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Comment by adampk | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know if this can finally be a treatment for tinnitus? I would love to hear silence again.

I've got pretty bad - although not constant - tinnitus in my left ear after a particularly loud NYE too late in life.

What I find interesting though, is that I distinctly remember as a young kid living in the countryside that I found it impossible to hear absolute silence. I distinctly remember sitting on a bale of hay on a bright summer's day with not even a breeze and the quieter I perceived things, the louder a 'TV-like wheeee' noise (as I knew it at the time) became to fill the void. I always thought I had a special talent for being able to tell when a TV (CRT) was on anywhere in the hosue, as I could hear its high pitched whirr.

Now as an occasional sufferer of fairly bad tinnitus, I often wonder what any of the above means, as there's surely something in it.

Only coping strategy I have is to not fixate on it, whereupon it dies down. That's tricky those times it crops up at nighttime and I'm staring at the ceiling at 4am trying desperately to get back to sleep... .

O that's interesting. I was able to do the same (tv, refrigerator, etc). I also lived country side and I have hearing loss (35db) and tinnitus (sometimes? moderate?) in my left ear, but seemingly due to a virus infection.

I have never encountered someone else that was able to hear whether a tv was on or not. At what distance could you do that?

At least within the house - we moved around a lot, but I lived in a few three storey stonework houses, and could generally tell from 'the other end' of the house if the TV was on.

I don't recall hearing the same noise from fridges though!

It only works with CRT TVs though. It's a 15khz tone, due to magnetostriction in the flyback transformer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyback_transformer

Some of them used to make noise. Ours stopped for a while when you gave it a whack from above.

I can hear whether they were on or off, and whether they were tuned to a signal or not.

A video signal synchronized up has a very distinct profile, and people who can hear about 15 khz can hear the sync signals modulating the higher frequency component.

I could at one point, adjust horizontal and vertical hold to a stable signal eyes closed.

Some sets were very loud, and I could hear them rooms away. Walking The Halls in my primary school, I could walk by the classrooms and say they have a TV on oh, and nail it a hundred percent every time.

Wow, I thought I was the only one with the TV thing! I remember it as young as 4-5, but no one knew what I was talking about. I’ve had constant minor tinnitus since then, so I can’t help but feeling like there’s a CRT near my head that has been running since the early nineties.

I used to be able to hear whether the TV was in sync or not as well. Probably still can oh, but I don't know I don't really have one handy.

Some of those television sets were super loud!

Some of the minor tinnitus I have, as in those frequency ranges. And it doesn't really bother me, because I grew up with CRTs.

I also could hear CRT when on (probably high voltage PSU) as a kid. Recently, I thought my tinnitus got worse until I found that one of my smart power supplies started making high pitch sound (ceramic capacitors in power supplies cause it).

I had the same experience when visiting an anechoic chamber. I think the explanation is that without external stimuli, your brain cranks up the input gain to the max, at which point you begin to hear the ambient "neural noise" from your auditory circuitry. People taking DMT or ayahuasca also often experience an extremely high-pitched sound as the drug kicks in, which also suggests a neurological basis for the phenomenon.

I must try an anechoic chamber one day - I must!

I never got the 'nee-naw nee-naws' from DMT or Ayahuasca when I did such things, but I absolutely did when going deep on Nitrous Oxide. DMT was always entirely (and oh my gosh so absolutely) visual for me.

Another way to do this, that might be less stressful or painful, is to just spend a week out in nature.

We go four week long Outdoor Adventures, where nothing works except for AM radio late at night.

After a few days, hearing very significantly improves. On the last trip we took a Macbook, and watch the movie about 4 days in, and we're shocked at just how great that laptop sounded! It seems very loud and amazing, where in an ordinary City environment it's just normal acceptable sound.

Any of you that get a chance to try this really should, it's dramatic. And it makes me really appreciate the audio engineering that went into those devices. A lot of that engineering won't ever be heard by people for in urban environments, but it is there, the work was done, and the results are pretty fantastic.

Wait hold up, you mean that's not normal? Hearing a high pitch noise all the time I mean. I thought it was like when you're in full darkness and you "see" shapes because your brain is trying to interpret the subtle residual signals on neurons lacking direct stimulation.

Apparently not. It's a long-time since, but I remember adults largely couldn't hear it (not too surprising) but I had friends my age who hadn't a clue what I was on about either - a sentiment shared by at least one other neighbouring commenter.

I've always heard ringing at very high frequencies; 17-20kHz when it's quiet. Can't remember ever not hearing this. Sometimes the ringing has pulsating increases in loudness synchronized with my heartbeat. Also have a little bit of tinnitus on both ears, different frequencies.

Never really considered the high-frequency experience a problem; it's just always been part of my sensory experience.

I'm the same. I'm literally cathartic that someone had this same experience. I never, ever heard complete silence - there was always this whirr. I'm a musician so it's easy for everybody to dismiss my problems, but I remember exactly the same things. I always knew if someone turned the TV on. I always heard the TV noise even when it was off. There's also some certain upper-mid frequencies which completely destroy my sanity - bad PA systems and wall reflections are particular banes of my existence.

I've always asked myself - how could I get this if I always had good hearing? Is this even anyone's fault? How could a child have tinnitus when it had no real chance to get it? This entire post+comments has me almost in tears - my tinnitus gets unbearable e.g. when I'm stressed, panicking or overstimulated. It helps to know someone shares my pain, even if this treatment won't become available in my lifetime. I'm used to having stuff playing in the background anyway, it's just the times when I can't drown it out when it's the worst.

PS: BTW, something interesting happened to me recently: I recently visited a retro game museum while on vacation. Being obviously filled with old TVs, the noise was nigh-insufferable for me, but I pushed through because retro games is my thing. We spent ~1hr there and after we left, I felt like my own TV noise was somehow better for the day. Weird.

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