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I have tinnitus. I don't recommend it

(blog.greg.technology)
185 points gregsadetsky | 1 comments | 21 May 25 22:50 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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labadal ◴[22 May 25 02:10 UTC] No.44058100[source]▶
I feel terrible because I never did anything wrong. I never went to a concert. I never worked around loud things for prolonged periods. I never listened to music too loud. I have tinnitus. It seems to go up in intensity when my TMD acts up, but it never goes completely away. Mine isn't nearly debilitating, but I worry that it's going to get worse with time.
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DontchaKnowit ◴[22 May 25 02:45 UTC] No.44058291[source]▶
I have had tinnitus for as long as I have been forming memories. As a child I called it "the sound of silence" and thought everyone heard it.

Never bothered me much. Its much worse now at times. Still doesnt bother me much

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1. EvanAnderson ◴[22 May 25 05:20 UTC] No.44059007[source]▶
I wonder about a genetic component. I've had the "sound of silence" for as long as I can remember. I don't remember how old she was, exactly, but my daughter confirmed she was experiencing something similar at a pretty young age (under 5 y/o). We were always very careful with her hearing (to the point that we had very small earmuffs we'd have her wear in potentially loud situations), so I don't think it's the result of physical damage.

I'm sitting alone in a quiet room typing this and I've got a cacophony of >12kHz whine going in both ears. The left is slightly louder and lower than the right. It's not debilitating but it would be really neat to hear actual silence once in awhile.

I played w/ doing hearing range tests on myself and my friends using an old NEC V20-based laptop during my high school days (mid-90s). I wrote a little BASIC program that played sounds of increasing frequency and asked you to report if you could hear the sound. Sometimes it indicates it's playing a sound when it isn't. By playing (or not playing) sounds repeatedly I would build up a "score" for the user's high frequency hearing response.

I have notes showing I could hear between 16 and 17 kHz back then. Today I struggle to hear more than 12 kHz. Interestingly, my tinnitus presents frequencies high than I can actually hear now.