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Comment by quaffapint | Hacker News Reader

I've often wondered why sometimes it's worse than others. It's always there. I always hear the ringing, but most times I can ignore it, but there are other times it just seems so much louder.

I would like to know what all those triggers are so I can try to avoid them. Some are obvious - real loud noises, heavy exercise, etc, but others not so much.

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I've been dealing with it for nearly 20 years now.

I'm apparently fairly adept at putting it to the background these days, because I mostly don't notice it except for when it's particularly quiet, or something specifically triggers my awareness of it. Certain sounds in certain frequency ranges trigger it off too. My youngest kid had a playful shriek thing she did that would palpably hurt me and cause it to kick off.

Seeing this post on HN itself is triggering and I'm now very conscious of the high pitched ringing sound.

I would be willing to pay good money to be cured of this.

It's the same for me too, but stress triggers mine as well or at least doesn't let me ignore it. I'm considering flying to Ireland to try this as soon as we're allowed. I'd be on a flight right now if I could. I just want to experience silence again, at least for an hour or two.

I think I'm the same. Like 95% of the time I don't notice at all. But without fail during a quiet moment somewhere in the day I become aware of it somehow.

I have really strong tinnitus either when:

- I did not sleep enough

- I wake up in the middle of my sleep

- I drink a lot of alcohol

- There is a lot of noise arround me

- In few cases it's just random and get stronger for no apparent reasons

I notice it when I've stayed awake too long, and am exhausted. So I agree.

Meh. I notice it most when the insomnia is acting up and I lay in bed waiting for sleep which doesn't want to come.

I can relate, it's just awful.

That's how it started for me, now it is constant. I'd look into high frequency hearing loss if it becomes more persistent.

I remember once in college I was sitting at a table with some friends studying. One said, "how can you guys study with that light humming like that?"

And sure enough, one of the overhead fluorescent lights had an electrical humming coming from it.

And it became hard to study from that moment forward.

Never hang out with an audio mixer. They point out some many noises in day-to-day life that I have just tuned out or never even noticed. Once they point it out though, I can't not hear it. To be fair, I'm that way about video and compression pointing out to people how shitting cable quality is. I'm a TV sales rep's worst nightmare.

There was one movie I was watching and I noticed the sound of a (propeller) plane flying overhead. I wouldn't normally have noticed this, except I was wearing headphones. I couldn't help but wonder if they noticed. and if so - did someone said - "screw this, we're not reshooting the scene."

Mayo Clinic has a long list of causes and triggers:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/tinnitus/symp...

I was a heavy cell phone user for several years, I developed tinnitus in my right ear (same ear I would hold the phone to) it thankfully resolved itself when I stopped using mobile phones. Hope this information can help someone.

Not sure why this is dead.

> This study showed that there is significant loss in the

> dominant ear compared to the non-dominant ear (P < 0.05).

> Chronic usage mobile phone revealed high frequency

> hearing loss in the dominant ear (mobile phone used)

> compared to the non dominant ear.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3918279/

Anecdotally, a hearing test performed after many years of having my earpiece in my right ear found that in the vocal frequency ranges my right ear has some hearing loss. (It was not like that before.) Which may or may not be coincidental.

It's not a stretch to think that holding a speaker–which is often far louder than it should be–right up to one's ear for extended periods every day could cause tinnitus in that ear.

Same here, my awareness of it comes and goes, but I swear the effect itself varies from time to time. I seem more likely to notice the ringing if there's white noise in the background, like from a fan or AC, but it's just a theory.

For me its worse when my introversion is acting up. Its like having a song stuck in your head. It really only goes away if you engage with the rest of the world.

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