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I've had tinnitus for about half my life - probably mostly due to too many rock shows and too few earplugs. It usually doesn't bother me but it's been loud as hell for the past couple weeks - sounds like an old tv with the volume turned all the way down, but about twenty times as loud (louder than dept store music, for instance). Anyone else have to deal with this?

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While I haven't been officially diagnosed, for the same reasons you've already site I would make a good candidate. Alot of times I find myself asking people to repeat things. I lay in bed at night to the sound of my ears ringing. Too much loud music over the yrs. without a doubt. Even with that said, do I ever think it would be a great idea to turn down the volume? Why of course not! When I'm home alone and the wife is out working, there's a good chance I'm cranking out the tunes here.

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I have tinnitus pretty bad. I have to sleep with a fan on or I have trouble sleeping because its fairly loud.

Too many loud band rehearsals/concerts/performances etc. before using ear protection regularly. I use it now, that's for sure.

Me too. I use earplugs for lawnmowers, airplanes, chainsaws, etc... I always take earplugs to concerts but rarely have to use them. If I didn't have the fan/white noise at night, I'd never be able to sleep.

Edited by DTMX
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I've got Tinnitus from ear infections and every time (like now) when I have some cold where the infection is within the ear it gets worse.. unfortunately it never goes completely away afterwards. Normally I do not recognize the tone but when its silent outside (like now or in the early morning hours) its quite disturbing.

Cheers, Tjobbe

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Hey Jan, I do. It gets pretty loud at night, so I leave the music on. Of course, my problem, besides loud music, may be not having my ear wax cleaned out for at least 15 years. Sometimes, I can hear the wax rattling in there or see it fall out. I've read that scientists are working on ways to regrow the inner ear hair cells (it has worked on lab mice so far), and if they are successful, we will all one day have a cure.

Edited by trane_fanatic
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My tinnitus use to range from simply annoying to screaming loud. Last year I had a cholesteatoma (cyst in the inner ear) removed from my right ear and had the ear bones replaced. My hearing is greatly improved and I no longer get one ear infection after the other. The ringing still comes and goes but is nothing near what it use to be, although even when it was bad, there would still be times when it was better and worse.

Unfortunately I don't think there is a silver bullet or consensus on what to do.

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Do you have a cold? Mine is always worse when I have a cold. If you haven't been exposing your ears to high volume levels recently and the "background noise" is getting louder, that would be worrisome to me.

I was exposed to a couple really loud construction sounds, and stuffiness in the ears accompanied the ramp-up in the volume. Clarinex made the stuffiness go away, but the ringing is still really, really loud (music, tv, etc don't drown it out). The Dr said I have a torn eardrum in the ear with the loud ringing, which can be repaired. I'd like to believe that this will improve the ringing, but the doc also said that it looked like it had been torn for a while, so that seems unlikely.

BTW, I hate to rain on the hair cell regeneration parade, but those people doing the mice experiments are only trying to regenerate about 1% of the hair cells - just enough to make hearing aids effective in people whose hearing is so bad that they can't presently be helped by hearing aids.

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I had a hole in my eardrum as a kid that has since healed (I think). Here's hoping yours can be fixed as well.

I used to get earaches as a kid seemingly every week. It sucked. I think that led to some of my hearing loss. What is interesting is the last time I was in the studio, I was hearing a high-pitched tone in the background of one of the tunes we were mixing. The engineer could not hear it, even under headphones, but I kept hearing it. We finally tracked it down to a bias problem on the tape machine, but he had to take the track into ProTools and slow it down, thereby reducing the frequency of the tone so that he could hear it. So I guess my high frequency hearing is still pretty good! :D

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I had a hole in my eardrum as a kid that has since healed (I think). Here's hoping yours can be fixed as well.

I used to get earaches as a kid seemingly every week. It sucked. I think that led to some of my hearing loss. What is interesting is the last time I was in the studio, I was hearing a high-pitched tone in the background of one of the tunes we were mixing. The engineer could not hear it, even under headphones, but I kept hearing it. We finally tracked it down to a bias problem on the tape machine, but he had to take the track into ProTools and slow it down, thereby reducing the frequency of the tone so that he could hear it. So I guess my high frequency hearing is still pretty good! :D

:tup

That's a lot better than trying to master a track while hearing a non-existent high-pitched tone. :cool:

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I had a hole in my eardrum as a kid that has since healed (I think). Here's hoping yours can be fixed as well.

I'm told it's basically a sure thing - if they can't chemically stimulate regeneration of the membrane, they repair it with a graft that I'm led to believe is as good as the real thing. I'm definately going to try it - can't hurt, might help.

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I've got it and have learned to live with it. When I was diagnosed years ago (early 1980s) my doctor at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary told me that they have no idea in general of what causes it and that my insight would be appreciated if I had any! He also said that caffeine consumption can make it louder, which I have observed is true in my case. I'm pretty sure that I got it from listening to headphones way too loud in highschool and college. I played in rock bands for years (not very loud ones) but my tinnitus preceded that involvement by quite a stretch.

Edited by Kalo
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Mine comes and goes, fairly infrequently, but not infrequently enough for me to not recognize it when it starts. In addition, my hearing is starting to fade. It's getting tougher to discern different sounds. If someone is talking while music is playing, I have to tell them to shut up. Okay, I always did that, but now I really have to...

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I've got it and I'm a vibes player. I've always heard something "extra" when playing block major 2nds, major 3rds and minor 3rds (sometimes perfect 4ths also) on the top end of the vibes. Even my tuner could not hear it and it never goes away. Very disturbing. Try not to play any of those intervals block style in my playing. At other times it is just an annoying ringing in my ears.

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Of course, my problem, besides loud music, may be not having my ear wax cleaned out for at least 15 years. Sometimes, I can hear the wax rattling in there or see it fall out.

Had a roommate in college who freaked out when he had a sudden loss of hearing in one ear. Went to the doctor and it turned out that a giant piece of ear wax had become dislodged, and moved up against his ear drum.

I have a little bit of tinnitus. I started being more consistent in using earplugs on gigs and in rehearsals, and it seems to help a little bit. I had a hearing test done not too long ago, and there was no noticeable hearing loss registered.

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Tinnitus is one of those near horrors I cannot imagine. Any ringing in my ears freaks me out.

A very interesting article from GQ that appeared over a decade ago crazily documents the results of extreme tinnitus and it's aftermath that happened to a friend/coworker/cohort of my wife. Worth a read despite the convolutions of the text.

the article is linked within a website about him.

GQ - BoltFlash!

This American Life - act three, click listen and fast forward.

Edited by Man with the Golden Arm
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I have tinnitus pretty bad. I have to sleep with a fan on or I have trouble sleeping because its fairly loud.

I tried that last night. Even on its highest setting, the fan wasn't loud enough to mask the ringing. It's really freaking loud!!! At work, to concentrate I have to listen to music with lots of cymbals - cymbals mask it fairly well (especially if they're brushed). I've noticed that I can't hear it at all in the shower, and even after I turn the shower off I don't hear it for several minutes. I'm thinking of wasting some water and trying a *really* long shower to see if I can get some relief. Definitely hitting the ENT too. This is pretty bad, but people have thrived under worse circumstances.

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Mine is on the left ear, like a high frequency sinus wave. Too many agogo bells when traning a samba band many years ago. Now I use earplugs whenever appropriate.

It gets worse when I can't catch enough sleep, but fortunately it never bothers me enough to keep me from falling asleep.

Edited by mikeweil
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Me too. Started after a minor ear infection about five years ago and never left. Not too loud, or I've gotten used to it. Caffeine and alcohol do make it slightly worse on occasion, but not too bad. Hard to listen to Morton Feldman, though!

Funny you said that - guess what cds I brought to work with me today...

The tinnitus stopped getting louder, but it is changing in character. Sounds like I have a thousand crickets in my head now. It's annoying for sure, but like I said people have thrived under far worse circumstances.

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