Surviving this big world with wonky hearing...

...otherwise known as tinntinitus. There is always a noise that you hear, it can be louder or softer. Things can aggrevate it causing it to rise and block out other things you want to hear. Many things can affect it. No two afflicted people hear the exact same thing or react the same to the world of sound around them. I have this and so does my spouse. We are radically different. I personally always hear 60 cycle 'scream'. The sound of a CRT tube (monitor or tv) turned on. Some hear a sort of roaring or whooshing. It all varies. In our modern age I find earbuds have saved a life because I can put on a playlist and have a background drone noise to help wash it out some. Spouse and I also have high dB hearing protectors and use them when needed. He also has a pair that can be hooked in like earbuds to pipe him music. Trust me, being in there all by yourself, that sound can get on your nerves at times.

Something in my bother zone is sheet-plastic: cigarette wrapper cellophane (the WORST), mylar or plastic film chip bags, baggies... I often store craft supplies in baggies, but. If I want to use the stuff I will often take a mini muffin tin, put on the muffs, and pour out what I want to use and close all those little (deleted) baggies up, then once I'm set up, take the sanity-muffs off and work. Others think it strange, I say in three rustles just to get into that bag I'll retaliate. All my friends know I'll hand them the snackbowl as soon as I see that bag. Eat all you want, kill the (deleted) bag!

Pluses, I can tell my body temperature within half a degree just by the volume. I can tell if there's ultrasonic around (I can't hear it but it sets up harmonic resonances in what I hear. I can infer it's there)

Minuses, I loathe whistlers, chip bags, dog whistles, and ultrasonic pest chasers.

I'm reminded of it because I stored a snack I wished to partake of in a baggie and it's between 'is it worth dealing with that baggie just to get the goodie out'? If our lives had such simple dilemmas as our worst problems...

I have this too and have had it since childhood. It showed up the day I woke up one morning deaf in one ear from mumps having caused nerve damage. My ear works fine, no signal gets to my brain. I think I was eight or nine years old. For me it's just become part of the background and I largely don't notice it, maybe because it started when I was so young and just grew up with it. I remember it being very distracting when it first arrived, but this happened over thirty years ago. I also notice it's louder if I have a fever. Mine sounds exactly as you describe it Deb, that very high Khz tone very much like the tone an old tube tv or monitor makes when it's on. Every once in awhile at random, and it's occurrence is very sparse thankfully, the tone will instantly get very loud and then over about 10-20 seconds it fades back to normal volume, like striking a cymbal.

Being deaf in one ear has made for interesting situations like sitting at my old bar watching a ball game and a stranger is talking to me and I don't know it. The stranger eventually says something to the bartender like "man that guy's a dick. I've been trying to talk to him and he ignores me" to which my bartender replies "oh, he's actually a nice guy he's just deaf in one ear". Another time, at the same bar, a girl was talking to me and she eventually nudged my arm and I looked over and she sneeringly said "what are you?! deaf?!" to which I replied "actually I am. This would be a good time for you to insert foot in mouth". She got up and left.

I don't know how to compare my tinntinitus to others, I'm sure it varies widely in tone hertz and volume, but for the most part I don't notice mine on a day to day basis.

James Freyr wrote:I have this too and have had it since childhood. It showed up the day I woke up one morning deaf in one ear from mumps having caused nerve damage. My ear works fine, no signal gets to my brain. I think I was eight or nine years old. For me it's just become part of the background and I largely don't notice it, maybe because it started when I was so young and just grew up with it. I remember it being very distracting when it first arrived, but this happened over thirty years ago. I also notice it's louder if I have a fever. Mine sounds exactly as you describe it Deb, that very high Khz tone very much like the tone an old tube tv or monitor makes when it's on. Every once in awhile at random, and it's occurrence is very sparse thankfully, the tone will instantly get very loud and then over about 10-20 seconds it fades back to normal volume, like striking a cymbal.

Being deaf in one ear has made for interesting situations like sitting at my old bar watching a ball game and a stranger is talking to me and I don't know it. The stranger eventually says something to the bartender like "man that guy's a dick. I've been trying to talk to him and he ignores me" to which my bartender replies "oh, he's actually a nice guy he's just deaf in one ear". Another time, at the same bar, a girl was talking to me and she eventually nudged my arm and I looked over and she sneeringly said "what are you?! deaf?!" to which I replied "actually I am. This would be a good time for you to insert foot in mouth". She got up and left.

I don't know how to compare my tinntinitus to others, I'm sure it varies widely in tone hertz and volume, but for the most part I don't notice mine on a day to day basis.

Oh my gosh James,

I've lived those same episodes.   Does your spouse (if married) sometimes get frustrated when speaking to you without being in the line of sight?  I know mine does! I'm trying to convince her that I'm not ignoring her, and she's slowing realizing that she can't just shout down the hall and expect me to hear it.

It's a weird condition because you can't really explain to people what it sounds like.  To me it's like having a sea shell to my ear 24/7 only a little higher pitched.  Mine was inadvertently self induced with a shot-gun blast in close quarters.  I'm of the mind that permanent damage is at the root of it, so I guess we'll just have to live with it.

To Deb: I know what you mean, I still hear some tones very well, but conversational noise is like my head is stuck in cotton ball.

I feel your pain!

I belong here also...the 'sea shell' sound is a good comparison, sometimes mine is more like frogs and crickets.  Along with the tinnitus I have a hearing loss in the high frequency range.  I read lips more and more, have an amplifier on the phone and use email when I can.

I had a hearing aide for most of the nineties, got it wet when we dumped our canoe one summer and it never recovered.  I'm ready for one in each ear now but seems like other things keep taking priority.  The one I had did a great job of masking the ringing in my ears...it also drove me crazy hearing all of those high pitched sounds in the grocery store from the price reader...but so worth it for so many situations.   I still found it hard to hear conversations in a group...that has never been my favorite situation anyway though, so now, as long as I can see someone's face I can 'hear' them perfectly unless they are well bearded and then it's hopeless...

My loss has been going on thirty years and my husband has more recently lost some hearing...makes for some interesting conversations sometimes  

I am married, and she doesn't express frustration but I can imagine it can be sometimes for her. Yeah there's no understanding what she says if she hollars at me from the other room or across the yard. What happens all the time is I mis-hear what she said. Things like she'll ask "do we have cheese?" and I'll say "no I didn't sneeze". This happens several times a week and it's really been funny for us over the years. There's been some really ridiculous ones that have left us laughing and I wish I could remember them.

I can hear and understand her if we're at home in the same room together. If we're in a restaurant or anywhere there is a lot of background noise, I have a really hard time picking out her voice amongst all the sounds. And this ability to pick out a voice amongst background sounds has gotten worse as I've gotten older. I was still pretty good at it 20 years ago. Now I have to cup my hand around my ear to try and capture what someone sitting across from me is saying.

You mentioned shotgun and about a month ago at daybreak I saw a coyote about a hundred yards from the house and I ran to my closet, grabbed the 12ga, and ran out onto the deck and fired a shot at him. (My intention was to scare/intimidate him and I aimed a little behind him, missing. I'm not into indiscriminate killing. If said coyote had a history of killing my chickens or cats, he would have been a goner.) I always shoot with hearing protection, except this time I didn't have time to go to the garage and get it. I specifically remember after taking that shot how it didn't seem as loud as it should have, and that I think I'm slowly losing my hearing. Granted that was outdoors and not in a room with walls and a ceiling. I totally imagine my 80 year old self being the stereotypical old crank saying "what's that sonny? Speak up, I can't hear!"

I can lose tonal ranges or pretty much everything for a few to several hours (with accompanying pain at the onset. Shutdown I equate to being hit with a bat in the head and I have retaliated against someone as reflex (the person that caused it who was usually right next to me). I try not to these days. I have learned to lip read and will hold a first finger up between myself and the one I'm trying to talk to. They will stare at the finger and keep their face towards me then so I can lip read. If I ever do this to you you will know why. Shutdown can occur when I get assaulted by a frequency or volume or both that causes the noise in ears to explode.

Back to the early 90's, and we were shopping for geekgear, audio and visual. The first flat screen Tv's had JUST shown and Laserdisks were on pass two but successful this time. We were in an (audio/visual geek store) and in the speaker room, which had a railed ramp down into it. We had looked at a laserdisc player and I'm holding an LP sized thick disk worth about $100 with high resolution images meant to show the quality of playback for different laserdisc players and Tv's. We were looking at a particular set of dolby surround speakers and the fellow tossed in this GunsNRoses CD. There is one song they do that has a long instrumental in front, and I admit it's a very good one to show off the response of a speaker set. I have no idea what their music sounds like or any knowledge of this particular song. We have it cranked, we like the speakers, life is good... AND THEY WHISTLE. They go from the instrumental and whistle about three times. Whistling is catastrophic to me, I can be baseball batted by this. My eyes cross, I am reeling and everything has exploded... I literally lurch and almost fall right there. I remember desperately looking for someplace to put that disc down before I dropped and broke it... somebody finally took it from me, and I crawled out of there on all fours up that ramp like my tuckus was on fire and I was being chased by a rabid Doberman. The reaction of mine was maybe two seconds but it seemed an eternity and I made it for the bathroom and cried for about half an hour. They sent a female employee in to see if I was alright and I could not hear her. DEAD DEAF. Only time I've managed that one so far. I managed not to black out. I finally returned, that employee couldn't kiss my toes fast enough. He nearly did, honestly. I can't hear anyone and literally state that I am totally deaf and we were leaving. It was dark, winter, and urban and I drove forty five minutes of urban with no hearing at all, my spouse said that was (deleted) scary. I went to bed. Next morning I could hear. The store called us and asked us to come back so we did, and the manager gave us the speaker set and half off that really fancy "box" that everything hooked to that we were looking at. I did explain what happened, and asked that the employee not be fired. It wasn't his fault but. Manager said they were going to dub a CD and be able to warn people that such and such a section had things like high pitched...

I have found smartphones to be a godsend for communicating with the spouse. No more yelling across the house (he is overall going deaf now, he has admitted to some hearing problems, and we are saving for the copay for hearing aids which he will need in the next few years) or misunderstanding. Just the rare total snarfup because of autocorrect. If we are in different rooms texting is how we communicate, and you can send pictures too. (example, he can be working in shop, I can be processing tomatoes and he as a question about what to do with something, so he texts and sends a picture of it. I just have to wipe off a hand and peck a bit, and we can both continue our lives...

He has become a huge fan of audiobooks as a background noise for himself.

I can hear you when you talk to me unless I've been 'batted' and lost some tonals.

I've had tinnitus since I was a teenager, at least partly brought on by too many live bands with the volume cranked to 11. I recall leaving a bar once and saying to my friends that I had permanent hearing damage from it. I never liked really loud music anyway... I also had a few too many friends shooting big guns near me with no hearing protection... hey it was the 70s, people didn't think about that so much then.

I essentially have giant mosquitos in both ears 24/7. I can ignore it most of the time, but it's right there whenever the room is quiet. I find it really hard to hear certain people with soft voices, mostly women. At least my wife has a voice I can hear, even if I can't understand all of it unless she is speaking clearly. Hearing conversation in a crowded room is next to impossible.

My husband has hearing loss in one ear. According to him, part of the reason he married me was because I'm loud and he could hear me.

It's one of the few times being told I'm loud was a compliment! :D

My maternal Grandfather was an auctioneer back before they really had PA systems or bullhorns and he didn't use a megaphone either. I studied opera seriously during my teens. I have leatherlungs.  I've only witched out my other half ONCE. Usually we have the usual rants sorted down into semi-jokes we remind the other one of. It just saves time.

One thing I do love is flat screen monitor technology and even better is touchscreen. They don't make the noise that just magnifies my sound I hear all the time. A CRT if it's on in the building, I knew it and could walk right to it. My home computer is totally discombubilated for sound. No operating pings, nothing. Unless I plug a set of headphones into it. I took the microphone off too. It does NOT do random sounds at me. If I want to do Skype or Zoom I have to use my phone or tablet. I expect those to make sound and deal with it accordingly.

I've always really liked white noise. TV, music, fans - any noise that I choose can drown out what I don't want to hear, whether it's in my head or in the world. As I lose my hearing, it doesn't go evenly. I hear things that aren't there, my mind trying to fill in blanks. I don't hear things that are there, I've convinced myself they are not real.

And then, noise bothers me more than ever. I don't want hearing aids. I'm perfectly content watching CC TV. Especially, when watching British television, accents and gravel walkways are my downfall.

My wife and I were laying in bed one spring evening and she said "It's so nice to hear the frogs, katydids, and water going over the waterfalls" (we have a rocky stream with waterfalls at the edge of our yard 40 meters away from our house).  I just laughed and said "Baby I hear that stuff all year long".

You see, I am an x-combat soldier. I lost 30% of my hearing at a very young age.  

What I hear?  Imagine yourself at a secluded cove on a lake. It's a hot late July night, the frogs, crickets, katydids, Cicadas, and all other critters and insects are blasting their calls.... that's what I hear all the time if I pay attention to it.

2 years ago the wife finally convinced me to get hearing aides.  It was a steep price since I never registered with the VA or pursued any disability compensation. To me there are others out there that need more help and I do not want to clog up the "system".  Anyway, I slipped those $5000 worth of "ears" in and the entire world came to life.  I had not heard leaves rustle in the trees for years, folks speech sounded so much better.  I could hear other noises I had likewise had not heard in years.

Our place is "in the sticks".  I am surrounded by about 700 acres of woods with the closest neighbor being about 3/4 a mile away through the woods. The only thing I could ever really hear around my place that was foreign was when the occassional medivac helicopter would fly over.  I used to tell folks that we live in the most quitest place I have ever been...that is until I put my new ears in!  

Around the dinner table and out in public it is great but when I am working around our property I rarely if ever wear them.  It's still nice to feel so secluded and not hear anything....keeps me focused and concentrated on the task at hand on our hobby farm.  

If any of you are considering hearing aides I will say that my biggest complaint is "direction".  I keep about 20 free-range chickens and with my ears in I am about 90 degrees off on where I think the flock is when a rooster crows.  Without the ears I can pinpoint a rooster crowing but with them in it's another story....same goes for our dogs barking or occasional yotes yapping.  

The sounds or music that isn't there is a real phenomenon, it's our mind playing tricks and trying to make sense of the sensory input around it. I was a young teen and got really fantastically sick (I spent an entire week home from school and I actually lost a day I have no memory of passing (I lost the Wednesday of that week). My fever went to just over 104f. I usually consistently return 97.5, so... the noise in my ears climbed as the fever did, and finally shut things out. If it was really loud and sharp it would come through, but if you tried to talk to me, nope (I said fill a metal garbage can half full of rocks and busted glass, lid it, and toss it down a metal stairwell. I might hear the can as it impacted the steps on the bounce down).

In my own little world I started hearing music, voices. A chorus singing tones. Sometimes male, sometimes female. Very pretty. They sang to me all evening, repeating certain patterns. My body also seemed to be trying to heal, it was actually very soothing and helped me rest.

Later years we use box fans for ventilating the house. Hubby and I both have heard snatches of music, often someone singing, and all it is is the fan sound against our tinntinitus. That our mind creates for us.

I spent my youth in profligate use of my hearing.  Guns, rock n' roll, motorcycles, construction.  One night in my late 30's I was working on a concrete resurfacing project.  I took a break and realized my ears were really ringing.  That was 30 years ago, they haven't stopped since.  As those of you who have posted this experience, the first couple of months/years are absolutely maddening to the point of doing harm to yourself, I'm sure for some it never stops being so.  I did a lot of research without much success, as far as I can tell there's not much to be done for it.  I tried two herbal remedies advertised to help, no joy.  I did try the white noise training that William Shatner promotes, it did help to keep me from going totally over the edge, if Capt. Kirk can do it... so I tried it.  I sleep with a cheap box fan at night, I couldn't go to sleep otherwise.  I got a white noise appfor my tablet the road, it helps a lot.  For some reason if I put on headphones and listen to classical music at a volume just loud enough to hear, that it goes down to a tolerable level until I go to sleep.

The DW finally forced me to go to a hearing center, one too many "huh's??".  I stopped at the audiology booth at Sam's Club and did the whole enchilada free test.  They gave me a nice graph showing my hearing sensitivity over the whole audible range with the human voice range superimposed on it.  The whole ugly truth in a picture; for much of the human voice range I'm heading toward being deaf as a stump.  

Then the booth lady fitted me with a set of hearing aids (very expensive ones) and led me out of the sound proof booth into the busy store.  Before she opened the door she said (with a sales person's optimism) that I would be experiencing the same level of hearing that I had in my youth.  Swung open the door and the cacophony was absolutely knee buckling.  Two little screaming brats at 30 feet arguing over something, Muzak overhead, I HATE Barry Manilow, the sound of squeaky shopping cart wheels, I could hear the keys of a laptop computer in the next aisle, the a/c blowers, the EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE.  She took them out of my ears and it was blessedly quiet again, just the background hum of muffled voices.  They would take a LOT of getting used to.  It was so unsettling that I didn't even notice if it made the ringing go away, I might have to go back and try it again.  

I can afford the hearing aides, just not sure they're worth it.  I work from home and I don't interface verbally/aurally with many people anymore.  It gets annoying in a social setting when there are a lot of people (I have mastered the 'knowing' look and head nod).  Maybe just one, for when I really need it.  Otherwise, it's kind of nice and quiet in here except for the four-note chord steady state which has improbably become something like an old friend that I wouldn't miss if they went away, but tolerable in a weird way.    

Eric Thomas - Holy crap youre experience is mine to a tee.  Same place (Sams), same damn experience.  I even thought Sam's club was quiet before they stuck the ears in.  We walked outside and for some reason 2 workers were pulling a pallet across the pavement....that lit me up.  At one point I considered handing the Sam's lady back the ears and running away.  It's loud out there and offensive when one can hear again.

Of course I thought about it later, I should have taken the time to adjust.  Sam's Club on a Saturday afternoon is probably not the best place to take hearing aids for a test drive, especially not if they're set on HIGH.  It's not like Hollywood when they pull off the bandages and it's "I can see! I can see!!".  They have a volume adjustment, I just was so gobsmacked when I stepped out that I just wasn't thinking straight.  It really was a distorted initial experience, two steps down from a real panic.  I wonder if the sales people do that on purpose, knowing full well that x percent of people will go "I can hear!" and y percent slap their hands to their ears and go "MAKE IT STOP!!!".    They have a 30 day satisfaction/money back guarantee.  I might go back just to see if they have an effect on the tinnitus.  

I've explained my story in a post above but wanted to add to the hearing aid discussion.  They can be wonderful and well worth the expense.  I was advised to go to an audiologist and did.  Besides an extensive hearing test they made a mold from my own ear canal for the aid.  Poured some sort of goup right in my ear.  When I picked up the hearing aid it fit perfectly and the first thing I was shown was the volume control and the on off switch.  Mine was fairly basic...now there are digital ones that are much more sophisticated with tone control also.  I found I had to remove to talk on the phone with that ear as there would be feed back.   I think that what they sell at Sam's is likely just a generic amplifier not something designed for specific hearing losses...not sure though.

I loved being able to hear night noises again...coyotes and owls...and to hear conversations better.  It fit so well after awhile I would have to feel to be sure that it was in my ear or not as I would take it out at night and for showers and swimming etc.

A big plus is that it does mask the ringing...I was told it would and it seemed to do the job.  

That hearing aid lasted ten years and then I got it wet when we dumped our canoe and didn't get it out to dry for a couple days later...that did it in....the electrical components I guess.

I don't know what did mine in but it happened about age four. Possibly the fact we moved into the dump of a home we literally rebuilt over the next fifteen years. And dad and a circular saw is most likely it (mid 1960's, who thought about hearing protection. And lead paint? I still remember the smell of 'scorching' it off some of the woodwork-about 30 layers and paint remover isn't like it is today... bernzomatic flame it then take a putty knife to it)

I do remember twice in my adult years for some reason, my ears were silent. Strange as everything. I was low 20's, married a few years, sleeping in a small bedroom in a very quiet house. He was still sleeping and I could hear this repeating noise... it was his heart beating and echoing. I kid not. One other, I had to literally put on hearing protectors because the hearing was on high and it was driving me around one. I finally went to bed just to not deal with it anymore. Both were a few hours duration. Don't ask me what caused it to go to sleep.

I've tried a lot of things too and nothing worked, not even gallons of ginko bilboa leaf tea.

Judith,

The ones at Sam's club are actually pretty high-end and less than you'd pay elsewhere.  They still set a person back $4K-$5K.  Mine are bluetooth compatible (cell phone can be routed through them) and 4 levels of volume control.  Plus they have 3 settings that you can tailor/set up. My settings are "Adro" (which is the normal setting), "Noisy" and "Music".  Adro is what it is typically set to and if I am in a crowded noisy area I can set it to "Noisy" and the background noise will be filtered out but I can still hear those around me in normal conversation.  I've been flat-picking acoustic guitar for around 30 years and I play with some guys from time to time (Hippie grass, Bluegrass, Americana, Fiddle Tunes,  etc) and the "Music" setting tones it own a bit but I am still able to hear each individual instrument and their part.

They can adjust them the way one likes.  I think it took 3 trips to finally get mine dialed in to where I wanted them.  My wife has good hearing so I would compare things to her hearing.  When she'd hear something she'd simply ask if  could hear it and vice versa.  It took awhile and we finally got the hearing aides dialed in.

My wife nearly cried when we decided to buy them.  We have 2 young children and it was creating a problem that I was oblivious to.  My youngest's (son - 10 at the time)  speech was driving me crazy.  I'd say things about his pronunciation of words and I was sure he had a speech defect when saying words with "th" in it.  Same goes for the "r" sound.  Come to find out with my hearing loss those were labeled as the first sounds in speech to be missing in my hearing loss.  

Jese Anderson wrote:Judith,

The ones at Sam's club are actually pretty high-end and less than you'd pay elsewhere.  They still set a person back $4K-$5K.  Mine are bluetooth compatible (cell phone can be routed through them) and 4 levels of volume control.  Plus they have 3 settings that you can tailor/set up. My settings are "Adro" (which is the normal setting), "Noisy" and "Music".  Adro is what it is typically set to and if I am in a crowded noisy area I can set it to "Noisy" and the background noise will be filtered out but I can still hear those around me in normal conversation.  I've been flat-picking acoustic guitar for around 30 years and I play with some guys from time to time (Hippie grass, Bluegrass, Americana, Fiddle Tunes,  etc) and the "Music" setting tones it own a bit but I am still able to hear each individual instrument and their part.

They can adjust them the way one likes.  I think it took 3 trips to finally get mine dialed in to where I wanted them.  My wife has good hearing so I would compare things to her hearing.  When she'd hear something she'd simply ask if  could hear it and vice versa.  It took awhile and we finally got the hearing aides dialed in.

My wife nearly cried when we decided to buy them.  We have 2 young children and it was creating a problem that I was oblivious to.  My youngest's (son - 10 at the time)  speech was driving me crazy.  I'd say things about his pronunciation of words and I was sure he had a speech defect when saying words with "th" in it.  Same goes for the "r" sound.  Come to find out with my hearing loss those were labeled as the first sounds in speech to be missing in my hearing loss.  

this shows how far behind I am...I had the hearing aid until the late nineties, so that's been almost twenty years without and I'm not up on any new tech in that area.  I like the options yours has and knew the price had gone up.  I think mine was $2500?  

Thanks for explaining...maybe I'll have to set foot in a Sam's club before long.....

At the risk of being stereotyped as a Dr. Christopher groupie, I will mention his B&B tincture which is designed as a nerve formula, usually used as ear drops with  cotton balls in the ears to keep the drops in. Black Cohosh, Blue Cohosh, Blue vervain, Skullcap, and  lobelia  

Formulas like this are not "miracle cures", rather a slow steady feeding of nerve cells, and tinnitus/ deafness is one of the conditions it is used for. It probably acts slowly enough that you don't notice any changes except suddenly one day you notice it is gone or greatly reduced.

I believe there is some current research demonstrating that previous ideas about brain cells being finite and once lost were lost forever are mistaken, and there is new evidence of brain cells reproducing. So the idea of once lost , lost forever is probably not a productive approach.

All this being said, and personally believing that I have the power to heal my tinnitus, I have yet to actually follow through with the diet and treatments that would likely regenerate my hearing. It is easier and feeds my addiction to continue eating sugar and I have sort of correlated those binges to increased noise in my ears. Also, although I have on occasion used the b&b I have not used it for long enough periods to obtain substantial results.

My tinnitus was a low level background sort from power tools, and one side got much worse about 20 years ago when I had a severe tooth infection.

My chief complaint aside from not being able to hear as well is the misdirection trying to find sounds somewhere out there. Often I need to walk around in a circle a couple times just to know where a sound is coming from.

On the plus side, in the car if I'm driving it keeps useless chatter to a minimum--people tend to shut up if you ask them to repeat themselves every time they say something.


And I will add a concept we were taught, that when a body system is under stress, the first reaction is hyper--  Hypoglycemic is a precursor to diabetic -- maybe tinnitus is the precursor to deafness and the real issue with these conditions is correct nutrition/cleansing to allow the systems to heal

Alright, you talked me into it. I'm going to go back and try them again.  This time on low.  Film at eleven...

Give um' hell Eric.

For those not wanting to spring that much cash for hearing aides I'd suggest you look on craigslist for newer used ones.  Most of the time it's family members selling them after their parents die.  Those can be had for about half as much and most places can adjust them for you.  Also even though I have two I mainly wear one most of the time in my "worst" ear so two are not absolutely necessary to have acceptable hearing.

I'm fairly active and love destroying things and misplacing things.  It was rather difficult for me to keep track of two and I was going to turn one back in but decided to keep it.  A single one serves it's purpose in most instances such as watching tv with others, the dinner table, etc.  I'd say that I only wear both around 10-15% of the time and that's when it's a situation like playing music, hunting, a funeral, or when I really need to put emphasis on being able to hear.

Another side note is that friends who have not seen me in awhile always say: "Man you talk different now, you used to be rather loud when speaking".  I simply just point to my ears and show them hearing aide(s).  I also can look folks in the eye when I talk to them again.  I used to have to somewhat focus on the lips when someone was talking low.  

The good thing about it is that you can always take them out and get some peace and quiet.  And as far as the ringing in the ears - even with a single one in there are enough noises (birds, planes, critters, wind, etc) that pop up and do not permit me focus on the ringing.

We don't venture out much from our place but when we do I take the ears.  We've been heading out before and get 5-6 miles down the road and my wife will say: "Did you remember to bring your ears"....if I forgot them we make a u-turn and head back home to pick them up.  

As I mentioned earlier: There are a lot of noises going on around us in daily life and I hadn't heard them in years.  I am 100% satisfied with them and my family life has improved dramatically.  I still enjoy putting them on and just setting on the front porch in the evening and listening to all the sounds.  Previously I'd not hear anything but ringing in my ears....the entire world came to life when I opted to try out hearing aides.  It's quiet back here in the woods but not nearly as quiet as I thought it was before getting me some new "ears".

Deb Rebel wrote:...otherwise known as tinntinitus...  I have this and so does my spouse...

I'm so sorry that yours is so severe. While I wouldn't wish tinntinitus on anyone, it sure would be nice if my spouse actually understood the problem. Just yesterday, he was speaking to me, the kid chimed in too, with the tv on, I had no comprehension of any word anywhere. And I was looking right at him. I only knew the concept of NOISE.

I have at different times, analog tv static on HIGH volume. Varying volumes of assorted tones, perhaps even at the same time, that sometimes can be mentally turned down in volume. Sometimes. I do not look forward to Sunday at 12 PM. I try to be indoors then, as the tornado sirens are tested at that time. My guys do try to mute any screeching from the tv.

I had my first hearing test in kindergarten. The tech got irritated cause I reported tones he wasn't activating. I don't know if that info made it to the doc or not. Minor  hearing loss was the conclusion, but not severe enough for the expense. I went in as an adult. They said I was barely in the range that they could help me with. I chose not to pursue it.

There is a herbal remedy advertised in my region. The commercial begins with, you'll never guess it, a LOUD SCREECHING TONE!!! They will never get my money. I hope the company goes bankrupt, and they can take the advertising agency with them.

I have noticed of late, my head gets louder near hot flashes. So pleasant.

Has anyone found an herbal that they've had reduction of noises with?

There was a linked ad on here a few years ago for some herbs and such, and the link dumped you into a fully animated instant launch page, with literally 110 decibel screechy pan flute music going on. AGONY. I got it shut down and didn't care if they were giving away free gold bars, no way was I going near it. It was one reason I decided that was enough and discombubilated the sound on this laptop and I gave feedback about this little surprise. Only other thing I remember about it was a little girl in a dress with white blouse under the top part straps, with low angle sun behind her lighting up her dark hair, and she was wading through almost waist deep to her lavender...

I haven't found anything yet that's helped other than avoiding loud noise and certain things that can set me off. I can't whistle. I didn't learn how before I developed the problem and if I could, I'd baseball bat myself.