I have a tinnitus that seems to stay 99,9% of the day, it’s away for some minutes sometimes and it’s very high frequency. Imagine a power supply coil whine.
Now the mentally ill part: the tinnitus can change position (left/right ear) and change volume. I didn’t hear the tinnitus on the right ear for some days, now it’s back on it (and still audible on the left ear) after sitting on the couch again.
The couch, you ask? Two weeks ago, when the tinnitus started, we changed the layout of our living room. The couch was now located next to our WiFi router. The tinnitus started shortly after that. I never had tinnitus before. Guess what, the router makes the same noise (even my partner can hear it). After some days of realizing it might be from the router, I changed the position of it to the other side of the room, but now somehow I can still hear the high frequency from the router from 3 meters apart. And as soon as I start sitting on the couch, the tinnitus gets much worse. Even disabling electricity in the full house I still hear that WiFi router noise in my ear.
Am I insane? Is this a thing? Can some frequency cause a tinnitus which can be re-triggered by the same frequency? Can it have a memory effect? Could it be it doesn’t go away even if I don’t sit on the couch for days because all these power supplies have high frequency coil whine in each and every facility these days, which trigger it again?
I feel like Neo from The Matrix who got enlightened and now can hear electricity, but without the rest of the super powers :(
PS: I visited a doctor and am doing the usual medical procedures to deal with tinnitus (Prednisolone 60mg/day), but it doesn’t help in any way.
Tinnitus is still in the early stages of research. But the notion of just accept it, it can't be fixed will not be true forever. Researchers just recently started to cure some form of genetic hearing loss. That means one part of the puzzle of transporting gen editing viruses to the inner ear is solved. Next up is figuring out what gen edits are necessary. The field gets surprisingly little funding even though we have an aging population and lots of veterans with hearing issues. Many labs have tiny budgets <1 Mio per year but are making good progress every year. My guess is when one of the rich founders gets it (Elon, Sam, Larry, Brin etc) and decided to do something about it we will see real progress.
The tinnitus didn't start because of the wifi, but because you are getting older. People notice the tinnitus a lot more in the first months that they get it. Over time people adapt to its constant presence
I have severe tinnitus. First, I had a minor variant for many years. But what I didn't realize is that I was slowly losing my hearing in one side. Then I had surgery (tympanomastoidectomy) to remove the cyst that grew to the point it dissolved my stapes altogether, and now I have a severe variant, and significantly less hearing in that side. My tinnitus ramped up to a whole new level after that surgery.
I tried a phone app where you would play a tone that approximates the current tinnitus tone, or white noise lacking just that frequency area. In every case, all it would do is change the tone my tinnitus was making. Sometimes it made it worse than it ever gets on its own.
Likewise, in the summertime my tinnitus is regularly set off by the sound of cicadas. That tinnitus sounds so similar that at times I have to do an ear-plug test to see if it is just cicadas, or if is just in my head. No joke! I hate it big time.
Having said that, I now wear hearing aids (including for my ear that wasn't operated on, just to round out the age-related hearing loss), and this surprisingly makes it WAY more manageable. When I've been wearing them, I still always have tinnitus, but it is relegated to background noise. When I don't wear them for a long time, I'm usually punished for it. It takes days of proper hearing before the tinnitus goes back to background noise level sometimes.
BTW: I also get other types of tinnitus, which makes it worse. For example, on waking it is a really low sound that sounds like an idling diesel motor. I can even feel that one. I got that really bad after surgery, and I get it now when I'm ill. All of this was really debilitating for a couple years post-surgery, but I've come to grips with it now.
Just about anything can set it off. Cicadas, as I mentioned, but also rapid temperature changes, exertion (although weirdly I never notice it at the gym. It's just noisy enough there to mask the squealing I guess.), hearing something unexpected at a really high pitch, and being tired pretty much guarantee a hell of a racket in my head.
It's different for everyone, mine is actually damage to the small hearing hairs so no cure hope at all. It takes a while for the brain to adjust and slowly ignore the noise but only to a point. Different things work and you've probably been told about white noise could could help out.
For a start my tinnitus was like standing on the tarmac beside a jet screaming its engines ... making any conversation a great deal of effort trying to ignore the loud whine. It eased over the years where I could almost mistake it for a loud chorus of crickets or cicadas at night, which strangely was more easy to think that's just what it was. Mostly though lately I can ignore it or simply forget it's going on.
[1] https://hearingandme.com/can-tinnitus-be-cured-what-science-...
There's an oldies station nearby, and's it's very effective and uplifting.
Music at bedtime to mask odd country noises of unknown origin.
I'm really sorry to tell you this, but you've got two choices:
- accept it, you can't fix it
- try and fix it, fail, accept it, you can't fix it
There is no cure for tinnitus. The quicker you get to accepting it, the better your life will be.
Therapy and CBT can help.
Carry on trying to fix it for a few months by.all means, but I'd advise you give yourself a deadline to switch from 'fix it' mode to 'learn to live with it' mode.
By complete coincidence, yesterday my tinnitus went so quiet I thought it had gone. I have a new type of glasses that don't hook behind your ears. "Oh my god, was it my glasses all along?", I thought immediately.
My tinnitus is loud today.
Even after 20 years there's part of me looking for a fix. But it's about how you deal with it, this morning I had a little chuckle at myself, put all thoughts about my tinnitus aside, picked up a book to read and moved on with my life.
True, it isn't likely going to go away. My hearing aids help immensely, but mostly with tolerance, and not occurrence. It is pretty much background noise to me nowadays, although some things can really set it off. It doesn't drive me batty anymore, at least!
That's a long shot, though.
2) The only solution to tinnitus is to stop fixating on it and eventually stop thinking about it completely. The only way to do that is to make sure you can never hear it. Learn how to mask yours with music or white noise. Especially while sleeping. It will eventually calm and might even go away. 3) Do not seek tinnitus support groups/subreddits online. They are fully fixated by definition and just reading their posts will make your symptoms worse.
I know that sucks to hear, but accepting tinitus actually makes it better. If you can’t find a definitive trigger (which I think is unlikely) then you should give up and begin masking it at all times.
One of the blessings of old age is my frequency response curve has diminished and it's been a long time since I went into a shop or a restaurant and noped out because of coil whine. But I did stay at a hotel recently with a noisy usb outlet in the headboard. I was able to block that out with the notepad, thankfully.