Tinnitus

[Shake n Blake]

(06-15-2024, 11:17 PM)HarleyDog Wrote: Anyone? I can't hear you, literally. 

I've been living with this progressive hearing loss for so many years. Nothing but ringing constantly, which, I could deal with in my younger years with things like white noise, music, or a fan would block it out enough to take away my thoughts about it. I'm 57 now and the ring is getting unbearable. It's always been a distraction but now it's getting to the point of robbing my concentration and quality of life. My hearing is getting so bad that when someone speaks to me I often think I heard one thing, but they said something else. My wife (God bless her heart for putting up with it) has to put up with me listening to the TV loudly, while still asking her, "What did He/She say?" 

The ringing is similar to a heart monitor when someone's heart stops beating but at a high pitch. It never stops. 24/7, 365. 

Does anyone else deal with this? Does hearing aids help at all? My wife keeps saying to get some because I always mishear her. I've had the same issue at work, so bad that I finally stopped trying to fake what I understood and started saying I didn't hear it or didn't get it.

I've been dealing with this since the summer of 2021. I just went to bed one night and my ears started ringing, which had happened to me a lot of times through the years, but this time was worse and it never went away. I've been using 10 hour long YouTube videos with tinnitus masking sounds to fall asleep every night.

Not sure why this happened, but I assume years of being in rock bands and my stint in the Army may have something to do with it.

I did get hearing aids, but when I didn't get immediate tinnitus relief, I stopped using them. They did help *a little*, but not as much as I'd hoped.

Fwiw, I'm 43 and I really hope and pray it doesn't get worse. That'd mess with my anxiety and panic for sure.

I wish I had an easy answer for you, but I haven't found one yet. I'd definitely look into the YouTube tinnitus maskers though, if you haven't tried them. Let me know and I'll send you the links for those channels.