explain it. When I first started scuba
| diving and explained to the instructor that it wasn't an
| issue to pop my ears, he was kind of horrified and was
| like no don't yawn underwater to do that. He didn't seem
| to understand, no matter how many times I explained it,
| that I can do it without actually yawning. You just
| like... mimic the start of a yawn. And then can continue
| it into a full actual yawn if you want to.
| blincoln wrote:
| If it helps, I'm reasonably sure it's the soft palate
| muscles. To cause the effect you're describing, I
| visualize tensing a muscle that runs directly from one
| ear to the other, through the middle of my skull.
|
| It's one of those things where trying to describe it to
| someone who physically can't do it or doesn't know how to
| may make them question your judgment and/or sanity.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| I don't have tinnitus nor "ear rumble", and I can't
| visibly wiggle my ears -- but I can reliably equalize air
| pressure (eg in airplanes or car rides with altitude
| changes) by inducing a yawn (via swallowing-like action
| in my upper throat) and/or moving my jaw side to side.
| matsemann wrote:
| I think it's two different things. When using it to
| equalize ears hands free, it's the tensor veli palatini
| (tvp) you're contracting to open the eustachian tube.
|
| Of course, one might not be able to distinguish what
| muscles one is contracting, so it might be that most people
| actually tense both the tvp and the tympani at the same
| time, getting both the roaring sound from the tympani and
| the clicking sound from the tvp when the tubes open. Hence
| it's two different, but connected, things.
| meindnoch wrote:
| This is the correct answer.
|
| tensor tympani rumble = deep continuous rumbling sound
| you may hear when yawning
|
| Eustachian tube clicking = a single slightly wet click
| you hear when you move your soft palate to block off your
| nasal cavity from your throat (via the tensor veli
| palatini muscle)
| tudorw wrote:
| Oh Internet, so maybe I can do that, thought we all could!
| Sounds like roaring wind...
| carrozo wrote:
| There's a whole subreddit dedicated to this, which they call
| "ear rumbling":
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/earrumblersassemble/
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Ear rumbling is not the same as tinnitus. I can make my ear
| rumble, and I also have tinnitus (constant ringing or high
| pitched frequency sound). At least I assume, I have never
| bothered getting it diagnosed by a doctor because I can
| easily ignore it and have for many years, I only notice it
| when not focusing on anything else and I happen to pay
| attention to it.
|
| I assumed tinnitus was mostly caused by damaging the little
| hairs that sense sound becoming damaged from loud sounds
| and not working anymore, which I would have done with
| headphone use in my teens/early 20s.
| hackernewds wrote:
| wow there's a word for my useless ability!
| echelon wrote:
| Not everyone can do this? That's wild.
| downrightmike wrote:
| I can do that and have tinnitus and they aren't remotely
| the same. I usually use the ear rumble as a real world mute
| option. Someone talking tome and IDK? ear rumble. The
| tinnitus is always there.
| mofeien wrote:
| To add another personal experience to that: I can do that as
| well, and for me it will make my tinnitus louder. It is very
| low pitched but more or less stable around 340Hz, and thus
| actually musically relevant to me as it gives me some kind of
| active, makeshift absolute pitch.
| CapsAdmin wrote:
| I'm not sure if it's the same, but if I listen to pure noise
| (to sleep or something) I can somewhat adjust my hearing to
| focus on certain frequency bands in the uniform noise making
| me to hear a ringing sound in the noise. I can adjust the
| pitch and it will stay at the pitch until I change it.
|
| So with this I can play a melody with the ringing noise.
| Sometimes I do this until I fall asleep. :-)
| LtWorf wrote:
| Not the same thing at all. Try squeezing your eyelids
| really tight, you might hear a noise. That's what he's
| talking about.
| riccardomc wrote:
| I am genuinely shocked I can do it...
| jakderrida wrote:
| I went from, "What's this guy even talking about?" straight
| to inducing roaring after vaguely recall doing it as a child
| over 30 years ago.
| razodactyl wrote:
| Right. I can do it too - I can make them click/crunch and
| roar - which I'm sure is due to the sound muscles make when
| tensed.
|
| Squeeze your fist and hold it up to your ear. It's audible.
| almostnormal wrote:
| Click is from pressure gradient when opening/tightening the
| eustachian tube. If I switch to open I can hear myself
| breathing.
|
| Partially covering the outer ear makes the flow of blood
| audible.
|
| That's not tinnitus-related.
| w4ffl35 wrote:
| I've been able to do it my whole life, chatgpt tells me
| it's this:
|
| Hearing a crackling sound when you flex your ears is
| quite common. This noise typically results from the
| movement of small muscles around your ear, particularly
| the tensor tympani muscle in your middle ear. These
| muscles contract to dampen certain sounds, like chewing,
| but can also be voluntarily or involuntarily activated
| when you move your ears. This action can cause a
| vibration or movement of the eardrum, leading to the
| crackling sound. It's usually harmless, but if you
| experience pain, discomfort, or any other symptoms, it's
| advisable to consult a healthcare professional.
| meindnoch wrote:
| Another example why you shouldn't take ChatGPT at face
| value.
|
| The clicking sound is the opening of the Eustachian tube.
| Flexing the tensor tympani sounds like a deep rumbling.
| im3w1l wrote:
| A long time ago I would sometimes amuse myself by opening
| the tubes and humming some melody - would sound really
| loud.
| itsboring wrote:
| I always just assumed this was a normal thing that everyone
| had and never bothered to look it up. Sounds exactly like the
| roar of a high wind to me.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| I've always been able to do this, and I've always assumed
| that it's not unusual. It does not seem to be at all related
| to my tinnitus.
| ddingus wrote:
| I can do that. It is like a roar at the loudest point I can
| manage. A light effort sounds a lot like the ship thruster
| sound in Asteroids.
|
| I find I can clench the muscle, but can only and occasionally
| relax the thing.
|
| When I do clench, my ear response curve in the midrange, say
| 800Hz to a few KHz, is improved.
|
| Have a fan handy? Try it and listen. You may hear a lot more
| from that fan.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Wait, not everyone can do that?
| tuzemec wrote:
| It sounds like mine is the same flavor. And it's getting worse
| in the last couple of years. I even did MRI scan at some point,
| but it didn't reveal anything.
|
| Recently a neurologist recommend transcranial electrical
| stimulation. Seems that it helps in some cases. Have to look
| around if someone is performing that here.
| pdntspa wrote:
| I have this too, and in fact I can recall that tinnitus first
| came to me after it felt like something in my ear physically
| shifted, in a period of my life where I was not listening to
| loud music or going to loud concerts or otherwise being around
| loud noise. I should note I've had numerous ear problems in the
| past (including multiple colestiatomas), and I used to be able
| to manipulate it with a q-tip or popping my ears. (Don't do
| that! I regret it)
|
| The head massage technique I've had some friends send me to
| temporarily alleviate symptoms never worked.
| makk wrote:
| Some examples: - jutting my jaw forwards - moving
| my ears back with my face muscles - pushing downward on
| the top of my head with my hands
|
| That's wild. Never tried that before but just did and I can
| 100% repro.
| thfuran wrote:
| Only the first and third do anything for me, but both seem to
| add the same high pitch tone to the mix.
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| Same here, what the hell? Luckily it goes away as soon as I
| stop doing it.
| acomjean wrote:
| I get more buzzing with the first and third as well. I like
| the go biting doesn't seem to change it for me.
| 3rd3 wrote:
| To this list I'd add pulling the jaw backward/inward.
|
| Moving the jaw forward and then to the right has the biggest
| effect for me, causing the ringing on the left ear to
| increase. It's asymmetric in that moving the jaw to the front
| left has only a very small effect on the right ear.
|
| Moving the ears backwards has no effect for me.
| ornornor wrote:
| > - jutting my jaw forward
|
| Works for me too. Never noticed it would do it before though.
| I've had very mild tinnitus for as long as I can remember. But
| I mostly only hear it when it's quiet around so I'm lucky in
| that sense I guess.
| chrsmth wrote:
| I've seen this called Somatosensory Tinnitus [0], and it's what
| I have as well. Stretching my neck & clearing my ears of wax
| pretty much resolves it every time, or at least helps a lot.
|
| I only have it on the left side, and my TMJ lines up marginally
| worse on that side, so it's probably related.
|
| [0]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S180759322...
| Lorin wrote:
| Tinnitus was one of the reasons I stopped cracking my neck -
| would trigger it shortly after.
| painted-now wrote:
| It took me a long while to figure out that I can make my
| tinnitus better by pushing by jaw backwards (using my hands).
|
| As I understood it, the ear and the jaw muscle are delicately
| close. "Pressure" on the ear can somehow cause the nerves to
| send such signals.
|
| I got prescribed some special training to relax the muscles in
| the neck and jaw area; still need to start it.
|
| I read that being able to modulate the tinnitus to also be
| quieter somehow is a good indicator of being able to improve it
| with therapy.
| nobrains wrote:
| My symptoms started along with my jaw crackling. So it seems
| they are related.
|
| Putting my symptoms here:
|
| - Constant noise in ear
|
| - Also seems like noise / tingling sensation in the brain
|
| - Is higher just when I wake up
|
| - Started along with an infection that went to the ear.
| Infection cleared up. Tinnitus didn't.
|
| - Been on for a year and a half.
|
| - Its terribly unbearable. Not suicidal level but very close
| to it.
| KomoD wrote:
| > - Its terribly unbearable. Not suicidal level but very
| close to it.
|
| I feel that, it sucks. For me it started with like a
| "blocked" feeling, now I'm at the point where it's constant
| static which makes it impossible to sleep on my side,
| sometimes my left ear goes "deaf" momentarily and a sharp
| ring starts and it makes me "zone out" but ends after
| 15-30s
|
| It's living hell.
| kitsune_ wrote:
| I have the same shit, it sucks.
| Solvency wrote:
| I bet you have a tongue tie. Go get a frenectomy. Do tongue
| stretches. Get some facial massages.
| hackernewds wrote:
| mind elaborating more? I also have horrible sleep apnea
| that is related to a lazy tongue
| lutorm wrote:
| Yes, there are reports of trigger points in the jaw muscles
| being at least partially responsible for tinnitus (see e.g.
| https://www.amazon.com/Trigger-Point-Therapy-Workbook-Self-T...
| which, if you have any muscle related pains, will likely blow
| your mind.) I have exactly the same experience as you. I also
| get jaw induced headaches from biting my nails etc and my
| impression is that it is associated with an increase in my
| tinnitus.
|
| Probably a related mechanism, but I can also sometimes hear my
| eye muscles working. It only happens if I'm sick or otherwise
| feeling under the weather, but moving my eyes rapidly is then
| associated with a swoosh-like auditory impression. I haven't
| heard anyone else experiencing this so far.
| thfuran wrote:
| That's a peculiarly specific sort of autophony.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _moving my ears back with my face muscles_
|
| Uh, this has always made me hear a high-pitched whirr. Like a
| tiny buzzer with a dirty power supply. Huh.
| kstenerud wrote:
| Interesting.. moving muscles does nothing for me. But then
| again I was born with tinnitus. I actually didn't know until
| much later in life that a constant multi-tone ringing in your
| ears is NOT normal - that was simply my reality so I assumed it
| was the same for everyone.
| KomoD wrote:
| > I don't know if this is a clue, but I can do muscle movements
| in my head/face/jaw to make the tinnitus worse (only as I make
| the movements, immediately reverting back to "normal" tinnitus
| as soon as I relax).
|
| I can do that as well.
| BreadPants wrote:
| Lemme guess, somewhat narrow palate, slightly recessed jaw.
| Unable to breathe exclusively through the nose during high
| intensity workout. Possible indications of sleep apnea.
|
| If they're detecting nerve damage, it's happening from nerve
| compression. Tinnitus being a manifestation of the compressed
| nerve.
|
| I would bet money rapid palatal expansion with a proper
| midpalatal suture split would cure you.
| MyFirstSass wrote:
| Had braces for years, they removed 4 molars, was horrible,
| now my smile is too narrow, breathing bad, got TMJ, tongue
| too big for mouth, recessed chin look worse etc.
|
| Why is it that orthodontics used this method? I can see
| locally it's still only some dentists that seem to use palate
| expansion when it's seemingly easier, prettier, quicker,
| healthier etc. than teeth removal + braces?
|
| Thinking about removing my retainers and having a palate
| expansion done instead as you recommend as i seriously feel
| like i'm never really getting enough air during sports, sleep
| etc.
|
| EDIT: This whole reddit thread is quite crazy, full of people
| having all sorts of issues cured by various methods that
| classic ortho wont approve: https://www.reddit.com/r/orthotro
| pics/comments/11ow1yb/expan...
| BreadPants wrote:
| You're on the right track
| hackernewds wrote:
| how does nerve damage relate to sleep apnea? doctors have
| recommended tonsil removal to expand my palate space.
|
| also have tinnitus bte
| BreadPants wrote:
| It doesn't. If you have tinnitus caused by any one or more
| of the other issues, you likely have sleep apnea on top of
| it.
|
| Enlarged tonsils themselves are indicative of poor nasal
| breathing. If you have them completely removed you'll
| suffer from greatly reduced immune response. You have a
| fighting chance with intracapsular. Palate expansion
| through a good Ortho is still probably way better.
| beingfit wrote:
| For me, with tinnitus in one ear (buzzing), what helps is
| moving (and stretching) the jaw downwards and sideways away
| from that ear. The jaw bone on the side with tinnitus also
| makes a low cracking noise every time I make this move. Keeping
| my jaw in that weird position (downwards and sideways) turns
| off the buzzing many a times. But it's temporary. It's also not
| easy to keep the jaw in that tensed position for a long time.
| On the other hand, keeping my jaws relaxed does not make it
| better or worse.
|
| I'd love to know if there are any videos of exercises that
| could help reduce or cure this form of tinnitus.
| hackernewds wrote:
| have you tried this
|
| https://youtu.be/2yDCox-qKbk?si=eEjtlP97v8UiubX4
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Same here! Mine is in one ear, mild, started with a sinus
| infection and changes depending on whether I have a cold or
| not.
|
| I initially assumed it was caused by babies / children - we
| have three and they are loud. Plus my kids have screamed
| directly into my ears on occasion (and been punished for it).
| COGlory wrote:
| Do you have TMJ?
| kitsune_ wrote:
| As a child my teeth were corrected by pulling my lower jaw back
| with elastic bands. Not only do I have a weak chin because of
| this, but in hindsight I think my tinnitus might be related to
| this as well.
| cedws wrote:
| I have major distrust of orthodontics as a practice. I see it
| as chiropractic for teeth. I have permanent damage to one
| side of my jaw (TMJ) as a result of braces. They not only put
| unlevel bite blocks in, they did an extraction before putting
| my braces on. There is literature pointing to this as a
| common cause of TMJ issues.
|
| I was told that the clicking sounds are just due to gas in
| the joint by a TMJ specialist, but I can literally feel my
| jaw jut to one side, so I'm convinced the bone is damaged.
| MyFirstSass wrote:
| Same!
|
| I had braces as a kid and something always seemed off
| intuitively about how they "fixed" my teeth.
|
| Also got TMJ, recessed chin, and i've never felt my
| breathing has been very good afterwards, like my whole face
| became too narrow after removing 4 molars making me just a
| bit less attractive.
|
| And after deep diving orthodontics i'm pretty fucking mad.
| It seems there are way better methods that keep both
| aesthetics and a more natural breathing - ie. a little
| palate expansion to make space for your teeth instead of
| removing teeth and having braces for years.
|
| It's even quicker, like what the actual!
|
| I still have retainers on, and i'm considering having them
| removed and having rapid palate expansion done as others in
| this thread recommends. As they also point out, i also have
| a hard time breathing correctly during sports, and have
| been worrying over sleep apnea.
| kitsune_ wrote:
| My breathing is impaired as well, there is simply not
| enough space in my mouth as a result of the fix.
| MyFirstSass wrote:
| Exactly, my tongue also seems like it's too big for my
| mouth afterwards.
|
| I wonder if rapid palate expansion would fix this also.
| CapsAdmin wrote:
| I have the exact same experience. I believe it's called
| "somatic tinnitus" and I've had it for as long as I can
| remember.
|
| Every now and then I get ringing in my ears that fade out
| quickly, which is normal. I always thought that was the sort of
| constant ringing people had when they talk about tinnitus, and
| the one you describe is a different class of tinnitus.
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| Yes it's somatic tinnitus. I can make mine go away for a few
| hours, sometimes a whole day by loosening up my SCM muscles
| and popping my neck. Other times it backfires and gets worse.
| Very annoying, but the ability to have SOME control over it
| makes things less depressing at least.
| peebeebee wrote:
| Yup. Pushing jaw forward is the most prominent one. Goes up a
| lot.
| j45 wrote:
| This is interesting in terms of tinnitus that can be brought on
| after a car accident, or a concussion. And maybe as a
| derivative of the former, TMJ.
|
| A muscle related tinnitus seems entirely plausible to me in
| addition to any potential nerve related tinnitus tied to, for
| example, listening to loud music.
| stndef wrote:
| Very relatable. Have always been able to do this.
|
| I have quite significant hearing loss these days, which has
| been tied back to having Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, relating to
| connective tissue development, which in part could impact areas
| that result in certain types of tinnitus developing.
|
| Worse thing about tinnitus and hearing loss is that the more
| your hearing goes, the louder the tinnitus gets. Haven't heard
| proper silence in over a decade. Bit of a nightmare sometimes!
| adamddev1 wrote:
| Yes, me too. An ENT also told me that my tinnitus was muslce-
| related and I got huge relief (low tones totally disappeared)
| from some good physiotherapy and osteopathy. (See my other
| comment)
| baerrie wrote:
| I have found that if I meditate and "focus" on the area where
| my inner ear/behind my ear is eventually I can quiet the
| tinnitus some or even completely. I've been able to reproduce
| it three or four different times. I imagine the nerve endings
| shrinking, receding, or calming down, and it causes some
| relief. Could be psychosomatic but it is repeatable and the
| effect lasts
| Jhsto wrote:
| > suggests that (my flavor of tinnitus, at least) may be due to
| physical/muscle related causes
|
| I have explosion-related tinnitus/hearing damage and it also
| reacts to muscle movements. So, it seems like they are the
| same.
| maushu wrote:
| Interesting. I don't have tinnitus but when I jut my jaw
| forward I hear really low white noise.
| 123pie123 wrote:
| interesting, I've just tried it and I get the same
| arbuge wrote:
| Could it be that those movements are pinching a nerve somewhere
| and causing the tinnitus?
| palla89 wrote:
| I've an issue similar to yours, playing with my jaws especially
| yawning seems to increase the whistle while I'm doing it, then
| it come back to normal. I can hear it almost onyl at night and
| only in the right ear. Sometimes when I yawn a lot I can
| dismiss it totally (at least for that night) What the hell is
| this? I also did a hearing test and I've no problem.
| adamhp wrote:
| Same here. Mine is basically directly correlated with bite
| pressure. When I'm chewing sometimes I can literally hear the
| ringing going "wah, wah, wah" in time with my chewing. And if I
| grit my teeth I can make it get much louder than its baseline.
| Same if I open my jaw quite wide (sometimes this helps?). I've
| ground my teeth my whole life. And I can definitely point at
| one or two concerts that probably did some significant damage.
| itsboring wrote:
| Very interesting. Jutting my jaw forward makes a very obvious
| loud squeal at what sounds like a lower frequency than my
| normal background tinnitus. I never noticed that before.
|
| I do clench my teeth a lot from anxiety and get muscle pain in
| the sides of my face on occasion. I wonder if that's related.
| riedel wrote:
| Exactly the same for me.
| loceng wrote:
| I've had the unfortunate "superpower" of living with central
| sensitization and hyperalgesia - a hypersensitivity to pain -
| for the last ~10 years.
|
| Not everyone's nervous system works this way but for a
| significant portion of the population there is the capacity of
| the nerves to refer pain to other parts of the body, whether in
| the nerves themselves or signalling in the brain region itself
| cascading or both.
|
| There also seems to be a lack of understanding or consideration
| that merely normal pressures on nerves, with subtle levels of
| additional pressure, will actually cause a pain signal or
| sensitization of that nerve line (either or both directions) to
| occur.
|
| What you state could be a clue to pain _somewhere_ in your
| body. It could be tooth pain, it could be jaw pain, it could be
| bite-alignment pain, e.g. where your jaw position and bite with
| teeth is causing pressure on nerves that it doesn 't expect or
| want.
|
| It could also instead be a hypersensitivity to sound you have,
| and so those nerve line(s) are amped up - so then anything
| connected or in close proximity to it will then
|
| From my experience with pain, 99.999% of doctors have no real
| understanding of pain, and there's a whole body of work waiting
| to be written and to start being taught closer to properly; and
| the rest of them still only have a fairly niche but not
| holistic understanding.
|
| There is a book called "Hearing Equals Behaviour: Updated and
| Expanded" that dives into a sound therapy developed 70+ years
| ago in France, called Berard AIT [Auditory Integration
| Training], for where you can do a non-standard audiogram to
| check for imbalances in the hearing - for which at certain
| frequencies you can with accuracy predict a set of behaviours
| that person will likely have. If such imbalances show up in
| these special audiograms then it's either a sign of damage or a
| sign of how the brain is processing audio-sensory signals, and
| which may been interfered with - proper development disrupted -
| if say you had painful ear infections as a child who's brain is
| rapidly developing, and now where your brain is abnormally
| associating sound as pain. Berard AIT can get rid of tinnitus,
| depending on its cause, essentially giving the brain an
| opportunity to recalibrate.
|
| Did you ever have ear infections as a child, and do you
| remember if they were painful at all?
| Sosh101 wrote:
| I have exactly the same thing. Most tinnitus is caused damage
| to the hair cells in the cochlea from loud noises for extended
| periods of time (as is mine). My theory is that the brain
| basically turns up the gain to compensate for the poor
| performance of the sensor. I think tinnitus is basically
| interference, or cross-talk from other nervous processes that
| normally are low level background.
|
| Last time I went for a hearing test the doctor asked me if I
| had been in an explosion (not to my knowledge).
| matja wrote:
| > pushing downward on the top of my head with my hands
|
| I've never tried or noticed this before until you mentioned it,
| but this makes my tinitus noticeably worse. It's not really
| louder, but seems to add "harmonics".
| hackernewds wrote:
| same. wow this really lends to the "it's physical" theory
| berniedurfee wrote:
| Mine is due to hearing damage from being stupid.
|
| I can modulate it as well using my jaw muscles.
|
| What I've always found interesting is that I can't describe the
| sound. It's high pitched, but I've never found a frequency of
| tone that matches or even comes close to the tinnitus.
|
| I would imagine the signals my brain receives from the damaged
| nerves is very complex. Not white noise, but probably the
| equivalent of a tone with lots of specific harmonics.
|
| As for my experience, it's been an issue for so long it doesn't
| generally affect me. It's always there and I can't ignore it,
| but it doesn't disrupt my life, other than having generally not
| great hearing.
| longstation wrote:
| This is exactly the same as mine. I never found any with this
| situation. Even if someone claims to have tinnitus, it's a
| different variation.
|
| My feeling is, for a lack of better word, grateful, (definitely
| not a good thing for your or me) that I finally found someone
| the same as mine.
|
| Next time I ever want to see a doctor again for this (not
| helpful btw, they don't really have cure or seem to understand
| my situation), I will just show your comment!
| hackernewds wrote:
| if it helps you or your doctor, my experience is exactly the
| same. I can amplify the tinnitus with jaw movements
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| Same here. Head and neck movement can make my tinnitus worse.
| If I sleep poorly on my neck then I can wake up with my
| tinnitus being much louder.
| dahart wrote:
| > pushing downward on the top of my head with my hands
|
| Have you tried pulling up to make it less noticeable? I've long
| suspected my neck muscles had something to do with making
| tinnitus worse. Or, like you said, maybe there is a correlation
| or interaction with head & neck muscles that isn't causal but
| nonetheless seems to affect the symptoms. Cervical traction,
| i.e. a device that pulls up on your head, sometimes seems to
| help me, as does neck stretching & relaxation. Make sure to
| consult a doctor or physical therapist about cervical traction,
| it's easy to overdo it without guidance.
| jader201 wrote:
| Interesting, that _may_ help but if so only slightly. I
| wonder if an inversion table would help identify whether this
| helps /is a factor.
| dahart wrote:
| I think an inversion table might help my tinnitus slightly
| maybe but not much... it mostly helps and puts tension on
| the lower back, and a lot less on the neck. Inversion, or
| lumbar traction, seem to help with sciatica. (And yeah,
| that's another one where it seems like there's an
| interaction between muscles and nerves.)
| darksim905 wrote:
| Where are you based, and would you want to troubleshoot with a
| friend who notices similar things? :)
| financltravsty wrote:
| Try putting your fingers in your ears and massaging around.
| I've found it gives me complete relief for about 10 seconds.
|
| I think mine might be related to stress, hypertension, and an
| all-around lack of relaxation.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| My ears ring when I yawn. Does anyone else get that?
| jmckib wrote:
| Yep same here, and I don't have tinnitus. Sometimes I seem to
| get it temporarily though, for unclear reasons.
| jaxr wrote:
| Exact same experience here! particularly, if I move my jaw
| backwards with my jaw muscles, the tinnitus would get worse.
| Never better, though. I do feel the same sometimes, that
| doctors are not listening hard enough to what we are saying.
| I've been suffering tinnitus for 20 years now, and it seems to
| be getting even worse. I really hope a viable treatment is
| found in my lifetime. It would improve my quality of life so
| much!
| dghughes wrote:
| I have tinnitus I mean my ears ring constantly but I've never
| been diagnosed officially. It seems to be a middle C tone.
|
| For years I clenched my jaw and grind my teeth mostly at night
| to the point of damaging my teeth. I wore a guard and then
| didn't now again back at it due to jaw pain. The guard helps a
| bit mainly from damage when asleep and seems to protect my jaw
| joints.
|
| My point being even if my jaw is totally relaxed there is a hum
| from the muscles in my jaw. It's like a 60Hz hum musicians hear
| from AC interference in speakers. I have to wonder if it's part
| of the constant noise I hear in my ears.
|
| I also get BPPV too it's severe sudden vertigo it may be
| related to my clench and tinnitus. It's just random no clue
| what causes it. I can't even walk and have to lay down and not
| even close my eyes just pick a spot and stare. I had to do that
| for 12 hours one time my worst time.
| dathos wrote:
| Interesting, I have issues with jaw clenching and a damaged
| TMJ. I seem to always notice the (incorrect) position of my
| jaw, and when this is in a worse position the clenching
| increases and with that my tinnitus.
|
| I always assumed the softer bones around my ears get deformed
| because of this which in turn causes me to be affected by
| tinnitus.
|
| Honestly the thing that helped best was meditation. I tried
| guards, even a specialized one to realign my jaw slowly, but
| I feel those are just symptom relievers.
| ajkjk wrote:
| It's fascinating how many people have various versions of these
| problems and a bunch of their own theories about it. And how
| many of them are frustrated by orthodontistry for not helping
| or causing it or making it worse.
| deng wrote:
| Yes, this is called somatic tinnitus and is actually quite
| common. Like you, I had this since I was a little child and
| thought this was normal. Only when I first heard of tinnitus as
| a juvenile, I realized that this is what I had.
|
| There have been small studies regarding somatic tinnitus, see
| for instance
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2633109/
|
| For modifying tinnitus loudness, the most common is that it
| increases when clenching the jaw. In the above paper, the
| cerebral blood flow was measured with PET, and for people with
| somatic tinnitus, when clenching their jaw, in addition to the
| sensory-motor areas, the auditory cortex became activated as
| well. However, the underlying reason is unknown.
|
| In my case, I had pretty severe hearing loss as a little child
| because of liquid in my middle ear. Due to that, I continuously
| had my mouth open so that I could hear at least a little bit
| through the eustachian tubes, and I guess this might have
| influenced the interactions between these brain regions. But
| who knows. In the end, my parents realized what's going on and
| I got tympanostomy tubes, and I'm hearing fine now. Of course I
| don't know if the tinnitus really comes from that, because I
| cannot remember (I must have been around 3 years old).
| Natsu wrote:
| It seems like some cases of tinnitus may be due to tight
| muscles, too. I don't usually suffer it, but when I do, I've
| noticed that sometimes massaging the back of the head or jaw
| can make it just go away. I doubt this works for everyone or
| for every cause, but it's simple enough to be worth trying to
| see if it does anything helpful.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| I was curious and tried 'jutting my jaw forwards' and got a
| very loud whine in my ears. I've had ringing in my ears before
| but never diagnosed with tinnitus, now I'm worried...
| petra wrote:
| This study uses fmri neurofeedback to teach people to control
| their auditory cortex, with impact on tinnitus :
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381191...
| speedylight wrote:
| It isn't just that I get tinnitus when my eras are plugged with
| ear wax if I don't clean them a for a while, and when I do poof
| it's magically gone. I figure tinnitus is the brains response to
| a lack of input in a specific frequency range, like filler noise.
| eecc wrote:
| Well, this has always been my suspicion ever since I started
| being affected.
|
| All hearing tests I performed stop at 8k while I can easily hear
| into 15k and my ringing is way up there in the 13-14k range.
| dsco wrote:
| Wow! Just tonight I had a dream that my mild tinnitus had
| worsened at later years. My brain has adjusted to ignoring the
| noise the past 20 years or so, especially when doing physical or
| mentally challenging work. But it's always there as a companion
| in the background if I choose to "tune into it".
| thomasfkk wrote:
| Got mine very recently as a side effect of taking Bupropion
| (Wellbutrin). At 150mg I had no side effects and it was working
| well (for ~12 months). Then Doc upped it to 300mg and with in 2
| weeks silence no longer existed. Went back down to 150mg but
| Tinnitus is still there after 2 months lets see.
|
| Kinda gotta say that if it doesn't get worse its worth the
| positive effects of Bupropion still annoying to be in that 1%
| group with the side effect
| protoman3000 wrote:
| I would like to share, that my tinnitus changes its pitch with
| the rate of breathing and tension on the muscles that help with
| diaphragm breathing
| zubairq wrote:
| Lots of good tips here, thanks!
| phito wrote:
| Badly fitting earbuds (Samsung Galaxy Buds) gave me tinnitus in
| one ear. I still am not sure how that's possible, but wearing
| them for more than 30mn was hurting my right ear, tinnitus
| appeared shortly after and kept getting worse. Once I stopped
| using the buds, the pain went away and the tinnitus decreased,
| but it's still there one year later.
| slig wrote:
| Do they have noise cancelling? There was a thread a while back
| about people blaming active noise cancelling as a possible
| cause.
| supriyo-biswas wrote:
| Does this study bring anything new to the table?
|
| I suffer from tinnitus myself and a doctor determined that there
| was damage to the hair cells and auditory nerves after an ear
| infection. I assumed the cause of such issues was factor was
| pretty well known.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| Severe tinnitus 24/7 is the least of my problems that I mostly
| tune out.
|
| I have left SCDS. It was verified with audiology and CT (a tiny
| pit) after I correctly self-diagnosed it. A traditional approach
| surgery is possible, but it's brain surgery where one surgeon
| accesses the area by lifting your cerebellum out of the way.
| There is a lot to go wrong for something that isn't 100%
| debilitating. Just I can't eat croutons because they're way too
| loud, I always hear my voice like there's a microphone on
| permanent feedback, I can hear my left eye move most of the time,
| and music that's too loud makes my eyes jump off focus with a
| momentary wave of nausea (oculovestibular involvement).
| Naijoko wrote:
| for all people who have tinnitus or the tinnitus is worse because
| of a visit by the dentist. I have tinnitus and it got much much
| worse when I got a filling. The reason is they have to make the
| filling the height of the teeth that was there bevore. even half
| a mm more can make your jaws clinch and you get tinnitus. My luck
| I fund another Dentist who took this seriously and took some of
| the filling away so my jaw didnt clinch anymore... and bam my
| tinnitus was back to normal. only a little anectode that could
| help.
|
| The first dentist did deny that it did came from the filling and
| the other one did say thats new to him and he will study on this
| and see me next week urgently. A week later he said it could be
| and we should try it ... many many many thanks to that doctor
| without him I would maybe killed myself
| troll_v_bridge wrote:
| Tinnitus and partial hearing loss is the largest personal pain in
| my life. Ruins my ability to listen to music for pleasure,
| hinders my focus, and overall disheartening. Hoping there is a
| cure in my lifetime, both for hearing loss and tinnitus.
| carlsagat wrote:
| My tinnitus started in 2009 during an anxiety period (the worst
| period of my life) and basically due to an ototoxic drug for
| dizziness.
|
| I had already experienced it after going to a nightclub when I
| was a younger but I never thought that this problem would remain
| forever due to a doctor prescription drug.
|
| Not only that but in the next years I got two more ringings and
| now I (don't have anxiety anymore) I can live normally with
| tinnitus but I'm always hope to get a cure. I was a silence
| junkie previous to the tinnitus and now I miss the "sound" of the
| silence so much.
|
| I believe that once a year I can hear again the silence but it's
| my brain tricking me again.
| aspaviento wrote:
| Does it also sound stronger for you after a nap or intense
| exercise?
| carlsagat wrote:
| Nope, it only gets stronger after some use - or abuse- of
| headphones with medium-high volume.
| bradley13 wrote:
| Reading the comments, it seems pretty obvious that there are
| multiple causes.
|
| To add my own anecdote (because I don't see it mentioned
| otherwise): I have very specific hearing loss (40dB) in one
| frequency range frequency (4khz). That is also the frequency of
| my tinnitus. The cause is almost certainly bored neurons making
| stuff up: there is never input at that frequency, so they produce
| their own.
|
| Maybe fixing the auditory nerve will help some people. Other folk
| will need a different cure...
| Euphorbium wrote:
| It seems like tinnitus is to hearing what migraine is to vision.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| I think it's closer to visual release hallucinations.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_release_hallucinations
| nurettin wrote:
| I can induce a sleep paralysis while my consciousness is awake.
| Why? Well, as a child, I thought it was a cool superpower. As the
| paralysis sets in, I hear a loud wooshing sound. Then it gets
| louder and louder until full paralysis sets in. A few years ago I
| had a similar experience, but it left me with a permanent
| tinnitus. I guess you can hurt yourself by simply lying down
| doing nothing.
| bob1029 wrote:
| This has been highly-variable for me over the years. I have
| noticed changes with with caffeine intake and exercise.
|
| On many occasions I've felt my ears "pop" after an extensive
| cardio session. The result feels like I just took really weak
| earplugs out. Rowing is more prone to do this than other forms of
| exercise in my experience.
|
| I've also noticed that if I force myself to sit in total silence
| and remain as calm as possible, whatever ringing I can hear will
| start to diminish to ~imperceptible within a few minutes. When
| I'm on edge and anxious, the opposite appears to be true.
| austinjp wrote:
| Some speculation in this thread about the causes of tinnitus.
| There are several, including hearing loss, which (as someone here
| points out) possibly produces tinnitus in a manner similar to how
| limb loss can cause phantom limb pain. The nervous system isn't
| like plumbing, it's a tangled web of self-adjusting feedback
| loops. Once an input is severed, an area of the tangled web may
| lose an important calibrating input. Neurons don't emit "noise
| signals" (or "pain signals" or whatever) they just depolarise in
| response to stimulation, and altered calibration alters which
| neurons depolarise and how often. The frequency and number of
| certain neurons depolarising is experienced as noise (or pain or
| whatever) by the conscious human they belong to.
|
| Good talk here[0] BUT BE WARNED, I recall* that there's a high-
| pitched squeal during this talk as a demonstration of what
| tinnitus is like for done people. It's extremely nasty especially
| if you're wearing headphones.
|
| Incidentally, the self-adjusting feedback loop model helps
| explain why things like wiggling your jaw can alter the
| experience of tinnitus. Due to wiring issues, sensory input from
| muscles and joints can get mixed in with the auditory inputs. A
| similar mechanism (which isn't fully understood) helps explain
| why, for example, people having a heart attack can experience
| pain in the left arm. There's nothing wrong with the arm, the
| normal sensory signals from the arm are mixing with those from
| the heart.
|
| [0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=XGq3MXQlRJs
|
| * Can't verify right now, trusting my memory.
| razodactyl wrote:
| Not sure if tinnitus but I've heard a ringing in super-quiet
| environments since I was a kid.
|
| Mid-30s now and a few months back I had a case where the ringing
| was very noticeable and it lasted a few weeks. I think what set
| it off was some hearing damage from using high-frequency
| equipment without hearing protection but it was definitely an
| experience that I'm not keen on repeating.
|
| Once I noticed that the background ringing was louder than normal
| I couldn't un-hear it and it was starting to drive me nuts.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| That's tinnitus.
| collyw wrote:
| Also associated with rushed covid vaccines.Perhaps their is good
| reason that vaccines usually take around 10 years to develop.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8788157/
| jFriedensreich wrote:
| What i do not understand is why normal hearing tests were seen as
| a counter argument to the brain compensation for hering loss
| theory. If the brain compensated for the loss of nerve or hearing
| cells, the signal should be back to normal but with more noise,
| the failure of adaptation of the brain to the noise results in
| tinnitus. To have patients with normal or nearly normal hearing
| tests but tinnitus would be expected.
| nettsundere wrote:
| https://uselullaby.com "Lullaby can lower your Tinnitus' volume
| and improve your quality of life with an experimental treatment
| designed specifically for you."
|
| I'm just promoting this because I've tried this myself and it
| kind of helps. At least to relax when the noise gets too painful
| to bear
|
| My case is linked to the neurovascular conflict, but the tool is
| for the brain, so I hope it helps someone else too.
| hackernewds wrote:
| why do you need this paid service? seems they're monetizing 1
| audio clip
|
| here's a YouTube video that does the same thing
|
| https://youtu.be/qNf9nzvnd1k?si=HCFBFkuTCeVd2d_9
| beefman wrote:
| Lullaby is free. It's notched white noise, with an
| interactive test to help you find the notch frequency for
| your tinnitus. So not the same as this youtube clip, which is
| just an ascending sine tone.
| nettsundere wrote:
| It's free and opensource https://github.com/Aerolab/lullaby,
| like it should be
| fierro wrote:
| what is the neurovascular conflict?
| avsteele wrote:
| I developed tinnitus during a bout of COVID last week.
|
| On about the third day I had an earache in one ear. Earache went
| away after about a day but now I have pretty strong tinnitus in
| that ear. COVID symptoms long gone now but tinnitus remains.
|
| 'Volume' is negligible when I wake up but increases over the day.
| I still feel some 'pressure' in that ear (maybe residual sinus
| infection?) so I'm hoping it will heal on its own.
|
| Anyone else experience this?
| pier25 wrote:
| My tinnitus started days after my first covid shot. Plenty of
| people have reported tinnitus after covid or the shots.
|
| Mine is very mild but it's still annoying.
| rogerkirkness wrote:
| Same here, after my first Moderna shot it started and hasn't
| gone away.
| kingTug wrote:
| Has yours been improving at all? Mine started (just in the
| left ear) about 48hrs after my 3rd Pfizer shot and remained
| loud for ~8months. Several months of noticeable dissipation
| followed by true silence at about the 1-year mark. Thought I
| was in the clear but it's started again out of nowhere this
| fall. I'm optimistic it will improve again and can probably
| be controlled with better lifestyle habits but at this stage
| is something I feel I will be managing forever. I've seen
| ENT's and audiologists but they're unable to help past
| confirming my inner ear and hearing are fine. In 2022 John
| Stewart had some infectious disease experts on his podcast
| and one of the epidemiologists stated that he got tinnitus
| from his 2nd vaccine, and his 3rd exacerbated it. It was at
| that point that I realized it had to be somewhat common.
| dahart wrote:
| I've heard of lots of people first noticing tinnitus while
| being sick, as well as like the sibling comment, right after
| getting a vaccine (flu, covid, etc.) It seems like inflammation
| generally makes the symptoms worse, and I'd bet that most of
| the time inflammation is causing latent existing tinnitus to
| cross a threshold and become noticeable and reach your
| consciousness. I distinctly remember that the first time I
| consciously noticed my tinnitus, I knew I'd actually been
| hearing the sound very quietly for some time and not
| recognizing what it was... I don't know how long I had tinnitus
| before I knew I had tinnitus.
| kgbcia wrote:
| Found ringing in the air only occurs when I do inverted
| exercises, like when your upside down
| imtringued wrote:
| I overslept today and I just woke up thirty minutes ago. A minute
| within waking up my brain feels under a lot of pressure and the
| accompanying tinnitus was very intensive. In fact I
| simultaneously have a headache.
|
| As more time passes the intensity of the headache and tinnitus
| get lower by the minute. The idea that tinnitus is caused by
| hearing loss alone sounds like a load of bullshit. Tinnitus gets
| worse when I wear very tight headphones or when I am ill or when
| I move my jaw to apply more pressure to the head. If I could
| engineer some sort of machine to control the pressure applied to
| my head, I am pretty sure I could control the tinnitus.
|
| Since I have built a mental model of when tinnitus is really bad
| and when it it is almost imperceptible, even the most intense
| tinnitus doesn't faze me and strikes me more as an annoyance like
| a mosquito buzzing around, because I know that it will go away.
| Weeks go by where I literally don't think a single thought about
| tinnitus, then suddenly, it strikes and can't be ignored, except
| I know it will go away so I ignore it regardless.
| calini wrote:
| About 6 years ago I caught a bad flu which evolved into an ear
| infection that required antibiotics, my ears were in pain, really
| stuffed, popping etc. When I got that under control, I was left
| with what can only be described as tinnitus, a very high-pitched
| sound in my ears, almost undetectable in my right ear but quite
| annoying in my left.
|
| It was there for about 12-18 months, but it slowly started to go
| away to the point I had to pause for a minute to remember if the
| left/right one was more affected. After 9-12 months I was only
| able to hear it if I was wearing ear plugs, and now I need to
| wear ear plugs and really concentrate to realize that it's not
| 100% silence, but it's close to 1-5% of what it was and even the
| "tone" of the tinnitus is more muted.
|
| I'm not sure if they genuinely healed, if there even is such
| thing as temporary tinnitus (for more than a day/week), or if my
| brain just got better at filtering that out.
| robwwilliams wrote:
| Summary of the science:
|
| 1. Hearing loss is usually caused by damage and death of the hair
| cells----the sensory receptor cells that respond directly to
| sound. The hairs on the upper face of these cells vibratethis
| physically opens ion channels that change the voltage across the
| cell membrane. This in turn causes these cell to releases
| neurotransmitters at their feet. The transmitter release then
| induces series of action potentials (spikes) in the axons of
| spiral ganglion cell; #2 below
|
| 2. But hearing loss can also be caused by damage to the spiral
| ganglion cells themselves. These cells and their axons conduct
| spikes between cochlea and brain. They cells are heavy workers
| and they are also fussy and metabolically demanding cells---even
| by CNS standards. Revving them too high can blow their gaskets.
|
| In sum, two among several mechanisms that contribute to hearing
| loss and tinnitus.
|
| In a very similar way, blindness can also be caused by two major
| classes of cell damage and death---1. the death of photoreceptors
| (called retinal degeneration) or 2. by damage to axons in the
| optic nerve (retinal ganglion cell axons). This is usually called
| glaucoma.
|
| This lovely study from Maison and colleagues is focused on the
| consequences of hearing loss caused primarily by damage to
| cochlear nerve fibers and their synapses in the cochlea, not the
| degeneration of hair cells per se.
|
| It is a systematic and rigorous study that supports the idea that
| tinnitus can be associated with nerve damage rather than hair
| cell loss. This is a surprisingly hard problem to nail down.
|
| If you want a good introduction to this work then read this
| review article by the same group.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5438769/
| chakintosh wrote:
| It can also be a symptom of brain cancer. My aunt passed away
| last year after suffering from severe tinnitus for two years, and
| not a single doctor suggested and MRI, they all pretty much gave
| her magnesium supplements and drugs to treat the symptom
| (tinnitus) rather than actually thinking outside the box and
| suggesting an MRI to be sure (which is almost free in my
| country). Even I nearly suggested she does it very early on but
| thought I wouldn't know better than doctors.
|
| Eventually, other symptoms started appearing and only then did
| they do an MRI, and lo and behold, a tumor was found at the base
| of her skull and right behind her sinus cavity, it was pressing
| against her auditory nerve and was the cause of all the tinnitus.
| The tumor was basically untreatable via surgery and it was too
| late for chemo.
| pacomerh wrote:
| That was my first thought when developed tinnitus, tumor or
| something pressing in there. In my case it was actually related
| to labyrinthitis, I did get an MRI and it was my first one, oh
| man did I get anxious inside the tube, I feel like it's good
| therapy for learning how to relax hehe. Anyways, Sometimes the
| tinnitus loudness gets worse and sometimes get's quiet, I still
| haven't detected what makes it change. However! recently after
| getting Covid It's been louder more often which tells me maybe
| my nervous system was affected, idk
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| I'm trying to suss out whats my tinnitus. I've had persistent
| fullness in my head for about 2 years now that I can't find an
| explanation for.
|
| Audiologist says I have better than average hearing for my age
| (41).
|
| The precipitating event in my mind was an Opeth concert in 2021.
| However, I never thought anything was too loud there, and wore
| earplugs for most of it. Additionally that was a very stressful
| time. Also, I have ehlers danlos.
|
| So might be TMJ, sinus pressure, EDS, and/or exposure to loud
| music.
|
| It sucks especially because Opeth weren't great performers there.
| I suspect I don't like most live metal shows because they seem to
| make them too loud.
| raziel2p wrote:
| Opeth are just a band more suitable for making studio albums
| than touring. You'll find other metal bands that are amazing
| live but boring when listening at home.
|
| Metal concerts are loud sure, but the loudest concerts I've
| gone to have been electronic or indie stuff with heavy
| electronic influences - they try to make you feel like you're
| in a night club I guess.
| tim333 wrote:
| >It's been a longstanding idea that these symptoms, known as
| tinnitus, arise as a result of a maladaptive plasticity of the
| brain. In other words, the brain tries to compensate for the loss
| of hearing by increasing its activity, resulting in the
| perception of a phantom sound, tinnitus.
|
| I can't say I buy that. I've got tinnitus. Also sometimes my
| brain has a loss of input as I can't see, hear of feel something
| and it's nothing like tinnitus.
|
| It seems more likely to me that it's a problem with the gizmo
| that converts mechanical movement into electrical impulses. It
| consists of a string like thing, the tip link, between two hairs
| that pulls on an ion channel in a nerve cell wall to let ions in
| and trigger the nerve to give a sound signal. (pic here, fig 1 if
| you scroll down
| https://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674%2809%2901170-2)
|
| When you get an over loud sound it probably yanks that thing too
| hard leaving the ion channel stuck open some how or something
| along those lines.
|
| The whole thing is tiny - the tip link is about 150nm long.
| Another pic here
| (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2921850/ fig 1)
| skimojoe wrote:
| The produced by the brain aspect as never washed with me too.
| My tinnitus started right after a severe sinus infection that
| spread to my ears. I was so blocked up an needing some sleep
| that I did a nasal wash and was to forceful in blowing my nose
| (my ears popped). Since then tinnitus has been there everyday,
| whereas 35 years before never even knew it was a thing.
| Retric wrote:
| The theory isn't that it's caused by the brain alone, but
| rather it's like the fandom limb pain sensation after an
| amputation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb
|
| The difference is your auditory nerve doesn't directly carry
| touch signals so you hear sounds instead of say an itch.
| ferd wrote:
| For what it's worth, here's my case:
|
| I have tinnitus, a 4khz tone on both ears, one more than the
| other. I have hearing loss at high frequencies (the curve of my
| hearing tests drops abruptively right around 4khz). The side with
| the worst hearing is also the one with worse tinnitus. My loss
| probably comes from many many ear infections as a child (plus
| hearing to loud music on a basement, and just bad genetics).
|
| Things that make my tinnitus worse:
|
| - Basically, any kind of "hearing effort" stresses me out and
| makes my tinnitus worse (busy places, bars, parties, etc. are the
| worse, but even music on my headsets, which I enjoy, make it
| worse). Maybe this puts some doubts on the "phantom limb" theory?
|
| - Stress
|
| - Not sleeping well
|
| - After doing exercise. I play sports, run and lift light
| weights. After any of these exercises, it gets a bit worse
|
| - Driving a car: the humming noise of car drive is probably the
| worse for me
|
| - If I clinch my jaws (mimicking a strong bite) I hear another,
| surprisingly similar tone... However, I feel like it's a
| different thing, not related.
|
| I wished I had a similar list of things that lessen it... I don't
| :-) However: I started using prescription hearing aids. And
| although they don't really help with tinnitus directly, I do feel
| much better: general noise doesn't bother me as much, and of
| course I hear better :-).
|
| Recommendation: if you have some hearing loss, don't wait to use
| a hearing aid, just like you don't wait to wear glasses. They are
| expensive, but worth it. And no, they are not just simple
| "earbuds".
|
| Confession: I play the drums, although very occasionally. I have
| no proof but I'm sure I had hearing loss way before I started
| playing. Playing my drums of course makes my tinnitus worse:
| probably due to the combination of the sound + "exercise".
| pacomerh wrote:
| I have hearing loss in my left ear, from mid frequencies to
| higher. So basically I can only hear bass on my left hear. Do
| people usually get hearing aids when one ear is damaged? I went
| to the doc and they said it was optional since I could still
| have a normal conversation, so I'm not sure if that's what
| you're referring to.
| Zebfross wrote:
| PSA: I thought I had tinnitus but it was just ear wax sitting
| against my eardrum. A doctor cleared it up in 15 minutes.
| figital wrote:
| Some may be able to calibrate their hearing in this regard with
| something called Auditory Integration Training. I have done it.
| It worked. You might also want to read more about CAPD (Central
| Auditory Processing Disorder).
| criddell wrote:
| Has anybody tried or know somebody who tried the Lenire device?
| It's been out for a little while now and is in the price range
| ($4k) where I think it might be worth a shot.
|
| https://www.lenire.com/what-is-lenire/
| hackernewds wrote:
| intrigued but wondering if this is a shameless plug
| pacomerh wrote:
| Yeah I'd like to see what the results of that device are, I'd
| like to see someone actually try it and write about it
| rajin112 wrote:
| Mine started after taking antibiotics for Lymes. Not sure what
| caused it the antibiotics or lymes... this was in 2021 so other
| things were at play too.
|
| Anyone have any tips for healing?
|
| Really has hindered from doing deep thinking and just even day
| dreaming. I have been an avid meditator and I feel that has been
| taken away from me.
|
| What is good though is that I dont hear it when i am active in
| the day such as working or out with friends.
| hackernewds wrote:
| you learn to zone out your tinnitus. ironically, meditation
| helps me be more present and be WITH the tinnitus.
|
| it sucks. especially if you have an injury it might be
| permanent, however ENT doctors have told me it's all imagines
| which I refuse to believe
| hackernewds wrote:
| to add to my other comment: https://youtu.be/2yDCox-
| qKbk?si=eEjtlP97v8UiubX4
|
| this trick helped me be in silence for the first time in
| decades. it was wonderful, to say the least
| bosse wrote:
| How long did this silence last for you?
| pasc1878 wrote:
| I don't think there is any way to heal tinnitus.
|
| The best you can do is get habituated to it, that is get used
| to it.
|
| The only way is as you have found is to concentrate or do
| something else.
| gfodor wrote:
| Tobramycin at least can cause tinnitus. It happened to me.
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| I just cleared a serious sinus infection that had impacted the
| base of my skull and neck spinal discs. 4 hospitalizations this
| year an not a single mention.
|
| I am on TRT and used a TENs machine to kick start my muscles
| again before hitting the gym and 1 session loosened enough to let
| my body pour out YEARS WORTH OF SCUM.
|
| I have photos and posted a video to JPS Hospital on my IG because
| seeing this stuff is really disturbing.
|
| Point being: My perspective is the US medical system at my
| disposal is utter shit and self-care is extremely important and
| these people sent me to collections and home with a potentially
| fatal respiratory suppression.
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| Can you elaborate a bit? The TENs machine loosened scum that
| came out of your nose? I'd like to know more...
|
| I do find that most specialists are incapable of diagnosing
| anything not blatantly obvious...
| Flatcircle wrote:
| Just anecdotal, but I always noticed people I knew that had
| tinnitus had a history of using a lot of over the counter pain
| medication
| mwint wrote:
| fwiw, I have mild tinnitus and have never had anything stronger
| than child Tylenol syrup - and that maybe once every two years
| or so.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| Maybe the article is on to something, but it mostly doesn't seem
| to apply in my case. As I sit here with my ears ringing, I can
| tell you that my hearing has recently been pronounced "perfect"
| by a doctor of audiology (not just an audiologist). So I
| apparently have no damage, but I still have the ringing. My ears
| don't ring all the time though -- often the ringing begins after
| I eat. I haven't narrowed down which foods could be responsible.
| It's possible that I have a mild food allergy that I'm unaware
| of.
| nshkr wrote:
| T and H are major factors for ruining my life. Ruined dreams and
| suicidal.
| codesnik wrote:
| For me it's an attention issue. I went for a checkup and it was a
| first time I've been in silenced cabin where doctor checks
| hearing. And I wasn't able to hear some of the frequencies,
| because of ringing in my ears, which was louder. And doctor
| expressed some concern about it.
|
| Before that I rarely ever noticed it. Now it is very loud and
| constant. Maybe it was like that for a long-long time, but now I
| just focus on it too much.
| jxramos wrote:
| Does anyone know where the research went regarding cold sores on
| the lip at the virus which causes them? I heard a doctor once
| speak on the subject that HSV1 I think it is for the lips, goes
| and burrows in the nerves of the jaw and face and jumps over to
| the auditory nerve at some point. I was never able to verify any
| of those claims but it sounded feasible.
| derefr wrote:
| I used to have tinnitus. I suppose I still technically do, but it
| appears much more rarely, and when it does, I can make it stop
| entirely in just a few seconds. So I'm basically "free" of it
| these days.
|
| Two things I learned over the years:
|
| 1. Tinnitus seems related to dopaminergic neurotransmission (or
| faults thereof.)
|
| I have ADHD, but I didn't know it until I was an adult. Growing
| up, I would often get episodes of tinnitus. After being medicated
| for ADHD, these episodes became much more rare, and also
| exclusively now only occur at the end of the day, when my meds
| are half worn-off already.
|
| I've seen many journal papers correlating tinnitus to various
| dopaminergic dysfunctions. For example, people who develop
| tinnitus in old age are apparently also more likely to develop
| parkinsonism, and vice-versa.
|
| If you've noticed that you're developing tinnitus, then you might
| want to raise the possibility with your GP that you could have
| some undiagnosed problem with dopamine. Get screened for ADHD if
| you haven't; get tested for Parkinson's if you're the right age;
| etc. If it turns out that you have one of these chronic diseases
| and didn't know it -- well, treating it on its own will probably
| change your life, but it'll potentially also help your tinnitus!
|
| 2. However, tinnitus _also_ seems related to some physical
| process in the ear.
|
| I've learned that, when the high-pitched ringing starts in one
| ear, I can instantly stop it -- not just push it into the
| background, but literally silence it like pressing "stop" on an
| alarm -- by using my finger to essentially _plunge_ my ear:
| putting my finger into my ear canal just deeply enough and then
| twisting, resulting in a pressure seal like in-ear earbuds try to
| achieve; and then lightly -- but quickly -- pushing and pulling
| the trapped air-pressure in and out inside the ear canal, using
| the finger. After doing this for about 30 seconds (during which
| the tinnitus won 't _seem_ to change), my eardrum and ear canal
| both begin to feel warm. Once that happens, I then unplug the
| finger from my ear. At the moment I do, the tinnitus stops.
|
| Presumably, the "plunging" action is in turn flexing my eardrum
| inward and outward. Basically it's acting like high-amplitude 1Hz
| infrasound. I'm not sure what this _does_ that helps, but it
| certainly does help, consistently.
|
| (If you're wondering: I've _also_ had otitis media before, so I
| know what the sensation of my eustachian tube being blocked with
| fluid /crud, creating a pressure _imbalance_ of the middle ear,
| feels like; and what unplugging the eustachian tube + rebalancing
| that pressure feels like. This isn 't that! It's entirely an
| interaction between my finger, my eardrum, and maybe the bones of
| the middle ear. My ears are currently 100% clear of detritus on
| either side of the eardrum according to a recent ENT visit -- and
| yet this procedure still works.)
| mwint wrote:
| Whoa. Dude. That finger plunging thing works.
| riwsky wrote:
| Finally; I'd always wondered what the buzz is all about
| ewweezdsd wrote:
| One lesson I've learned in life is to never fly when recovering
| from flu, even if you feel quite okay. I did that very painful
| mistake once a decade ago, and since then I've had permanent
| tinnitus in my left ear. It doesn't bother me much in daily life,
| but I would like to be be able to experience total silence in
| nature without that constant noise.
| gilloh wrote:
| I'll add my two cents, I have mild tinnitus on the left ear, like
| other readers I learned to ignore it and only really notice it
| when focusing or drawing attention to it. Luckily doesn't affect
| my sleep or work. Stress and similar situations seem to intensify
| it a little and I become more aware. I'll add a curious one to
| the discussion, I'm a big AirPods fan, as soon as Apple released
| the AirPods Pro I bought them, on the first week of use I started
| getting horrible headaches/nauseas which I associated (most
| likely wrongly) to having tinnitus and it causing some balance
| "imbalance". Returned them and got back to regular AirPods.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| I've had mine for a very long time. It started when I was in loud
| rock bands in my late teens and early 20s. However, it eventually
| went away completely on its own. It came raging back several
| years ago (I'm in my early 40s now) and is now constant. I'm not
| sure what started it again, but it could have been a very intense
| course of gentamicin after a kidney surgery that had some
| complications.
|
| Honestly, it doesn't bother me as much as some people. It's just
| there. I would love for it to go away, but I kind of ignore it
| most of the time.
| plaidfuji wrote:
| I've had tinnitus and its cousin hyperacusis for about 7 years.
| When I first got them from a particularly loud nightclub, I had
| rolling panic attacks and insomnia for about the first three
| weeks, but then they died down to a tolerable background level.
|
| Something brought it back in the past couple months and triggered
| the same reaction again.. it's not clear what the trigger was
| this time, but it's like my brain needs time to re-train itself
| to ignore it as background noise. It's an emotionally exhausting
| process that I wouldn't wish on anyone.
|
| The only advice I can offer to people here is to treat tinnitus
| like any other serious injury (which it is): take time to let
| your body heal, don't push yourself too hard, don't come down on
| yourself for how you got it, and don't judge yourself for any
| feelings it might bring out. Get help if it's making you
| depressed.
|
| There are definitely some helpful coping strategies that people
| have highlighted here, particularly white noise (look into notch
| filtering as well), and everyone needs to find the approach that
| works best for them. Allow yourself to grieve; you've lost
| something - the sound of silence (at least what you used to think
| of as silence - most humans never experience true -inf dB). It's
| easier to move on if you come to terms with it from that angle,
| rather than continually trying to make it "go away".
| decafbad wrote:
| I'm pretty sure mine is psychosomatic. It's only at left ear.
| When I pissed off about former mistakes or current annoying
| issues, I know it's coming.
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