Tinnitus linked to undetected auditory nerve damage

I don’t know if this is a clue, but I can do muscle movements in my head/face/jaw to make the tinnitus worse (only as I make the movements, immediately reverting back to “normal” tinnitus as soon as I relax).

Some examples:

- jutting my jaw forwards

- moving my ears back with my face muscles

- pushing downward on the top of my head with my hands

Another possible clue: this has been true since I can remember — even as a child, well before I developed tinnitus. I always thought this was normal, until mentioning it to others, and it seems no one I know shares this experience.

This, to me, suggests that (my flavor of tinnitus, at least) may be due to physical/muscle related causes, and not necessarily associated with hearing damage or neurological. Or that I was “destined” to get tinnitus at some point, as if I was born with some defect that others weren’t.

Or, it could just be that there is something else unrelated with how my muscles are connected to my hearing that cause the same tinnitus (e.g. same frequency), and that the persistent tinnitus actually is hearing damage.

I’ve not looked into it much, and have really only mentioned this to my doctor (who mostly blew it off as irrelevant), and others in my family. But thought I’d share here in case anybody experienced something similar, and may have insight into what causes this “muscle-related tinnitus”, and if it’s somehow connected or unrelated to the persistent tinnitus.

I recently bought a couple of audiomoths for monitoring or tracking birds passing through my area. It records up to 192kHz I think so it can pick up ultrasonic chirps from bats. Anyway while passing the recorded data into Audacity to search for bird calls I was able to finally nail down the bandwidth where my tinnitus overwhelms all other signal and to begin to understand the depth of my work-related hearing loss. I use the low and high pass filters to extract the signals across discrete frequencies and then track the level of gain I need to apply in order to be able to hear the calls that are in each extracted band. This is quite useful for me as before I knew that there are sounds I cannot hear unless there is almost no background noise but I had no idea where they were spectrally or just how much hearing loss I had in each band.

I could potentially use this information to design a hearing aid that boosts sounds in the affected bands so that I can hear them. I am not sure I can inverse filter the tinnitus-related noise since it is random intensity though a notch filter could be an option since it is narrow band.

I hope the tinnitus discovery thing in this article ends up being useful.

Most people having a peeep tone tinnitus including myself can experience complete silence for a few seconds (up to 30) by listening to a tone at the specific frequency of their Tinnitus.

For example listen to the following, at a level that it isn't uncomfortable and your Tinnitus might be gone for a short time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNf9nzvnd1k

This is called residual inhibition. You can Google "tinnitus residual inhibition" and find many papers about it.

Benzodiazepines work also very well in some cases, when taking them I have no Tinnitus at all, but that's ABSOLUTELY NOT a viable long term solution because of the long term negative effects.

I am not sure about this paper, but what I've read and believe the most is that the Tinnitus is caused by neurons in the brain, that have lost nerve input signals from the ear (due to hearing loss, nerve damage etc..), and start to emit parasite signals.

Benzodiazepines reduce the brain activity thus reducing/silencing the tinnitus. Residual inhibition seems to work by stimulating the region where the hearing loss has occurred, the neurons responsible for the Tinnitus all the sudden get stimulated and stop emitting noise signals for a few dozens of seconds then resume. But so far there is still a lot of research to be done and we are decades away from a cure that is SAFE enough. Benzos work but are just not worth it, this is like fighting back pain with opoids.

Until then I think it is best to protect our hearing, you can buy custom made earplugs which are comfortable to wear, last about 5 years and cost around 200 USD. I use them when I am in loud environments like on an air plane, train, at a bar etc...

Also it is best not be in completely silent environment as this is where you will notice the Tinnitus.

When listening to music with headphones it is important to take regular breaks and not to push the volume too high to give your ears some rest.

Edit: Last advice, don't try to listen to your tinnitus, but focus on other noises/sounds, if you are listening to the Tinnitus you are telling your brain that the signal is important, when you should be telling it, that it isn't.

I've got multiple tones in both ears. Most of the time I don't notice it but sometimes... well it's hard not to panic when you realize you can't escape it. I would very much like to experience life without the ringing again before I kick the bucket. I'd honestly probably cry.

I have tinnitus. I had brain surgery to remove an acoustic schwannoma. The doctor said that I would lose all hearing in the ear due to the unavoidable damage to the acoustic nerve.

Well, at least that will get rid of the tinnitus, I thought.

No such luck! I still have tinnitus.

As such I think there may be more to tinnitus than undetected nerve damage.

It isn’t clear cut though: I have some hearing in that ear after all (to the surprise of the doctor). But the tinnitus came back (or never went away) before any hearing returned.

>It’s been a longstanding idea that these symptoms, known as tinnitus, arise as a result of a maladaptive plasticity of the brain. In other words, the brain tries to compensate for the loss of hearing by increasing its activity, resulting in the perception of a phantom sound, tinnitus.

I can't say I buy that. I've got tinnitus. Also sometimes my brain has a loss of input as I can't see, hear of feel something and it's nothing like tinnitus.

It seems more likely to me that it's a problem with the gizmo that converts mechanical movement into electrical impulses. It consists of a string like thing, the tip link, between two hairs that pulls on an ion channel in a nerve cell wall to let ions in and trigger the nerve to give a sound signal. (pic here, fig 1 if you scroll down https://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674%2809%2901170-2)

When you get an over loud sound it probably yanks that thing too hard leaving the ion channel stuck open some how or something along those lines.

The whole thing is tiny - the tip link is about 150nm long. Another pic here (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2921850/ fig 1)

I’ve had tinnitus and its cousin hyperacusis for about 7 years. When I first got them from a particularly loud nightclub, I had rolling panic attacks and insomnia for about the first three weeks, but then they died down to a tolerable background level.

Something brought it back in the past couple months and triggered the same reaction again.. it’s not clear what the trigger was this time, but it’s like my brain needs time to re-train itself to ignore it as background noise. It’s an emotionally exhausting process that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

The only advice I can offer to people here is to treat tinnitus like any other serious injury (which it is): take time to let your body heal, don’t push yourself too hard, don’t come down on yourself for how you got it, and don’t judge yourself for any feelings it might bring out. Get help if it’s making you depressed.

There are definitely some helpful coping strategies that people have highlighted here, particularly white noise (look into notch filtering as well), and everyone needs to find the approach that works best for them. Allow yourself to grieve; you’ve lost something - the sound of silence (at least what you used to think of as silence - most humans never experience true -inf dB). It’s easier to move on if you come to terms with it from that angle, rather than continually trying to make it “go away”.

I have tinnitus which I managed to cure(almost. In complete silence I still can hear a teapot-like sound but the original single tone high volume sound is no more).

Turns out it’s about my neck. I religiously paid attention to my neck position and fixed my posture, and as a result, my tinnitus gradually disappeared.

If I sit in a bad position or sometimes do some weird move, my tinnitus can return but I immediately start a neck massage and fix my posture, and it goes away. Sometimes it can be very severe and lower volume version remains, but it goes away the next day.

I think it happened because I used to move my head forward when sitting in front of a screen. There are chiropractors, who claim to fix tinnitus by fixing the head position and say that it’s associated with some nerve in the neck.

It can also be a symptom of brain cancer. My aunt passed away last year after suffering from severe tinnitus for two years, and not a single doctor suggested and MRI, they all pretty much gave her magnesium supplements and drugs to treat the symptom (tinnitus) rather than actually thinking outside the box and suggesting an MRI to be sure (which is almost free in my country). Even I nearly suggested she does it very early on but thought I wouldn't know better than doctors.

Eventually, other symptoms started appearing and only then did they do an MRI, and lo and behold, a tumor was found at the base of her skull and right behind her sinus cavity, it was pressing against her auditory nerve and was the cause of all the tinnitus. The tumor was basically untreatable via surgery and it was too late for chemo.

Can't wait. With me it is ups-and-downs, at times it's great for months at a stretch and sometimes it is so bad I can't listen to music (or play).

There are many different forms of tinnitus and usually some mechanism or cure operates only on a fraction of all cases so I'm hoping that this is as broad as possible. Note to younger self: stay away from loud concerts.

I've had Tinnitus since I was 14 (when I went to a concert and stood in front of the speakers).

A couple of pieces of advice to people who might be struggling with their tinnitus:

1. You need to learn to cope with it - once you're used to it, it will mostly fade into the background and be manageable. Accepting that it'll never be silent again was very difficult, but that's the only thing hat helped me feel better in the end.

2. Wear ear plugs when it gets too loud! It's too easy to get irreversible damage to your hearing, and that's the only thing you can really do - prevent it.

Curiously, yesterday I woke up at night because the tinnitus had gotten louder again - stupidly, I played drums the other day at a jam session without earplugs. I could punch myself for that one, and see it as (yet another) wakeup call to be more careful.

Some speculation in this thread about the causes of tinnitus. There are several, including hearing loss, which (as someone here points out) possibly produces tinnitus in a manner similar to how limb loss can cause phantom limb pain. The nervous system isn't like plumbing, it's a tangled web of self-adjusting feedback loops. Once an input is severed, an area of the tangled web may lose an important calibrating input. Neurons don't emit "noise signals" (or "pain signals" or whatever) they just depolarise in response to stimulation, and altered calibration alters which neurons depolarise and how often. The frequency and number of certain neurons depolarising is experienced as noise (or pain or whatever) by the conscious human they belong to.

Good talk here[0] BUT BE WARNED, I recall* that there's a high-pitched squeal during this talk as a demonstration of what tinnitus is like for done people. It's extremely nasty especially if you're wearing headphones.

Incidentally, the self-adjusting feedback loop model helps explain why things like wiggling your jaw can alter the experience of tinnitus. Due to wiring issues, sensory input from muscles and joints can get mixed in with the auditory inputs. A similar mechanism (which isn't fully understood) helps explain why, for example, people having a heart attack can experience pain in the left arm. There's nothing wrong with the arm, the normal sensory signals from the arm are mixing with those from the heart.

[0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=XGq3MXQlRJs

* Can't verify right now, trusting my memory.

paper (open access): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-46741-5

older report (2016) from one of the authors: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27108594/

planned study: https://oto.hms.harvard.edu/news/dr-zheng-yi-chen-named-prin...

I had tinnitus my entire life and it’s really annoying. I always thought everyone had it too, until I found out they didn’t, which, in a way, was even more annoying. At the same, I can say my hearing is pretty sharp. I often hear sounds that are too subtle or far away for others to hear. So I’m not sure if in my case the ringing has to do with hearing loss. But I’d be so happy to give anything a shot

https://uselullaby.com "Lullaby can lower your Tinnitus' volume and improve your quality of life with an experimental treatment designed specifically for you."

I'm just promoting this because I've tried this myself and it kind of helps. At least to relax when the noise gets too painful to bear

My case is linked to the neurovascular conflict, but the tool is for the brain, so I hope it helps someone else too.

Here's a very interesting study about how manual osteopathy on the temporal bones could help the auditory nerve/tinnitus. It's been a huge relief for me.

https://norcaloa.com/CAOT/articles-in-press/CAOT-101018

I've suffered from tinnitus that's gotten worse at times, and for me it definitely feels like there's some sort of nerve that's pinched or damaged because my hearing is totally fine but when certain muscles are tight in the area it gets louder, when I yawn it squeezes something and I get this loud tone, and sometimes it gets worse with pressure or impact. I had a very nasty and loud lower tone but I found physiotherapy around the neck and especially osteopathy around the temporal bone very, very effective in reducing/eliminating that lower tone. Osteopaths will talk about how if the temporal bone is stuck in rotation it can pinch/damage the auditory nerve. I don't fully understand the mechanics but whatever they do WORKS for me in taking away the loudest tone of tinnitus.

Summary of the science:

1. Hearing loss is usually caused by damage and death of the hair cells——the sensory receptor cells that respond directly to sound. The hairs on the upper face of these cells vibratethis physically opens ion channels that change the voltage across the cell membrane. This in turn causes these cell to releases neurotransmitters at their feet. The transmitter release then induces series of action potentials (spikes) in the axons of spiral ganglion cell; #2 below

2. But hearing loss can also be caused by damage to the spiral ganglion cells themselves. These cells and their axons conduct spikes between cochlea and brain. They cells are heavy workers and they are also fussy and metabolically demanding cells—-even by CNS standards. Revving them too high can blow their gaskets.

In sum, two among several mechanisms that contribute to hearing loss and tinnitus.

In a very similar way, blindness can also be caused by two major classes of cell damage and death—-1. the death of photoreceptors (called retinal degeneration) or 2. by damage to axons in the optic nerve (retinal ganglion cell axons). This is usually called glaucoma.

This lovely study from Maison and colleagues is focused on the consequences of hearing loss caused primarily by damage to cochlear nerve fibers and their synapses in the cochlea, not the degeneration of hair cells per se.

It is a systematic and rigorous study that supports the idea that tinnitus can be associated with nerve damage rather than hair cell loss. This is a surprisingly hard problem to nail down.

If you want a good introduction to this work then read this review article by the same group.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5438769/

Have Tinnitus.

I had the ever common thinking it was caused by a visit to the dentist or the antibiotics that were prescribed. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.

It was also possibly when I walked behind a server rack and the fans were blowing air and the sound from the fans were loud, both into my ears. This could could have caused the damage that caused the tinnitus.

Took about two days to kick in fully. Tinnitus started, then stoped. Then started like it wanted to kick in fully and then stopped. Then started and never left.

99% of the time I never notice it. 1% of the time I do notice.

I also think it has something to do with neck pain and the muscles behind the head and around the neck. If I sleep in the wrong position and get a sore neck, then the tinnitus is crazy loud.

I remember thinking my life would never be the same. I was stuck with this forever. Pretty traumatic event. To anyone else out there, please find comfort that you’ll get used to it. You won’t notice it. It’s not the end of the world. Don’t stress. You’ll be fine.

I developed tinnitus during a bout of COVID last week.

On about the third day I had an earache in one ear. Earache went away after about a day but now I have pretty strong tinnitus in that ear. COVID symptoms long gone now but tinnitus remains.

'Volume' is negligible when I wake up but increases over the day. I still feel some 'pressure' in that ear (maybe residual sinus infection?) so I'm hoping it will heal on its own.

Anyone else experience this?

What i do not understand is why normal hearing tests were seen as a counter argument to the brain compensation for hering loss theory. If the brain compensated for the loss of nerve or hearing cells, the signal should be back to normal but with more noise, the failure of adaptation of the brain to the noise results in tinnitus. To have patients with normal or nearly normal hearing tests but tinnitus would be expected.

for all people who have tinnitus or the tinnitus is worse because of a visit by the dentist. I have tinnitus and it got much much worse when I got a filling. The reason is they have to make the filling the height of the teeth that was there bevore. even half a mm more can make your jaws clinch and you get tinnitus. My luck I fund another Dentist who took this seriously and took some of the filling away so my jaw didnt clinch anymore... and bam my tinnitus was back to normal. only a little anectode that could help.

The first dentist did deny that it did came from the filling and the other one did say thats new to him and he will study on this and see me next week urgently. A week later he said it could be and we should try it ... many many many thanks to that doctor without him I would maybe killed myself

Tinnitus is so strange. It’s like depression. You can’t will it away, but if you start to feel better it also gets better. And if you feel worse it gets worse. And both reinforce each other.

It’s not just perception and it’s not just physical. Physical symptoms make it seem worse and when it seems worse it actually gets worse.

The best thing to do is accept that you have it and try to never hear it, so that you don’t think about it. Then it might actually (not just psycholgicy) get better. It won’t be cured, but it can have a huge improvement.

Not sure if tinnitus but I've heard a ringing in super-quiet environments since I was a kid.

Mid-30s now and a few months back I had a case where the ringing was very noticeable and it lasted a few weeks. I think what set it off was some hearing damage from using high-frequency equipment without hearing protection but it was definitely an experience that I'm not keen on repeating.

Once I noticed that the background ringing was louder than normal I couldn't un-hear it and it was starting to drive me nuts.

I can induce a sleep paralysis while my consciousness is awake. Why? Well, as a child, I thought it was a cool superpower. As the paralysis sets in, I hear a loud wooshing sound. Then it gets louder and louder until full paralysis sets in. A few years ago I had a similar experience, but it left me with a permanent tinnitus. I guess you can hurt yourself by simply lying down doing nothing.

About 6 years ago I caught a bad flu which evolved into an ear infection that required antibiotics, my ears were in pain, really stuffed, popping etc. When I got that under control, I was left with what can only be described as tinnitus, a very high-pitched sound in my ears, almost undetectable in my right ear but quite annoying in my left.

It was there for about 12-18 months, but it slowly started to go away to the point I had to pause for a minute to remember if the left/right one was more affected. After 9-12 months I was only able to hear it if I was wearing ear plugs, and now I need to wear ear plugs and really concentrate to realize that it's not 100% silence, but it's close to 1-5% of what it was and even the "tone" of the tinnitus is more muted.

I'm not sure if they genuinely healed, if there even is such thing as temporary tinnitus (for more than a day/week), or if my brain just got better at filtering that out.

Severe tinnitus 24/7 is the least of my problems that I mostly tune out.

I have left SCDS. It was verified with audiology and CT (a tiny pit) after I correctly self-diagnosed it. A traditional approach surgery is possible, but it's brain surgery where one surgeon accesses the area by lifting your cerebellum out of the way. There is a lot to go wrong for something that isn't 100% debilitating. Just I can't eat croutons because they're way too loud, I always hear my voice like there's a microphone on permanent feedback, I can hear my left eye move most of the time, and music that's too loud makes my eyes jump off focus with a momentary wave of nausea (oculovestibular involvement).

It isn’t just that I get tinnitus when my eras are plugged with ear wax if I don’t clean them a for a while, and when I do poof it’s magically gone. I figure tinnitus is the brains response to a lack of input in a specific frequency range, like filler noise.

I’ll add my two cents, I have mild tinnitus on the left ear, like other readers I learned to ignore it and only really notice it when focusing or drawing attention to it. Luckily doesn’t affect my sleep or work. Stress and similar situations seem to intensify it a little and I become more aware. I’ll add a curious one to the discussion, I’m a big AirPods fan, as soon as Apple released the AirPods Pro I bought them, on the first week of use I started getting horrible headaches/nauseas which I associated (most likely wrongly) to having tinnitus and it causing some balance “imbalance”. Returned them and got back to regular AirPods.

Tinnitus and partial hearing loss is the largest personal pain in my life. Ruins my ability to listen to music for pleasure, hinders my focus, and overall disheartening. Hoping there is a cure in my lifetime, both for hearing loss and tinnitus.

My tinnitus started in 2009 during an anxiety period (the worst period of my life) and basically due to an ototoxic drug for dizziness.

I had already experienced it after going to a nightclub when I was a younger but I never thought that this problem would remain forever due to a doctor prescription drug.

Not only that but in the next years I got two more ringings and now I (don't have anxiety anymore) I can live normally with tinnitus but I'm always hope to get a cure. I was a silence junkie previous to the tinnitus and now I miss the "sound" of the silence so much.

I believe that once a year I can hear again the silence but it's my brain tricking me again.

Maybe the article is on to something, but it mostly doesn't seem to apply in my case. As I sit here with my ears ringing, I can tell you that my hearing has recently been pronounced "perfect" by a doctor of audiology (not just an audiologist). So I apparently have no damage, but I still have the ringing. My ears don't ring all the time though -- often the ringing begins after I eat. I haven't narrowed down which foods could be responsible. It's possible that I have a mild food allergy that I'm unaware of.

Reading the comments, it seems pretty obvious that there are multiple causes.

To add my own anecdote (because I don't see it mentioned otherwise): I have very specific hearing loss (40dB) in one frequency range frequency (4khz). That is also the frequency of my tinnitus. The cause is almost certainly bored neurons making stuff up: there is never input at that frequency, so they produce their own.

Maybe fixing the auditory nerve will help some people. Other folk will need a different cure...

I overslept today and I just woke up thirty minutes ago. A minute within waking up my brain feels under a lot of pressure and the accompanying tinnitus was very intensive. In fact I simultaneously have a headache.

As more time passes the intensity of the headache and tinnitus get lower by the minute. The idea that tinnitus is caused by hearing loss alone sounds like a load of bullshit. Tinnitus gets worse when I wear very tight headphones or when I am ill or when I move my jaw to apply more pressure to the head. If I could engineer some sort of machine to control the pressure applied to my head, I am pretty sure I could control the tinnitus.

Since I have built a mental model of when tinnitus is really bad and when it it is almost imperceptible, even the most intense tinnitus doesn't faze me and strikes me more as an annoyance like a mosquito buzzing around, because I know that it will go away. Weeks go by where I literally don't think a single thought about tinnitus, then suddenly, it strikes and can't be ignored, except I know it will go away so I ignore it regardless.

Mine started after taking antibiotics for Lymes. Not sure what caused it the antibiotics or lymes... this was in 2021 so other things were at play too.

Anyone have any tips for healing?

Really has hindered from doing deep thinking and just even day dreaming. I have been an avid meditator and I feel that has been taken away from me.

What is good though is that I dont hear it when i am active in the day such as working or out with friends.

I sometimes have a difficult time trying to tell if I actually have tinnitus, or if I can simply detect something that's there for everyone. Plenty of websites say that you will always be able to hear the blood flowing through your ears, and that doesn't count as tinnitus. It's just that most people subconsciously filter that out, to the point where it can't be detected even if they look for it, except while in a completely silent, noise-deadening room, such as an anechoic chamber.

It's similar to how I don't have any issues with color in my vision, yet when I look at a completely solid and flat color, I can see noise in it. It's not visual snow, because it obstructs nothing and I can easily tell the difference between even very similar colors, but I don't seem to experience the "noise reduction effect" where if I stare at a solid color, it is completely and entirely solid and unchanging and has no noise at all.

I believe I'm simply observing entropy, and that noise is supposed to be there, because it's impossible for light to always explore all possible paths instantaneously and exhaustively. But I'm not supposed to be able to notice or perceive it, I don't think.

I think it has to do with me being autistic, but it's hard to find any descriptions of similar experiences online, and it's also hard to communicate about it with others.

Exception: my right eye has significantly more noise, to the point where it's difficult to actually see and read through that eye, even though I can still see all colors and text perfectly sharply. If I close my left eye, I will see the darkness through my right, to the point where it's distracting. I think this was an error caused by me being cross-eyed at birth; my right eye just sorta deteriorated, and now it only exists for depth perception.

I have tinnitus and strangely, I have no real idea when it started, much less what caused it. Maybe it just started softly and got louder. I think it appeared in my early 20s, couldn't swear that it didn't start way before then, and I'm pretty sure it was there when I was about 30. It seems strange somehow that I just don't actually know.

Badly fitting earbuds (Samsung Galaxy Buds) gave me tinnitus in one ear. I still am not sure how that's possible, but wearing them for more than 30mn was hurting my right ear, tinnitus appeared shortly after and kept getting worse. Once I stopped using the buds, the pain went away and the tinnitus decreased, but it's still there one year later.

For what it's worth, here's my case:

I have tinnitus, a 4khz tone on both ears, one more than the other. I have hearing loss at high frequencies (the curve of my hearing tests drops abruptively right around 4khz). The side with the worst hearing is also the one with worse tinnitus. My loss probably comes from many many ear infections as a child (plus hearing to loud music on a basement, and just bad genetics).

Things that make my tinnitus worse:

- Basically, any kind of "hearing effort" stresses me out and makes my tinnitus worse (busy places, bars, parties, etc. are the worse, but even music on my headsets, which I enjoy, make it worse). Maybe this puts some doubts on the "phantom limb" theory?

- Stress

- Not sleeping well

- After doing exercise. I play sports, run and lift light weights. After any of these exercises, it gets a bit worse

- Driving a car: the humming noise of car drive is probably the worse for me

- If I clinch my jaws (mimicking a strong bite) I hear another, surprisingly similar tone... However, I feel like it's a different thing, not related.

I wished I had a similar list of things that lessen it... I don't :-) However: I started using prescription hearing aids. And although they don't really help with tinnitus directly, I do feel much better: general noise doesn't bother me as much, and of course I hear better :-).

Recommendation: if you have some hearing loss, don't wait to use a hearing aid, just like you don't wait to wear glasses. They are expensive, but worth it. And no, they are not just simple "earbuds".

Confession: I play the drums, although very occasionally. I have no proof but I'm sure I had hearing loss way before I started playing. Playing my drums of course makes my tinnitus worse: probably due to the combination of the sound + "exercise".

I got tinnitus in one ear after a fall where I hit my face hard on a table. After being careful with loud music my entire life this feels like a bummer. But accidents happen and it could have been worse. I also got some numbness in other parts of my face that slowly got better so I have some hope the tinnitus may improve.

Tea tree oil is an ototoxin. I had what I thought was a wart on the backside of one of my ears, and when I put a cotton ball with one drop of tea tree oil on it, I immediately heard ringing and ripped it off. The ringing has remained. It's not severe, but I've read stories online where people have put tea tree oil directly in their ear canal and were badly affected. This has to be relatively common, with how popular tea tree oil is in products that you put on your head. I bet people don't realize their tinnitus is caused by the tea tree oil and continue using the products.

Also, I have a friend who has severe tinnitus as a result of an ear infection. He really struggled with it in the beginning, but hasn't mentioned it in a while.

I have a relatively minor tinnitus, which I thought was caused by my drum lessons in my early twenties.

But when I tried to remember it, I always heard something like a tinnitus sound (albeit quieter) whenever I closed my ears with my hands since my childhood, during which I was never exposed to any loud music or sound.

I’m trying to suss out whats my tinnitus. I’ve had persistent fullness in my head for about 2 years now that I can’t find an explanation for.

Audiologist says I have better than average hearing for my age (41).

The precipitating event in my mind was an Opeth concert in 2021. However, I never thought anything was too loud there, and wore earplugs for most of it. Additionally that was a very stressful time. Also, I have ehlers danlos.

So might be TMJ, sinus pressure, EDS, and/or exposure to loud music.

It sucks especially because Opeth weren’t great performers there. I suspect I don’t like most live metal shows because they seem to make them too loud.

This has been highly-variable for me over the years. I have noticed changes with with caffeine intake and exercise.

On many occasions I've felt my ears "pop" after an extensive cardio session. The result feels like I just took really weak earplugs out. Rowing is more prone to do this than other forms of exercise in my experience.

I've also noticed that if I force myself to sit in total silence and remain as calm as possible, whatever ringing I can hear will start to diminish to ~imperceptible within a few minutes. When I'm on edge and anxious, the opposite appears to be true.

I’ve had mine for a very long time. It started when I was in loud rock bands in my late teens and early 20s. However, it eventually went away completely on its own. It came raging back several years ago (I’m in my early 40s now) and is now constant. I’m not sure what started it again, but it could have been a very intense course of gentamicin after a kidney surgery that had some complications.

Honestly, it doesn’t bother me as much as some people. It’s just there. I would love for it to go away, but I kind of ignore it most of the time.

My tinnitus completely disappeared when I visited chiropractor, I had some neck issues, after just a few visits, the inner sound completely disappeared, that was uncomfortably relaxing experience, but it just lasted for 2 months, now the sound is back. So my initial assumption that the reason is lack of blood supply, because after those treatments I literally felt the flood of blood going into my brain, it was like the tap was not fully opened before my visit to the doctor.

I’m surprised more people haven’t mentioned noise canceling headphones as a possible cause. There was an HN thread about this awhile back. This has been mentioned on many forums, google it.

For me it's an attention issue. I went for a checkup and it was a first time I've been in silenced cabin where doctor checks hearing. And I wasn't able to hear some of the frequencies, because of ringing in my ears, which was louder. And doctor expressed some concern about it.

Before that I rarely ever noticed it. Now it is very loud and constant. Maybe it was like that for a long-long time, but now I just focus on it too much.

Got mine very recently as a side effect of taking Bupropion (Wellbutrin). At 150mg I had no side effects and it was working well (for ~12 months). Then Doc upped it to 300mg and with in 2 weeks silence no longer existed. Went back down to 150mg but Tinnitus is still there after 2 months lets see.

Kinda gotta say that if it doesn't get worse its worth the positive effects of Bupropion still annoying to be in that 1% group with the side effect

Experiencing tinnitus after years of working around saws, aircraft, and being in a band has been one of the reasons the past 4 years especially have been miserable. The proliferation of face masks suddenly made communicating with people extremely difficult where it was only a slight annoyance before.

this article was fascinating and I hope they find a cure for this in my lifetime.

One lesson I've learned in life is to never fly when recovering from flu, even if you feel quite okay. I did that very painful mistake once a decade ago, and since then I've had permanent tinnitus in my left ear. It doesn't bother me much in daily life, but I would like to be be able to experience total silence in nature without that constant noise.

Does anyone know where the research went regarding cold sores on the lip at the virus which causes them? I heard a doctor once speak on the subject that HSV1 I think it is for the lips, goes and burrows in the nerves of the jaw and face and jumps over to the auditory nerve at some point. I was never able to verify any of those claims but it sounded feasible.

I’m surprised no one has suggested noise canceling headphones as a possible cause. There was an HN post about this awhile back

Has anybody tried or know somebody who tried the Lenire device? It's been out for a little while now and is in the price range ($4k) where I think it might be worth a shot.

https://www.lenire.com/what-is-lenire/

This study uses fmri neurofeedback to teach people to control their auditory cortex, with impact on tinnitus :

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381191...

Wow! Just tonight I had a dream that my mild tinnitus had worsened at later years. My brain has adjusted to ignoring the noise the past 20 years or so, especially when doing physical or mentally challenging work. But it’s always there as a companion in the background if I choose to “tune into it”.

I don't know how much of my Tinnitus is related to the "mind body connection" (Sarno), but I find that my tinnitus comes and goes, and is noticeable when I'm dealing with stress.

Does this study bring anything new to the table?

I suffer from tinnitus myself and a doctor determined that there was damage to the hair cells and auditory nerves after an ear infection. I assumed the cause of such issues was factor was pretty well known.

Some may be able to calibrate their hearing in this regard with something called Auditory Integration Training. I have done it. It worked. You might also want to read more about CAPD (Central Auditory Processing Disorder).

T and H are major factors for ruining my life. Ruined dreams and suicidal.

Mine has gotten pretty bad it’s constant now. Before hitting the back of skull worked for a bit and listening to YouTube tinnitus scrubber worked but not anymore. Hoping this can be fixed one day.

Well, this has always been my suspicion ever since I started being affected.

All hearing tests I performed stop at 8k while I can easily hear into 15k and my ringing is way up there in the 13-14k range.

I'm pretty sure mine is psychosomatic. It's only at left ear. When I pissed off about former mistakes or current annoying issues, I know it's coming.

It seems like tinnitus is to hearing what migraine is to vision.

A lot of us also spend too much time in quiet environments.

When I’m outside, my tinnitus is barely noticeable. It’s only when I’m in my silent office does it drive me crazy.

I would like to share, that my tinnitus changes its pitch with the rate of breathing and tension on the muscles that help with diaphragm breathing

Just anecdotal, but I always noticed people I knew that had tinnitus had a history of using a lot of over the counter pain medication

PSA: I thought I had tinnitus but it was just ear wax sitting against my eardrum. A doctor cleared it up in 15 minutes.

Found ringing in the air only occurs when I do inverted exercises, like when your upside down

I used to have tinnitus. I suppose I still technically do, but it appears much more rarely, and when it does, I can make it stop entirely in just a few seconds. So I'm basically "free" of it these days.

Two things I learned over the years:

1. Tinnitus seems related to dopaminergic neurotransmission (or faults thereof.)

I have ADHD, but I didn't know it until I was an adult. Growing up, I would often get episodes of tinnitus. After being medicated for ADHD, these episodes became much more rare, and also exclusively now only occur at the end of the day, when my meds are half worn-off already.

I've seen many journal papers correlating tinnitus to various dopaminergic dysfunctions. For example, people who develop tinnitus in old age are apparently also more likely to develop parkinsonism, and vice-versa.

If you've noticed that you're developing tinnitus, then you might want to raise the possibility with your GP that you could have some undiagnosed problem with dopamine. Get screened for ADHD if you haven't; get tested for Parkinson's if you're the right age; etc. If it turns out that you have one of these chronic diseases and didn't know it — well, treating it on its own will probably change your life, but it'll potentially also help your tinnitus!

2. However, tinnitus also seems related to some physical process in the ear.

I've learned that, when the high-pitched ringing starts in one ear, I can instantly stop it — not just push it into the background, but literally silence it like pressing "stop" on an alarm — by using my finger to essentially plunge my ear: putting my finger into my ear canal just deeply enough and then twisting, resulting in a pressure seal like in-ear earbuds try to achieve; and then lightly — but quickly — pushing and pulling the trapped air-pressure in and out inside the ear canal, using the finger. After doing this for about 30 seconds (during which the tinnitus won't seem to change), my eardrum and ear canal both begin to feel warm. Once that happens, I then unplug the finger from my ear. At the moment I do, the tinnitus stops.

Presumably, the "plunging" action is in turn flexing my eardrum inward and outward. Basically it's acting like high-amplitude 1Hz infrasound. I'm not sure what this does that helps, but it certainly does help, consistently.

(If you're wondering: I've also had otitis media before, so I know what the sensation of my eustachian tube being blocked with fluid/crud, creating a pressure imbalance of the middle ear, feels like; and what unplugging the eustachian tube + rebalancing that pressure feels like. This isn't that! It's entirely an interaction between my finger, my eardrum, and maybe the bones of the middle ear. My ears are currently 100% clear of detritus on either side of the eardrum according to a recent ENT visit — and yet this procedure still works.)

Finally; I’d always wondered what the buzz is all about

I just cleared a serious sinus infection that had impacted the base of my skull and neck spinal discs. 4 hospitalizations this year an not a single mention.

I am on TRT and used a TENs machine to kick start my muscles again before hitting the gym and 1 session loosened enough to let my body pour out YEARS WORTH OF SCUM.

I have photos and posted a video to JPS Hospital on my IG because seeing this stuff is really disturbing.

Point being: My perspective is the US medical system at my disposal is utter shit and self-care is extremely important and these people sent me to collections and home with a potentially fatal respiratory suppression.

Lots of good tips here, thanks!

Reminder for folks who go to concerts or other events / areas that regularly have loud sounds - invest in ear protection! It is probably not worth it to risk your hearing for a slightly "better" listening experience. You will also avoid that partially deaf feeling after being exposed to loud music / sounds. There are a ton of reusable ear plugs on the market that you can easily keep on your person.

its diabetes in disguise is what my doc said

(*YMMV*)

For some of you suffering for tinnitus, if you came here looking for a hack, I can offer a small tinnitus hack that worked for me, and may work for you if you find a noise that "cuts" the tinnitus sound. This summarizes what worked for me:

I have bilateral tinnitus that sounds like people screaming in each ear at 15.5khz -- it's bad enough that w/o this hack, self-harm would seem like an attractive option, which was incentive enough to get creative and now I'm only in pain a few minutes/day.

I'm on mobile so please forgive the AI assisted rewrite of a different post I made on HN [1]:

I hope this message reaches those struggling with tinnitus. I understand the intensity of the condition – my own tinnitus was unbearable. But I've found an effective way to manage it, and I'd like to share the steps:

1. *Effective Sound Track*: First, use YouTube-dl to download a specific sound track from this link: [Sound Link](https://youtu.be/8indTo2ykPw?si=izyTOg4gYvnfsqZs). I found it incredibly effective for cutting out tinnitus. It’s worth trying different sound prints if this one doesn’t work for you. Others with tinnitus have also found it helpful. You might want to edit out the initial dialogue using Audacity.

2. *Special Headphones*: Buy waterproof bone conduction headphones that are specifically designed for MP3 playback. Here's the link to the ones I use: [Headphones Link](https://a.co/d/aqqhPm9).

3. *Usage*: Load the MP3 onto these headphones. It’s been a life-changer for me, allowing me to experience what a normal life feels like again. I only really notice my tinnitus briefly each day when I wake up, before I sleep, and when I charge the headphones.

(end AI assist)

The reason this works (for me) is because I hear the tinnitus "inside my head" and the bone conduction headphones similarly make the noise print sound as if it originates from "inside your head". It does not interfere with normal hearing and you quickly become accustomed to the noise print and forget you even have it on your head. This particular model is NOT bluetooth-- it is an appliance that has one function only, play the scrubber noise. This reduces anxiety of dings and beeps and untethers your from your phone, and most of you know anxiety makes it worse. You can also wear these in the bath and the shower.

I'm sure it won't work for everyone, but it's been a literal lifesaver for me, so I hope it helps.

Good luck out there.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37852711#37858011

Also associated with rushed covid vaccines.Perhaps their is good reason that vaccines usually take around 10 years to develop.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8788157/

Cue all the top comments about why this isn’t news, or how we’re no closer to a cure.

I’ve just accepted that there won’t be a cure anytime soon, and come to terms with it.

Would love to be proven wrong, but I think they’ll find a cure for tinnitus when they can cure baldness and cancer.

good stuff, mate. it's been 8 goddamn years since my right ear ngiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiings all the time. I'm fine with waiting for another or two 8 years, but please, show some result. pretty please with cherry on top.