Tinnitus and Hyperacusis Info
What is Tinnitus?
(noun): a sensation of noise (such as a ringing or roaring) that is typically caused by a bodily condition (such as a disturbance of the auditory nerve or wax in the ear) and usually is of the subjective form which can only be heard by the one affected
Ringing in your ears. You likely have some ringing already. How bad is it? It depends. If you don’t think about it often, and it’s not diminishing your ability to hear, then you’re doing fine. Take a hearing test
What is Hyperacusis?
Audiologist / ENT / General practitioners?
You’ll need all of these at different times imo. They’re each useful and completely useless in their own regard. You won’t find anyone to coordinate all this research for you if you need help. If only it was that easy. It’s all on you, but don’t worry.
My experience: Go to a general practitioner, especially if you have insurance, and make sure you don’t have an ear infection/fluid in your middle ear. Middle/inner ear problems are tricky to troubleshoot and there’s not much the medical community can do to help imo. The ENT and Audiologist won’t help you hear.
Audiologist: Go here for hearing aids and hearing tests. Everything for them points to hearing aids. Tinnitus Retraining Therapy uses expensive hearing aids and is legitimate science.
What if I’m having problems? What might help?
For me: - Medical professionals where they are helpful - Steroids - Maybe antibiotics - Maybe you have something specific going on that can be addressed with a specific therapy - Acupuncture - LLLT - This seems to have helped me at points. There are studies that say it doesn’t help. And some will say it does. For the price of the Absolute Hear SonicCalm Pro, it’s not a bad option. You can google it. Far infrared has helped me a lot with my wrists. I think the technology is generally sound. - Tai chi/diet/reduce/eliminate any type of smoking/cardio - Reduce your exposure - This is where it can suck. I don’t go out as much as I’d like to, headphones aren’t an option, I limit studio time in the home. It is what it is. I’m grateful it’s not worse.