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Tinnitus is NOT incurable!

#61
Eric Johnson once caught tinnitus. After it was gone he started to crank 100W Marshalls again. Go figure. :confused:

I occasionally have it in my LEFT ear because of the nearby standing to any drummers crash or cymbals of past history. Today I use molded customized earplugs which is a huge relief. Before that I used regular foam earplugs, ONE ONLY in the ear that was closest to the drums. Since I was at the far end of the stage, my "open" ear was faced towards the sides of the stage, and not exposed to any direct sound, and no side fill monitors. It threw all stereo things off, but I didn't play stereo on stage anyway. I could hear if I was in tune or not, and hear people talking to me anyway.

Can't hear anything above 12K these days anyway, tinnitus or not. One one ear. A diff between left and right makes it 10K on one ear (limit) and 12K on the other which means it's totally skewed and thus, have been diagnosed with King-Kopetzky syndrome:

King–Kopetzky syndrome - Wikipedia
 
#62
@Joe Nerve - That is awesome that it has resolved itself for you! I have tinnitus pretty bad, especially in my left ear. Here's the funny (or not) part - I got it from abusing a set of IEM's on first use at a New Years Eve gig in 2012. I'd never used them before and cranked them up loud without realizing it. After the show we're driving home and everything seems unusually quiet. It was nothing like I'd ever experienced from a loud concert.

For the next two days my ears were muffled but on the third day my hearing magically came back. Then about 2 weeks later we're out for dinner and all of a sudden my left ear just goes almost completely dead to be replaced with the dreaded loud ringing. For the next 3 or 4 weeks it was the same but now I was extremely sensitive to noises - especially the sound of the shower hitting the bathtub floor. It sounded like I was hearing everything through a torn speaker cone.

Eventually the muffling went away but I was left with the hissing/ringing in my left ear. Basically I am extremely careful with my hearing now and if I can't use IEM's (at the appropriate levels) at a gig I wear Etymotic ear plugs.

But also, like you the ringing doesn't drive me crazy and I've learned to live with it to the point that unless I think about it I don't even remember I have the ringing.
 
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#63
I've had it for years, need a radio to go to sleep and am sensitive to loud sounds. Now I use earplugs all the time for gigs and concerts, and the funny part is people rip on me for it. Whatever.....they can blow their ears out and I'll have whats left of mine.
 
#64
i hear constant white noise, i would call it a ringing. it isn't noticeable unless i concentrate on it
went to the dr years ago and got tested. my hearing wasn't perfect but it was excellent.
even there, i heard the ringing throughout the test. i was wondering if the frequency of my ringing was matching one of the test frequencies and blanking it out.

doc just shrugged.

i wear earplugs at shows or when cymbals are present. i stuff wads of TP in them when i find myself at a loud event

i just figured the ringing i hear is the sound of existence. everything from subtle nature sounds to electric appliances to cars to the sound of your own blood pumping. the whole shebang

does anyone else hear constant ringing that isn't annoying?
 
#65
grinx said:
i hear constant white noise, i would call it a ringing. it isn't noticeable unless i concentrate on it
went to the dr years ago and got tested. my hearing wasn't perfect but it was excellent.
even there, i heard the ringing throughout the test. i was wondering if the frequency of my ringing was matching one of the test frequencies and blanking it out.

doc just shrugged.

i wear earplugs at shows or when cymbals are present. i stuff wads of TP in them when i find myself at a loud event

i just figured the ringing i hear is the sound of existence. everything from subtle nature sounds to electric appliances to cars to the sound of your own blood pumping. the whole shebang

does anyone else hear constant ringing that isn't annoying?
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Before it became louder I did have constant ringing in my ears. Even with the Tinnitus it just goes away if I listen to music. Sometimes for fun I try to match the pitch of my ringing with an online tone generator. When I do match the frequency I can hear my own noise kind of cutting in and out. It's really interesting.
 
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#67
Smokin' Toaster said:
Did you have any hearing loss that accompanied the departure of the tinnitus, or did it just go away?
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Man, that's pretty hard for me to judge. I have never been to an audiologist, so have no data, plus age takes hearing even without loud rock music. I definitely do not hear like I used to, but I can't say if how or if that relates to the end of my ringing little friend.
 
#68
ThePresident777 said:
You are right. Science marches forward.

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Yes, and the main incentive is that with all hearing tests, and why it has taken so long is explained in this video very clearly. The human being is the only animal where all hair cells regenerate EXCEPT hearing hair cells in the cochlea. This means that no animal tests can ever be carried out, because no animals will ever have hearing loss. They hear mostly above our range anyways, and so they can't carry out anything remotely looking like any human hearing cells. All animals regenerate hair cells, no matter of that it is fur, eyebrows, or hearing hair cells. They heal. Their sight may have gone south, but the hearing of a dog or bat doesn't detoriate with age. Animals may have hearing loss due to other things, but missing or damaged hair cells are not one of them.

I've always wondered about this. The decibel limit for humans. It is said to be 120 db for a long exposure time. At 160 db it is complete sudden deafness without any time spent. Instantly. Now, these kind of painful experiments have not ever been able to be carried out by early non-ethical animal experiments, because a) their threshold is way too different from human hearing, both in loudness and frequency range b) the above thing, it will grow back on animals. Animals that once were deaf due to loud explosions will sooner or later gain back their hearing. All animals. In air that is. Water based fishes are a different thing.

So how can one tell which is the limit of human hearing, before it is gone for good? There just had to be ONE test way back in time that caused a great deal of pain to the victims, and had to be carried out JUST once! Now, which things provided such loud levels in the past? Well, cannons and guns only. So whenever there was a war going on, and the order was to "Take no prisoners, kill them all...no, wait... take some prisoners" and they carried out those tests with their head in close vincinity to the pipes of different guns and cannons and you made records of it. Scientific for science only. I can't think that this can be calculated out with the most accurate mathematical calculations, because there's no way to say for sure that if you feel it's painful at 120 db, that it is at 160 db it causes a permanent and sudden deaf. That one could just as well have occured at 140 db or lower.

Imagine that!
 
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#69
Tin ears here too. Aspirin and NSAIDS (non steroidal pain meds like ibuprofen) can also cause it. I have experienced increased levels when self medicating for aches and pains.

A family member who is a speech pathologist and does hearing tests for a living (if you can't hear you can't learn to speak very well) gave me some advice: wear ear protection whenever you are exposed to prolonged sonic pressure. That includes lawn mowers, weed whackers, outboard motors etc......and she quoted some research about B vitamins. I chow B complex before and during every gig, and before every practice.

Per a previous post, I also read about a German company that had a treatment where they matched the frequency of an individual's tinnitus, then added that signal to recorded music played over headphones. The article said it worked. Haven't tried that.

I have, however, tried N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), available from online supplement vendors. I had read that the Marines were testing it as a treatment for hearing loss. link follows: NAC For Tinnitus | Tinnitus Treatment | Arches Tinnitus Formula

While reading this I tried the JoeNerve hand cupping and the jaw jutting, both work short term. I'm pleased......

Finally, as with all things medical, cures and treatments vary by individual. Now, I'm going to buy some local raw honey and high oil content cinnamon to add to my morning tea spoon of cider vinegar........
 
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#70
Smokin' Toaster said:
Please keep us updated, DirtDog. I can take the meds, and can probably reduce the salt. As a dedicated and passionate home brewer, the alcohol part would be tough.

I'm probably about 5 on the scale, and best I can determine, my tinnitus is wailing at about 12.5k. I put headphones on and ran a tone generator up until it matched my tinnitus and I could not tell tone from tinnitus. I also have learned to somewhat ignore it, but at times it's hard. One a summers night, I can't tell if the crickets and frogs are singing or it's just my tinnitus. It doesn't keep me up much, my cpap fan tends to help cover it.
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Will do. Salt and general diet was an easy fix. But I do like my whiskey. It's been a bit more difficult on gig nights! Funny, I did the same to dial in the freq of my tinnitus!
 
#71
Joe Nerve said:


7. I learned to do this ear cupping thing, and now do it religiously after every show. I cup my hands tightly on my ears with my fingers on the back of my head. I tap the back bottom of my skull to get a "boing" sound, and do that about 20 times. I then squeeze my ears as hard as I can, which intensifies the ringing, hold it a few seconds, and let it go. I might repeat the process if I feel necessary. IT WORKS!!!! It's a temporary reduction, but it lasts 10-15 minutes. I do it again when I get home or before I go to bed.

​
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​

this is incredible. ok, the ringing comes back some now.. but still..
 
#72
It truly is amazing what the mind can do... what percentage capability is it that most of use? 10? 20, max?

I mean, if you're name is Max, you're definitely using your resources... otherwise, the rest of us are just scratching the surface...

... in which case, may I suggest some Head&Shoulders, as it's snowing in June!

Thanks for sharing, Joe!
 
#73
I do think that this thread is starting to incorporate all types of hearing loss, while tinnitus is a completely different thing. They CAN relate sometimes, but I've heard of no example where tinnitus is gone and you have gained hearing up in frequency. It's the equivalent of someone that is color blind. I e you can't see the difference between - say - red or grey. Everything looks grey. But color frequencies above and below it, you can see perfectly, I mean detect colors. It's just that one that is "blocked" for some reason. Hearing loss, due to normal aging doesn't include tinnitus at all, neither if you got it before, it went away, and never had it. The tinnitus pitch is not always at the top of your hearing frequency. Say you can have a tinnitus at lower than 10K but still detect frequencies at 15K. Or the other way around. It's not that tinnitus determines the highes pitch of your hearing.

I am not entirely sure of the following, it's something I've read. When you're young and before any musical career, you can have spontaneous ringing (tinnitus) in the ear that comes and goes within a couple of seconds, and then it can take years before you hear it again. I've heard that when hair cells in the cochlea gets damaged or - actually - grow (which they do in infant years) it's heard as that temporary ringing, as it can occur in different frequencies. I do relate all this, that it's some kind of feedback going on inside the ear. But it goes away, since it isn't energized again with auxillary auditory senses. I am not sure about this, I've seen it somewhere and heard about it, but I distinctly remembers it as that it's when the hair cells gets damaged. As it occurs when you have noise hangover from the earliest concert days of yours. Then after a few days, the hearing came back... :bassist:
 
#74
Wasn't expecting this many responses :), and can't keep up as I have other things I need to do today too.

Thanks for the kind words from everyone, I read through most of this and would like to respond to many but just can't do it right now.

All I'm hoping in posting this is that it might help someone. I'm happy it exploded into the discussion it did :).
 
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#75
Putting Vicks Vapor rub on your ear lobes and in your outer ear canal can help if the ringing is worse due to inflammation. Do NOT put much in, it doesn't take much.

Also helps if you've got certain kinds of laryngitis and need to be able to sing. Rubbing it on your throat, neck, and under your nose seems to work miracles.

YMMV, but it doesn't cost much to try it.
 
#78
had it since I dropped of a porch onto my head when I was ~3yo. noise hyper-sensitivity is something I've endured since a teenager, and thus have been avid in my use of foam earplugs long before I played in a band. my high frequency hearing is excellent, and I often false positive when taking a hearing test when another person is in the same booth (I can hear their upper mid freq pulses, and trigger my button thinking the sound tech is messing with me and mixing up the frequencies.)

my tinnitus has two harmonizing tones present at all times, with my right ear significantly louder than my left. volume ranges from about as loud as a whisper, to a bit louder than average speaking voice level. loudest tone is ~7650Hz, and the other is ~12500Hz (a Gm double-stop - yay!)

unfortunately, I have times when one ear will have a third tone that's off pitch at ~6145Hz and dissonant to the two harmonizing tones - a total pain when attempting to nod off for the night here in the country where there's no real background noise outside of wind in the trees when it blows.
 
#79
Thanks for sharing all this, very good info here.

My tinnitus got noticeable just this year. It's still tolerable but I'm looking at what I can do to reduce it. One culprit for me is headphones. I use them to isolate myself at work, which probably means I creep up the volume without realizing it. Also I have been doing most of my practicing on headphones, and have had the bad habit of listening to npr or something else at the same time, so the sound of my bass has to compete with it. Bad for several reasons, actually.

I'm looking to get some good molded earplugs, that are supposed to still let you hear clearly, just at reduced levels. The cheap foam ones are terrible, everything is muffled, and they always pop out of my left ear a little bit, reducing their effectiveness. But for now it's what I have so I wear them.
 
#80
Joe Nerve said:
...modern medicine has just not yet determined how to cure it.

This is going to be a long one, but I can't do it any other way.

I'll start with a brief history and the reason I'm writing this. I've had tinnitus for at least 30 years. For 20 of those years I dealt with it, considered it an occupational hazard, and didn't feel it was a huge deal. It was there every minute of every day, but I could live with it. Didn't understand those who complained like crazy. My thought was, "Just shut up and deal with it."

I started wearing ear plugs to further protect my hearing, but one day at a show at the Bitter End about 10 years ago, I left them home. I said screw it, and played without any protection. That night was life altering. My tinnitus went from what seemed like a 3 right up to 11! And it stayed that way for days, slowly lowering itself to about a 7 or 8. Suddenly, I understood how people went into massive depressions over this. How they even killed themselves. The screaming in my ears was unbearable. No noise machines, air conditioners, or any other background noise could relieve it. I lived with it for about 5 years at that level, and then started doing things that made it a little more bearable.

While it was at that level, a car horn could send me back to 11 with a 3 second beep. A cymbal crash without earplugs in, any kind of music that hit certain frequencies at any volume whatsoever. I went to a friends clarinet concert once and literally almost started crying. Stayed out of respect, but would never repeat that.

Point of this all being, I know full well what tinnitus is. And I know full well the levels it can go to. I even purchased $4000 hearing aids in hopes that it would help. It did absolutely nothing, and I had to take a $400 hit (restocking fee) when I returned them after 90 days.

Two days ago I was driving, with music down low in my car and it occurred to me that I heard no ringing. I shut my stereo, pulled the car over and heard dead silence except for a few birds!​

My eyes got teary, I took a deep breath, and just got super grateful. I hadn't experienced that in years! I know this is reading like an infomercial, but I promise I'm not selling anything. Only trying to help anyone if I can. The fact that I experienced that tells me I'm capable of getting rid of tinnitus altogether. I'll say also, that right now it's only returned to the barely noticeable level, and it comes and goes. It's not bothering me at all.

So now the bad news - I don't know HOW to stop or cure it, but I know I did. And I'm about to list everything I did that I believe helped it to end. It could be just one of these things that worked, or it could have been a combination of any number of them. All I know is that it worked, and if you suffer from this the way I did you'll probably be willing to try anything.

My help with this came from a mix of psychological, physical, and spiritual things I applied:

1. I refused to believe tinnitus was incurable. I somehow knew and completely believed nobody has yet figured it out.

2. I was willing to try ANYTHING, and very open minded about healing it
.
3. I DID in fact try many things that had absolutely no effect, including expensive vitamins that did sheit.

4. I had a talk with a guy one day that really stuck with me. He was an intellectual, scientific type of dude who did his dabbling with LSD back in the day - but he told me he had tinnitus pretty bad and he "willed" it away. Said the he did a lot of reading on it, and realized he could focus differently and at first minimize the ringing, then eventually eliminate it. I tried and tried and tried, and think it may have had a cumulative effect. What really resonated with me though was that I believed him, as his conviction was strong. This helped to give me hope.​

The crazier stuff:

5. I read somewhere that raw honey and cinnamon cured tinnitus. I didn't believe it, but I know raw honey and cinnamon are both very good for you anyway so I said what the hell. Did a teaspoon of each, every day for about 4 months straight, and I don't know if it was a placebo effect or the real thing, but it brought that above mentioned 7-8 volume down to 4-6. The tinnitus from that point on would only hit the unbearable mark if I had some sort of auditory assault.​

Over the past 2 years I've made a few more changes:

6. I was always using the highest noise reducing earplugs for every show I did. Just recently started using IEMs, thinking they were actually going to make things worse, but I think the noise cancelling qualities of them are working wonders. I was playing only once or twice a month the past few years. Now I'm playing 2 or 3X a week, and despite that I'm in much better shape.

7. I learned to do this ear cupping thing, and now do it religiously after every show. I cup my hands tightly on my ears with my fingers on the back of my head. I tap the back bottom of my skull to get a "boing" sound, and do that about 20 times. I then squeeze my ears as hard as I can, which intensifies the ringing, hold it a few seconds, and let it go. I might repeat the process if I feel necessary. IT WORKS!!!! It's a temporary reduction, but it lasts 10-15 minutes. I do it again when I get home or before I go to bed.

8. And this is as crazy as it gets. Gotta put it in here because who knows - maybe this is the one key to all, but I don't think so. I was taught to perform Reiki (an energy healing technique) many years ago. When I do the above ear cupping thing, I also rub my hands together first, draw the Reiki symbol on my palms, and apply the healing technique. Don't know how or why this works, and I'm still skeptical, but I've been doing anything and everything possible. It might have something to do with the heat in my hands from rubbing them, a placebo affect again, or maybe there truly is a healing force in the universe that I've been taught to tap into. If so, I believe prayer would have the same effect.

9. I eat well, exercise and work at having a positive attitude always. I believe that to has aided in my healing.​

That's all I've really. I'll reiterate that I'm crazy freaking happy my life is pretty much back to normal now. It's been over 10 years of torture. Hope this helps someone, and I hope other add what they did that helped. I now know we can beat this, and if not, at least make it completely bearable.

Share your thoughts, tips and ideas. I'm done for now :).
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I used an app for tinnitus that was for iPhone and the concept was deadening tinnitus by muting frequencies by matching the ringing frequency. part of what makes it painful is the frequencies shift in ringing, which makes getting it down difficult. but nightly subjecting myself to that ringing well. ....stopped me from thinking about it.
 

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