Just curious. Does tinnitus "sound" the same to everyone?

L.D.

L.D.

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Mine seems to emulate the effect of firing a 38 revolver for 60 seconds without earplugs then immediately stand under a lone tree in the middle of uncut hayfield at 1 AM on a dry summer night with the crickets and cicadas competing for "fields loudest" award.
 
Oh, and sometimes prev. description accompanied by Fastball playing "the way"
 
Sounds like peeper frogs on a summer night...but I don't really notice it much after 50 years of living with it.
 
Sounds like after a live indoor small venue Motörhead concert without earplugs for a week.
 
The after-effect of a gunshot around unprotected ears is fairly accurate for how it sounds for me, just a high pitched ringing. The volume changes but I’m pretty certain the pitch stays the same.

It gets loud enough that if there’s a low talker in the room I’ll have a hard time hearing them, which just happened this weekend when a friend was over and for reasons unbeknownst to me, started speaking in this tiny/helpless voice and after an hour of not being able to understand a word she was saying and asking her to speak normally, I just gave up.
 
gearJunkie said:
I've been dealing with it in one form or another for so many years, that I have developed an internal filter where I don't even notice it anymore.

The only time I noticed it is when someone asks a question about it. So thanks for that. :rofl

:cheers
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You are most welcome. May your 38 fire only 1/4 loads.
 
L.D. said:
Mine seems to emulate the effect of firing a 38 revolver for 60 seconds without earplugs then immediately stand under a lone tree in the middle of uncut hayfield at 1 AM on a dry summer night with the crickets and cicadas competing for "fields loudest" award.
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This is a good explanation of what I experience. I have a constant ring that I don't notice most of the time until I think about it. It is actually pretty loud but I somehow have learned to block it out unless it is brought up. Some nights when I go to bed it is screaming loud and I have to concentrate on other things to ignore it and get to sleep. I am not sure what causes it but mine varies in volume. I have read that stress can make it louder. I would also describe it as shooting a gun without ear protection.

Another thing mine does is what you described. I hear what sounds exactly like cicadas with crickets. I don't hear this part all the time. It comes and goes like the volume that varies.

I was in a thread on another forum where we were discussing this and I spent a little time concentrating on what I hear and analyzing it. I discovered that I actually hear two, sometimes three notes. I figured out what the note is at one point but can't remember. That was part of the discussion we were having on the other forum. If I remember correctly the notes that I hear are octaves of the same note. An interesting thing is that as we shared this information with the group that was discussing it we all started to discover that we were hearing the same note/s. If I remember correctly not everyone heard the same note/s but most of us were hearing the same one/s.
 
DrewJD82 said:
The after-effect of a gunshot around unprotected ears is fairly accurate for how it sounds for me, just a high pitched ringing. The volume changes but I’m pretty certain the pitch stays the same.

It gets loud enough that if there’s a low talker in the room I’ll have a hard time hearing them, which just happened this weekend when a friend was over and for reasons unbeknownst to me, started speaking in this tiny/helpless voice and after an hour of not being able to understand a word she was saying and asking her to speak normally, I just gave up.
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I swear the ex used to talk even more quiet when I would ask her to speak up.

I have noticed over time that some women's voices effect me differently.. some are fine and some just hard to understand with what they claim is "speaking" volume, lol.

Must be a frequency thing... stupid 20 year old me and loud stacks.
 
JasonE said:
Some nights when I go to bed it is screaming loud and I have to concentrate on other things to ignore it and get to sleep. I am not sure what causes it but mine varies in volume.
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Same here... high pitch, ballpark I would say like a sinewave in the 8kHz to 16kkHz range , very strong during nights and evenings, but also during the day at times.
In my case, it started a couple of years ago, and it's just int the left ear. I'm still learning to cope with it, but sometimes, oh man, I would give a lot for just one minute of silence...
 
vard said:
Same here... high pitch, ballpark I would say like a sinewave in the 8kHz to 16kkHz range , very strong during nights and evenings, but also during the day at times.
In my case, it started a couple of years ago, and it's just int the left ear. I'm still learning to cope with it, but sometimes, oh man, I would give a lot for just one minute of silence...
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I have it in both ears. Right now it sounds like it is right in the center of my head. I guess that means it is affecting both ears at equal volumes.
 
JasonE said:
I have it in both ears. Right now it sounds like it is right in the center of my head. I guess that means it is affecting both ears at equal volumes.
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My ENT doc said most people experiencing tinnitus experience ringing in both ears.
He was concerned that I only have it in the left ear (he was thinking perhaps a tumor could be pressing on some of the left ear's nerves) so he sent me to an MRI. Thankfully the MRI came out OK, and my doc was very happy about it: he cheerfully told me that there's nothing to worry about, and that my right ear will soon follow the left year's behaviour and I will have the same ringing in both ears... I was like, duh... thank you for letting me know doc, very reassuring :-)
 
L.D. said:
Mine seems to emulate the effect of firing a 38 revolver for 60 seconds without earplugs then immediately stand under a lone tree in the middle of uncut hayfield at 1 AM on a dry summer night with the crickets and cicadas competing for "fields loudest" award.
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Luckily, I've never heard a revolver or any other fire weapon. I am not in the Wild West :D

Tinnitus can manifest as constant pitch, ringing, hissing, roaring, pulsing, whooshing, or a combination of different noises. And the sounds can fluctuate in pitch and loudness.
 
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Mine’s more like an old CRT TV left on in the next room mixed with faint ringing. Annoying enough that silence doesn’t feel silent anymore.
 
One thing that had me concerned for a while with mine is that in a thread on TGP a guy chimed in and mentioned his wife having it and hers had an oscillation to the sound. Her doctor told her that could possibly point to something more serious going on. I was concerned that mine sounding like cicadas could be something more serious. I have never had anything come back on any tests that says it is so I kind of stopped worrying about it.
 
L.D. said:
Mine seems to emulate the effect of firing a 38 revolver for 60 seconds without earplugs then immediately stand under a lone tree in the middle of uncut hayfield at 1 AM on a dry summer night with the crickets and cicadas competing for "fields loudest" award.
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Have you ever fired a gun for 60 seconds without earplugs? I actually have lol, a 9mm once at a range in the Army and instead of stopping and making a scene I powered through it and I’ll just say it actually hurt and I lost my hearing for a night, serious ringing in my ears. Tinnitus I have from experiences like that and from flying in a helicopter for years and it’s like a shadow of the initial damage imo
 
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