Ship of Fools: Tinnitus - I'll never have silence again

Thread: Tinnitus - I'll never have silence again Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :

I started experiencing tinnitus on and off as a teenager, and about 6 or 7 years ago I noticed that it had become permanent. It used to be that the high-pitched noise I hear in both ears would suddenly stop, but now it never does.

This has pretty much ruined quiet places for me, especially later in the day, when the tinnitus is louder. I go to sleep listening to the radio or an audiobook to distract myself from the whine. I've recently started to try to meditate again; I'm finding it difficult not only to take up the practice again but to do it in different ways, ways less dependent on silence. Hiking has lost one of its attractions, as I don't have the experience of natural quiet. The quieter a place is, the more obvious the tinnitus is. In the back recesses of a large fabric store, where the high-piled bolts of cloth on both sides of a long aisle muffled all sound, the tinnitus was screamingly loud.

I'm not looking for practical advice for coping with tinnitus; I pretty much have that down. But I still mourn the loss of silence.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

It's a weird thing, but I notice it most intensely when it is mentioned. I don't think it is absent when it isn't mentioned, just that not focussed on it. When some loud noise jars my little hearing bones or whatever the inner ear contains, it can jump in intensity. Mine seems to come from just above my head, a little louder on the left than the right. I also use ear plugs and soft radio.

I've tried to make it vary, both in pitch (up and down), and in loudness, and also varying with my heart beat. Then tried to slow my heart rate, with the theory that then I could also vary the whine.

Like pain, sometimes I can focus on it directly, trying in my mind to get into the centre of it, peeling it back like layers of an onion. I've wondered if there is a gregorian chant that might channel it somewhere.

Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :

Mine, which was only ever intermittent, seems to have faded over the years, much to my relief. It started when I was about 35 but has faded significantly since I retired - so much so that I have come to believe it was in some ways stress related.

I sure as heck don't miss it, don't want it back!

Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :

I've been thinking about tinnitus lately. I suppose I have it, though it's not something I think about much, as all my sensory processing is a bit haywire! But thinking about silence, I am wondering if I can say I have ever experienced pure silence.

When I was a kid, it would really bother me that when I shut my eyes, even with my palms over my eyes, even at night in the dark, I never saw pure blackness, but a sort of dotted effect, with colours and darker and lighter parts, and it was constantly moving and pulsating. I tend to assume now that no one sees pure darkness, but I don't know. But also with my eyes open, in the light, looking at a white wall, for instance, I always see pulsating and dots. Nothing is ever still. This is apparently a visual processing thing - tinted lenses help a little - but for me it is normal, and I kind of experience all my senses in a similar way.

With hearing, I get all sorts of noises in my ears. Sometimes white noise, sometimes ringing, sometimes whooshing, sometimes my heartbeat (I also have POTS, so sometimes it's a more concrete physical thing, from rapid heartbeat and faintness). I've been thinking about it lately because I have had a bit of a bad flare-up of the POTS, so had some very loud unexpected noises in my ears. I've been realising that in general I see silence and stillness as separate from these inner interferences. Right now I'm at home experiencing silence - I still have ringing and vibrations and pulsating and high noises and whooshing in my ears - but in my mind I am experiencing silence and stillness. Though when my heart rate is all over the place it doesn't feel like silence or stillness, but that is more because my body feels agitated, rather than a physical noise. But if there was noise outside it also wouldn't feel like silence. There is no noise outside right now. Just the noises of my body. Maybe because they are part of me, and always there, they are not intrusive in the way that the noise of someone mowing their lawn would be.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

I had tinnitus briefly as a stress thing. It came and went but lasted long enough during episodes to make me wonder whether it was going to stay. It was an unpleasant sort of high-pitched whistle in the left ear, not on a note I found comfortable to live with. I think, though, if the note doesn't vary, after a while I'd hope it might be easier to tune it out.

My sympathies to all who have to live with this kind of thing. I have a friend who's now got it in both ears (permanently) and is finding it very difficult and depressing to adjust to it. He's quite musical, and this doesn't help.

Fineline - the colours you see with your eyes closed have always fascinated me. This is tangential, but have you also found that when you're lying there in the dark like that, if there's a sudden noise, you see a flash of light?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

I have constant tinnitis consisting of multiple pitches at varying volume, some in both ears and some in just one. Like a really bad sonata played by a drug-crazed octet that was never very talented to start with. Sometimes a new and very loud pitch will show up for no apparent reason, ring for a while, and go away.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

I suspect the colors-and-designs-in-the-dark have something to do with eye pressure. I had them all my childhood but can only get them now occasionally with (I think) fingers pressed on lids. My mother has them too.

I don't know if it's tinnitus or not, but I have always heard an extremely high borderline-of-hearing sound in silence. I've sometimes fancied it's the sound of molecules hitting one another.

Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Fineline - the colours you see with your eyes closed have always fascinated me. This is tangential, but have you also found that when you're lying there in the dark like that, if there's a sudden noise, you see a flash of light?

I was going to say no, but I'm not sure. Not that I've noticed specifically, but senses tend to get muddled into a big mishmash when there is a sudden noise or sudden flash or something sudden.

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
Mine, which was only ever intermittent, seems to have faded over the years. . . . I have come to believe it was in some ways stress related.

That's been my experience also. It's not completely gone, but it's not nearly as prevalent as it used to be. I hear it mainly in my right ear -- which, interestingly, is the worse of the two ears when it comes to hearing. My left ear doesn't hear as well as it used to either, but the right is much worse.

Posted by Tree Bee (# 4033) on :

I too experienced tinnitus as a result of stress. I had a difficult journey home from a shipmeet [Ultra confused]

having to divert through central London during rush hour.
Thankfully after a year the noise stopped, and I have complete sympathy for anyone experiencing it.
Silence is sweet.

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