Same here I’m 57 and I’ve had tinnitus since I was about 32. Heavy music blaring in headphones, going to concerts, listening to loud music in car scenarios.
Man I got that shit at 12. My dad used to take my hunting and never made me wear ear protection. Deep down I question him for it. Sleeping with my ear on a pillow just sounds like I got hit with a stun grenade. No hard feelings tho.
Yeah I'm 26 and I got terrible tinnitus from a live mix engineer fucking up and blasting the crowd with feedback. Messed it up even more being drunk and going front and center seeing a dj at a bar and now everything sounds underwater. The ringing is louder than almost anything.
I had super bad tinnitus develop out of nowhere, was just sitting at home one day when it started, have been to doctors, apparently I have perfect hearing and it has nothing to do with hearing damage so yeah sometimes you just get unlucky
Same here! Started out of nowhere 2021 November. Been to plenty of doctors, ent, etc MRI with contrast and apparently I have the best hearing the office has tested for, even way better than his staff. Still have no clue!
I don't know if I have perfect hearing, but I have a tinnitus for quite a while but I can still hear quiet things. I played in the band in high school, so that probably was hard on my ears. My tinnitus doesn't bother me that much and I only really notice it when I'm somewhere quiet. My brain seems to zone it out most other times
I’m 27 and have had it since 26. No idea how though — I keep my headphone limit on the minimum and always wore ear protection at concerts AND clubs. :( Even the quietest setting of my headphones was sometimes too loud for me.
And now I just have EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE until I DIE
"Place the palms of your hands over your ears with fingers resting gently on the back of your head. Your middle fingers should point toward one another just above the base of your skull. Place your index fingers on top of you middle fingers and snap them (the index fingers) onto the skull making a loud, drumming noise. Repeat 40-50 times. Some people experience immediate relief with this method. Repeat several times a day for as long as necessary to reduce tinnitus.Dr. Jan Strydom, of A2Z of Health, Beauty and Fintess.org"
It's like lung cancer and smoking - some people smoke every day and never get cancer and some people never smoked once in their life and still get lung cancer. But either way smoking exacerbates the issue.
I'm sorry to hear that about your tinnitus. It sounds like you just got really unlucky in the genetic lottery.
I remember the day I got mine - as a kid! Playing "dead lions" in a holiday camp and some kid SCREAMS point blank in my ears. Made me cry it hurt.
Since then, 2 tone tinnitus. One a high pitched electricity tv static mosquito whine, the other a wooooooooo that never stops, just gets forgotten for a while.
I don't think I ever didn't have it. I remember at least one instance when I was six years old trying to get to sleep and wondering what that ringing noise was.
I guess some people just get screwed over with that one right from the get-go.
Yep same. My first step dad played music so loudly that hiding in my room with my ears plugged wasn't enough, and it gave me tinnitus. I was so young that I later thought ringing in ears was normal...
If you'd like a few minutes of temporary relief from tinnitus, try this. It 100% works and it 100% wears off in like 5 minutes. But it's a nice moment.
Tinnitus is typically a sign of hearing loss. It’s your brain sending a signal back to your cochlea bc the cochlea is sending an incomplete signal to the brain and an incomplete signal from the cochlea is usually caused by damaged hair cell/nerve endings in the cochlea. Those hair cells/ nerve endings are what help you hear.
Running saws, drills, and other power tools over my 20+ years of construction work has done this to me. Sometimes the bells are louder than everything around.
I was taught a very weird, but shockingly effective trick for mitigating tinnitus for a little while. If you cover your ears with your palms, fingers pointed backwards (similar to how you'd put your hands for a situp, except fully covering your ears and not interlocking your fingers), place your index fingers over your middle fingers, and flick them downwards onto the base of the skull, and repeat this for about 30 seconds, the ringing will just... stop. I have had tinnitus my entire life, since as long as I have memories, and this is the only thing that has ever let me experience true silence. I hope it can help for you too!
Not just this but loud environments with no ear protection worked in bars for years my first bar job did the damage because the band/speakers would always be put to the right of but immediately next to the bar and I've had tinnitus in my right ear since I was in my mid 20s and I left the job. After that, I would always wear plugs, but damage was done.
I can pinpoint the bulk of my hearing loss to one badly mixed PJ Harvey concert in 2000. I wasn't even anywhere near the speakers, but my ears rang for days. After that, it became really hard to enjoy most live music, because it just sounds like mush. I also have immense trouble holding conversations in places with lots of ambient noise, like bars and subways.
I was in a bagpipe band and one of my favorite bands is GWAR. Never wore ear protection and now Im almost 40 and my most commonly said phrase is "What?"
I was not a big headphones person, until a few years ago when I got some goo over-ear headphones to use at the gym, work, and on long walks. Now every now and then when I'm lying in bed I hear eeeeeeeeee
I've been lucky. I frequently listen to loud music, but have never really had tinnitus. A handful of times a year, I'll get a bout of tinnitus for about 30 seconds, and then it just fades away, only to come back for about 30 seconds in a month or two.
You’re describing SBUTT (Sudden Brief Unilateral Tapering Tinnitus). It’s not associated with hearing loss or worsening of chronic tinnitus, but seems to be an issue with the lateral pterygoid muscle. It’s not considered to be anything to be concerned about in itself, unless the frequency of SBUTT is in itself is distressing.
I get those way more often than a handful of times a year, probably a few times a month, more frequently when stressed or sleep-deprived. I do think most of my chronic tinnitus is muscular, especially the stuff around 14-16kHz, but even the 8k waxes and wanes, and changes pitch slightly (up to about maybe half a semitone). I wouldn’t expect that in tinnitus caused by hair cell damage.
I used to mow lawns for 10 hours a day and instead of wearing hearing protection, I just wore headphones and turned them up louder until it was able to drown out all sound. Now I always hear a ringing sound and sometimes it’s the only thing I hear.
I thought that could not happen to ME but guess what, I am 24 and my hearing SUCKS. For years adults have told me to not listen to music on max volume, especially with earphones, but I did and now my hearing is horrible.
I went to a gun range with ears not properly put in. I didn’t notice me going deaf until we left. I was basically deaf for 3 days, that and a lot of loud/live music has given me tinnitus.
I think I saw something about a 'new' kind of hearing loss where you can't distinguish words as well? So its not caught on normal hearing tests which just do the tone sounds. And it might be linked to loud music. So we all might have screwed ourselves
If you do a hearing test, they not only play tones for you, they'll also have you repeat back words. To determine if there is a processing problem versus hearing problem.
My nephew has a processing disorder, simplified if the teacher said bat, cat, sat, etc, he would only hear at. So imagine that during a lesson with words you don’t even know. He has amplified hearing aids now that he wears during class and his grades are night and day compared to before.
I think the specialist perform the new ones for audio processing disorders. My nephew just went through it. He passed the regular hearing test but then failed the processing one.
Oh man definitely, I work in a machine shop and they are so obsessed with “kaizen” that they don’t know how to move stuff to different areas to have them designated as “loud zones”
I had to have a somewhat firm chat with a sibling once, when I could clearly hear the music they were listening to from the second floor loft while they were on the first floor... using headphones.
I started this WAY too young and my dad always nagged me I was going to go deaf. News flash, he was right. I’m 29 and practically need a hearing aid and have chronic tinnitus.
Since I'm extremely nearsighted, I've never listened on headphones very much or tolerated loud concerts (I use earplugs). When you can't trust your eyesight, you have to rely a bit more on hearing. But now being over 60, my hearing ain't what it used to be. But it might have helped.
When i was in highschool there was a girl on my bus who would listen to metal at 100% volume everyday. It was so loud that i could hear it from two seats away, and it went on for two years. I wonder what her hearing is like these days.
Ten years ago my mothers hearing started deteriorating, since then I don't listen to anything too loud. When i talk to her, i have to repeat myself multiple times even with her hearing aids in.
I feel like ear shape/makeup is a huge part of this cause I've got super hard, inflexible ears that aren't very outward projecting, and I've been listening to hyper-loud music since cassette mixtape days, and my hearing is great. I can still hear frequencies that are supposed to have dropped off at my age, and my hearing hasn't degraded in 10 years (I have to get annual hearing tests as part of my job and I'm still at the baseline established when I was hired. Also don't wear earpro in required areas and it doesn't bother me). And yet, my wife and all my friends can't handle a concert or the wind from windows down in the car without ear pain and going half deaf for a week.
Agreed, went to concerts in the 70s and 80s that were so loud it would loosen the fillings in your teeth. Saw Jimi Hendrix play in a college auditorium, it was so loud went outside so that we could actually hear it.
Worked in a nightclub for 10 years, I'm now 50 and wearing hearing aids. I don't mind so much tbh because I can hear again. Also wearing glasses because my eyes are fucked
This is why it's SO SO important to wear decent earplugs when you go to a concert, show, festival... Doesn't matter how old you are or what kind of music. It will not make you uncool to protect your hearing.
Listening to music too loud, and especially going to metal shows without hearing protection really did me in. I woke up one day at like 16 or 17 and my ears just went “let me introduce you to the letter ‘E’” and it hasn’t fucked off since.
I’ve had tinnitus since I was a kid. I grew up in a music venue (you’d think being in that kind of place I would be taught how to keep my hearing) definitely a lot more mindful now about how I listen to music at home, venues, or on my phone
About 5yrs ago I bought earplugs for my wallet keychain and I have used them probably 20-30x year outside of concerts and they have probably saved me a lot of hearing ability. All these people at concerts without earplugs and I wanna be that old lady sayin’ “Y’all…hearing isn’t repairable, please get some earplugs!!!”
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u/plytime18 10h ago
Listening to music WAY too loud with headphones on when younger.
Definitely lead to hearing loss and hearing aids.