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it sounds like you suffered a not-so typical case of otitis externa, otherwise known as swimmer's ear

It's not true! I asked the doctor. I told him, "I always get swimmer's ear!" I even went to him while I had this problem. He said I was full of shit, that I was just making excuses for my wax-filled ears.

I have to say, this has been an effective support group for me. Thank you all for sharing your experiences.

sixteenrev wrote:
Another tip- Ginkgo Biloba cured my tinnitus. It doesn't work for everyone, apparently, but anyone kept up at night by the ringing may wan to give it a try.

I have tinnitus! A year ago, I almost knocked the audiologist out when he told me I would have it for the rest of my life and to:

1. get used to it and
2. use white noise to block it out so I could sleep.

Christ almighty. I'll try gingko biloba...what sort of dosage schedule were you on?

If anyone has any other suggestions/miracle cures/spells, that would be great. Just please please pullllll-eeeeeeeze don't confirm what the audiologist told me. I know that I'll probably have this fucking ringing for the rest of my life, but just feed me l'il spicy biscuits of hope.

Happy in a delusional hopeful state, shake it don't break it, bounce wit'me bounce wit'me.

First of all, I don't trust audiologists from an "engineering" standpoint. They mostly cater to "normal" people. They need to determine weather or not you can hear conversation, they do not cater to people that are worried about having a 12.5 Khz tone at 1.5 dB in their right ear. This is just my experience. For example, a standard hearing test only goes up to 8KHz and results are only accurate within +/- 10 dB.

Second of all, the advice to cover up tinitus with white noise (like a fan) is not such a good one. There have been studies that show prolonged white noise, such as a fan while you sleep, can contribute to hearing loss and also can cause tinitus. I used to sleep with a relatively loud fan everynight. I began to notice that when I would wake up in the morning, I would hear a multiude of ringing tones in both of my ears. Now that I do not use a fan to sleep (it takes some getting used to) I notice that the ringing has subsided. I am no expert, but these have been my own personal experiences. I would suggest researching it for yourself.

jack endino had an enlightening speach at the tapeop conference about that tinnitus that just comes up out of the middle of nowhere - you know the kind, NOT after a loud show or something - but when you;re just sitting there reading or something and all of a sudden it hits you? at any rate, he said he had done lots of research into it, and almost noone had any info on this strain of tinnitus - but he did share that once he quit taking caffeine - the tinnitus quit (note: the random tinnitus, not all tinnitus). he had some sort of physiological explanation for it, but i don't remember what it was. maybe there's something at www.endino.com i cut back on the coffee for about a week but now i'm back to full steam ahead.

michaeltheangryrussian wrote:First of all, I don't trust audiologists from an "engineering" standpoint. They mostly cater to "normal" people. They need to determine weather or not you can hear conversation...

This is, though vastly more eloquent and precise than my raising my voice and repeatedly stabbing at the printout with my pointer finger, the argument I had with the technician. She insisted that I didn't have hearing damage, and that my hearing was "acceptable". This made me lecture her about drug use vs. abuse, question her mama's recent weight gain and insist on seeing the printout. (I had to raise my voice to get to see the printout.) Pointing out that 90% and above whatevertherandomhell on their scale is "acceptable" in their terms doesn't mean I don't have hearing damage. Damn it. My hearing was not 100%.

But it was above the little red line indicating acceptable/unacceptable. Sigh...it was like talking to Helen Keller. Aw, snap.

michaeltheangryrussian wrote:Second of all, the advice to cover up tinitus with white noise (like a fan) is not such a good one. There have been studies that show prolonged white noise, such as a fan while you sleep, can contribute to hearing loss and also can cause tinitus.

Oh MAN, this is the argument that I got into with the doctor (head of his department, clearly brain-damaged)! I argued that if tinnitus is caused by bent nerve hairs and therefore the nerves are going off all the time (errrr, I'm sure anyone, 'specially Fluss, can improve on that thar description), and the only chance of clearing up tinnitus is for those hairs to magically unbend, then constantly bombarding them with more noise can only make things worse, both for the damaged hairs and other, not yet (but soon to be) damaged hairs.

So, I have been wearing earplugs at shows and have not been using white noise to cover up the ringing. I still have ringing, though, and I have researched quite a bit. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed residual inhibition, tinnitus retraining therapy, I'll give it all a go, but everything I have looked at said something like, "Good luck, sucka!" If there is some bizarre remedy that somebody heard about from a lunatic half-cousin, I'm open to trying it.

nick92675 wrote:nix the caffeine

Good lord, man, I didn't say I was dying from tinnitus! Thanks, I'll try it. (Or, I'll try to try to give it a shot.)

I get that sometimes, too - the sudden zooming ring. Sort of like a high-pitched gong being smacked right next to your head. Or, like a high-pitched gong being smacked BY your head. Maybe I am dying from tinnitus...

nick92675 wrote:jack endino had an enlightening speach at the tapeop conference about that tinnitus that just comes up out of the middle of nowhere - you know the kind, NOT after a loud show or something - but when you;re just sitting there reading or something and all of a sudden it hits you? at any rate, he said he had done lots of research into it, and almost noone had any info on this strain of tinnitus - but he did share that once he quit taking caffeine - the tinnitus quit (note: the random tinnitus, not all tinnitus). he had some sort of physiological explanation for it, but i don't remember what it was. maybe there's something at www.endino.com i cut back on the coffee for about a week but now i'm back to full steam ahead.

I'm a geek. It's sometimes called pulsative tinnitus. Check this description out: "Microscopic examination of the ears demonstrated rapid rhythmic movements of the tympanic membrane coinciding with the tinnitus, which was also easily heard by the examiner."

la la la boomdeay wrote:

Christ almighty. I'll try gingko biloba...what sort of dosage schedule were you on?

Literally, one hour after taking one pill, my tinnitus was completely gone. I just take it whenever my ears are ringing... I don't have a schedule... Unfortunately, I don't have the bottle here at work so I can't tell you the exact dosage. I can say that the one pill was the recommended dosage, so just follow whatever the bottle you get specifies.

Again, this doesn't work for everyone. I have known people who tried this with no results.

One downside is.. if your ears are also desensitized in addition to ringing, like if you've been at a show or band practice or whatever, taking the GB and having the desensitization without the ringing is kindof unpleasent. It's like the ringing is there to make you feel less deaf. Which is interesting.

It's not known what actually causes Tinnitus. The whole bent nerve thing has never been proven. There are a million theories.

Caffeine and stimulants are known to make it worse in the short-term.

Ari

la la la boomdeay wrote:
I'm a geek. It's sometimes called pulsative tinnitus. Check this description out: "Microscopic examination of the ears demonstrated rapid rhythmic movements of the tympanic membrane coinciding with the tinnitus, which was also easily heard by the examiner."

Wha? Really? The examiner can hear it too? I don't really have much trouble with tinnitus, but this is the kind I get.

If it can be heard by others, then perhaps I can mic it up and record it. Should I use a Beyer Ribbon Mic or... never mind.

My granmamma has tinnitus. It would suck to have that. I'm glad I'm still young.

michaeltheangryrussian wrote:Etymotic Research is a company that makes custom,

Ok, so I received my Etymotic earplugs yesterday. Not bad... about as good (though different) than the custom Westones. Which is impressive because the Westones cost 10 times as much and they irritate my skin.

The Etymotics are a little more high end-y whereas the Westones have a louder midrange. I'll probably keep both around...

I really want to find something where I can hear the attack of my guitar, but that doesn't seem to be possible while the drums are being played.

Ari