Tinnitus

Change the thread title.

As for advice, white noise at night or rain on the window sounds.

And it sucks. I have in one ear (rare). Just hope you can get used to it and your not alone.

I developed tinnitus in my left ear as sort of reminder of long covid. I found this video really interesting and helpful. Basically your brain, given a chance, is really good at filtering out extraneous noise if you give it a chance. I'm not saying, btw, that it's a 'cure', but it helps understand what's going on. It's not some sort 'miracle cure' thing btw, despite the slightly click-baity title, actually a thoughtful and informed take from an ear doctor.

In really basic terms, the more you focus on the tinnitus, the more your brain is being trained to think that it's an important noise and the more it will amplify it. What you really want to do is ignore it, like a fridge sound, and eventually it'll filter it out.

Fwiw, most GPs and even ENTs know very little about tinnitus and just view it as something you have to live with. There are some interesting neurological treatments emerging though.

Download the app sound oasis nature sounds lite, I listen to brown noice / ocean surf/ thunderstorm etc , throughout the night at low volume

it certainly helps I’d regularly wake 4-5am buzzing ear, I pick up my phone put it next to my ear and tinnitus will go , and I can then 80% of the time fall back asleep, before seeing a specialist (holt)  I’d just wake up get on my phone,

good/bad sleep impacts all aspects of life

Have a google of Tinnitus Assessment & Management

youll more than likely always have it , but management is the key , they also recommend breathing exercises / calmness .
pilates 3 months in and it’s the future ;0)

plus the added bonus my bike control feels better

Just reading the thread title made mine a bit louder!

No tips other than you learn to live with it. I find noisy environments makes it worse, and I then struggle to hear people through the noise. Had it all my life.

For me irs both stress and mood related.   Now of course i can hear it having thought about it.  Masking helps many folk ie white noise .  CBT can also help.  The more you think about it the louder it is.

Both my dad and me found it much less troublesome once we retired 

The explanation I was given by doctor (given at the time I was rarely in loud environments) is that when it's quiet the brain can sometimes start trying to listen harder for any noise, the tinnitus is vibrating stuff from trying so hard to hear. So he recommended always being around some level of background noise, which lets the brain eventually train out of listening so hard for noise that isn't there. Which roughly chimes with what others have said above. I used Google podcasts app at night casting to a Google home. There's loads of 8 hour long white noise podcasts on there. They actually seem to have improved my sleep health now, gives me something to signify "it's time to sleep now"

Mine (only one ear) is much worse if stressed or not slept enough, but yes also can be quite loud after leaving a loud environment too. I can ignore it most of the time but it is of course deafening now I've written about it

Edit: doctor also claimed that in the initial phases, the tinnitus originates from a part of the brain that is more easily controlled to get rid of it, but a different part of the brain eventually takes over which is much harder to retrain, so the first couple of years are key for treatment. I've gone out of that window whilst still waiting for my clinic referral though...

Had it really bad at the beginning of the year due to synus infection. It finally went away but had another cold in November and the ringing has come back but faintly and hasn't gone. Luckily been managing to sleep OK so far.

It’s very sensible to seek help for it, so well done there. Also a good move to get your ears checked over by an ENT/Audiology professional who’ll likely perform a hearing test too. Often being given a chance to ask questions with the right people makes a big difference to people’s ability to manage their tinnitus.

In the meantime there’s a loads of good stuff here (formerly known as the British Tinnitus Association):

https://tinnitus.org.uk/

Thanks for all the tips  and sorry for any flare ups

Will look into everything mentioned

+1 for audiology referral.

I am a very new hearing aid wearer and the audiologist said much what rsl1 says. Wearing hearing aids does appear to reduce it (sometimes) by distracting the brain with more interesting sounds. 

Bookmarking this, cos I've been meaning to start this very same thread

I have had tinitus for years mixture of motorcycles without hearing protection and too many gigs in my youth.

Lots of things affect mine, sudden loud noises, stress, tiredness, lack of sleep mood etc.

As others have said hearing aids and maskers can work.

My stratergy is to ignore it, I use the same strategy that I use with climbing hills on a bike and shut out the discomfort by thinking about something else. If its being persistant in bed I will stick and earbud in one ear so my brain latches onto the radio rather than the tinitus. The world servic on radio 4 or radio 4ex are good for me. This acn backfire if the radio program is anoying, too interesting or too depressing.

+1 for an audiology referal.

I hope you find a way to cope as it can be quite difficult to deal with.

I’ve had it for years as a whistle. I think my brain has trained itself to ignore that. Just recently I keep getting a deep hum. It was periodic, and I assumed it was coming from an external source but I recently discovered it continues when I have ear plugs in, so it’s obviously an internal thing. <br /><br />Unfortunately once I realised it was an internal thing, I couldn’t get rid of it and it was keeping me awake for several hours at night. My anxiety heightened, which caused a roll on effect and made it worse. Things felt like they were spiralling out of control.

And then I discovered white/pink noise. If I play this at a very low volume, this becomes a welcome distraction and I fall asleep pretty quickly. Only problem is the source. While my son is at university it’s not a problem as I can sleep in his room and play it through my phone speaker. As he is now home,  I’m using one air pod and sleeping on my left side, and swapping over when I turn over. Bit of a pain. I bought a musicozy headband, but it wasn’t comfortable for side sleeping. <br /><br />

I also have ent and cbt appointments in the new year to see if the physical side can be dealt with and to try and fix my ongoing anxiety and almost OCD tendencies of focusing on negative thoughts and emotions, which isn’t helping with the tinnitus. 

Don't know if these might be useful for people to aid sleeping rather than using normal headphones/pods or whatever fire white noise, they been popping up on various feeds of mine recently, could be rubbish!

https://www.snoozeband.co.uk/

Similar to what I tried. Don’t know if some are better than others but the Musicozy one I bought isn’t comfortable for me, for sleeping on my side. 

The other thing you can do is to use a pillow speaker under the pillow.

I've slept with Shures on when needed.

I normally sleep with cotton wool in my ears - although I also have hyperaccusis which is sensitivity to noises, so the birds chirping in the morning will wake me up.

Cotton wool muffles the sound, whereas ear plugs will just emphasis the tinnitus.

I've had tinnitus for donkeys years, probably due to narrow eustachian tubes and not good ear ventilation - made worse by colds, etc. It means that I can't dive, for example.

If that's the case then pinching your nostrils and inflating your ears to get a mild pop can be beneficial.

In terms of wearing headphones, the in-ear headphones that seal the ear canal are the best option as they are much more efficient at loading the ear and so you do not need anywhere near the volume, and too much volume can obviously make the problem worse. Non sealing ear buds are awful for me - I can't wear for any length of time.