I would like answers from doctors, but I don’t want to hear that it’s hopeless. There must be some way to stop or at least reduce that hideous ringing sound in my ears. I find it very hard to believe that in our modern times there is still no specific treatment for tinnitus and I am willing to try anything even if it’s not scientifically proven. So here’s my specific situation…

For a few weeks now I have had constant tinnitus which came out of nowhere, accompanied by "popping" sounds in my ears when I swallow or yawn, a weird feeling in the back of my throat I can’t really explain, and occasional mild headaches.

During this time I have only been able to get to sleep at around 5am, because that’s when the birds come out and tweet in the morning (Helping to distract me from the hideous ringing noises). Because of this I have been losing valuable hours of sleep, which doesn’t help me. So here are my questions…

Q1: Is it best to use tinnitus-masking CDs containing natural sounds, like rain and waves, or are plain old white noise CDs more effective?

Q2: What foods or dietary changes can I make to reduce tinnitus?

Q3: If my tinnitus is NOT noise-induced, can loud noise still make it worse?

Q4: If I’m listening to music, which audio formats are best to listen to through headphones, i.e. are low-bit rate MP3s bad for the ears? What sound format is safer?

Q5: Since my tinnitus hasn’t gotten any better in the last few weeks, is it likely that I will become a permenant sufferer?

Thank you for taking the time to read. I have had tinnitus my whole life to a certain degree, but never this bad. Any advice you could give would be delightful.

Let me start of by saying I'm 19 years old. I've been in a band for about 3 years and I've exposed me ears to extremely loud noise without plugs or anything to protect them and I believe I developed Tinnitus about 2 years ago. I had a slight ringing sound with a bit of buzzing but it was always tolerable, usually i would just put some music on and forget about it. Recently it's been getting worse so I started wearing ear plugs and it seemed to be keeping things the way they were. I have the ringing in both ears. A few days ago I was playing the music without the ear plugs and the ringing seemed to get worse. Though the last few months I've been getting dizzy spells (vertigo if you will) and i didn't think much of it. I started feeling nauseous to the point where I would want to vomit but I haven't yet. I feel off balance throughout the day. My ears also feel full as if I couldn't pop them but I really have no problem with that. The ringing seems to intensify sometimes and I also pick up a lot of sharp sounds in my ears that wouldn't have bothered me before. After doing some research I came across meniere's disease which pretty much backs up all of my symptoms. The only discouraging part is that I'm so young and this usually effects adults in their 30's and up. Im not ruling this out a single bit but I wanted to know if anybody out there is suffering from the same symptoms or even has meniere's disease and maybe tell me hoe to keep the ringing to a tolerable level. I have a hard time sleeping, thats when the ringing seems to be at it's worst. I cut Sodium out of my diet as of yesterday and I'm waiting to see if it shows any positive results. The earliest I can get in to see my doctor is March 3rd (a little over 2 weeks from today) and I'm hoping i can deal with it until then. I've read that they do have surgeries to help with this and I would very much so consider it due to my young age. I'm hoping things will resolve on it's own but only time can tell. Does anybody have any recommendations for me? Medications or just helpful information I couldn't find on a website? It would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

I have tinnitus and I get quite paranoid when listening to music, most of the times I turn the volume on fairly low as I don't want my tinnitus to get worse. What noise level is safe and wouldn't affect my tinnitus? I always hear that avoiding loud noises and sounds will relieve tinnitus, so what would be considered a loud noise? Thanks!

I have tinnitus and I get quite paranoid when listening to music, most of the times I turn the volume on fairly low as I don't want my tinnitus to get worse. What noise level is safe and wouldn't affect my tinnitus? I always hear that avoiding loud noises and sounds will relieve tinnitus, so what would be considered a loud noise? Thanks!

i just woke up and my ears are ringing. i have not been exposed to loud noise recently and i just woke up this way. whats wrong?

I have my radio on at a normal volume, i listen to radio talk shows or nice music BUT THEN all these a****s in their fancy cars surround me at stop lights or even when not at stop lights..with their stereo sub woofer systems BOOM BOOM BOOM.. So loud and painful. And they don't care..

Some of us have ear problems and even if we don't
1) we CAN GET Earproblems from that loud noise 2)we want to listen to our own music. why are we not allowed

Why are these people so cruel and think nothing of it?

Many of the ones with loud music are Hip hop/rap listeners by the way.

I'm 29 male with an ear problem called Hyperacusis and Tinnitus

The problem is due to long-term loud noise

He wears his hearing aids sometimes them complains about loud noises such as washing dishes, dog bark, screen door, and takes out hearing aids out. He is 81 years old and has had loss for over 10 years.
Thanks, for the answers, but he has been to the Doc many many times. the volume is so low now that we need to repeat everything unless he is looking right at us. The hearing aids are top of the line and he has tryed many different kinds. Looking for advice on helping him, myself and our grown children so we are not driving each other crazy. Daughters are use to talking loud because he does not wear the aids all the time (the loud noise, they make his ears itch). When they forget, get excited, laugh loud, yell for the dog, he yells in pain grabs the aids out of his ears and gets mad at the girls.

Here is an example: I just saw Making the band, the girl group. and they are sooo excited, going to loud clubs, never in that show do we see any shots of Diddy explaining to them about taking care of their ears. All these MTV shows make it seem like loud is better and never teach about the consequences.

-Bunch of crazy teens go to concerts and don't seem to care, i see this over and over in Mtv or other music channels

-Musicians who have concerts don't ever wait for people to make sure they have ear protection on before they start the loud noise. They should make it mandatory and wait a few minutes and provide ear protection.

I'm a person with hyperacusis and tinnitus, and have to endure pain all the time.. got it from one single incident of loud music from my yamaha keyboard. I can't believe nobody is informed or cares about this Specially the music industry doesn't want to inform people and that's just bull s***

If a firecracker goes off by your ear or any loud noise by your ear and you hear ringing, what has happened to cause the ringing? and what is the ringing?

My question has to do with different frequencies of noise. Its pretty common knowledge that hearing loss occurs from exposure to excessively loud noise levels over extended periods of time. But do different frequencies of noises target different areas of hearing loss depending on the frequency of the noise exposure? In other words, is it possible that an electric guitarist who played his guitar at extremely high frequency noise levels could damage his hearing in that frequency range but have no hearing loss of really low frequency noises and vice versa? And to take this to an extreme, has this ever been scientifically tested? Exposing a mouse to a single frequency noise for prolonged periods of time which would guarantee hearing loss at that frequency but leave all other ranges of the mouses hearing in tact?

after i went and see a doctor, my doctor say i got glue ear or otitis media. i dont have any pain or any hearing loss but i just feel fullness and constant ringing sound in my right ear. can i ask, does glue ear cause tinnitus? and 1 more thing i live in a quiet enviroment so loud noise is not the factor and my doctor say my ear is clean and free of ear wax. I also don have any injury in my ear.
after i went and see a doctor, my doctor say i got glue ear or otitis media. i dont have any pain or any hearing loss but i just feel fullness and constant ringing sound in my right ear. can i ask, does glue ear or otitis media cause tinnitus? and 1 more thing i live in a quiet enviroment so loud noise is not the factor and my doctor say my ear is clean and free of ear wax. I also don have any injury in my ear. Plus i add some detail so you all can understand my problem better, my doc say i got mucus inside my ear drum.
after i went and see a doctor, my doctor say i got glue ear or otitis media. i dont have any pain or any hearing loss but i just feel fullness and constant ringing sound in my right ear. can i ask, does glue ear or otitis media cause tinnitus? and 1 more thing i live in a quiet enviroment so loud noise is not the factor and my doctor say my ear is clean and free of ear wax. I also don have any injury in my ear. Plus, my doc say i got mucus inside my ear drum. So can glue ear or otitis media really causes tinnitus cause i worried sick T.T
after i went and see a doctor, my doctor say i got glue ear or otitis media. i dont have any pain or any hearing loss but i just feel fullness and constant ringing sound in my right ear. can i ask, does glue ear or otitis media cause tinnitus? and 1 more thing i live in a quiet enviroment so loud noise is not the factor and my doctor say my ear is clean and free of ear wax. I also don have any injury in my ear. Plus, my doc say i got mucus inside my ear drum. So can glue ear or otitis media really causes tinnitus? Cause this problem is making me mad T.T

after i went and see a doctor, my doctor say i got glue ear or otitis media. i dont have any pain or any hearing loss but i just feel fullness and constant ringing sound in my right ear. can i ask, does glue ear cause tinnitus? and 1 more thing i live in a quiet enviroment so loud noise is not the factor and my doctor say my ear is clean and free of ear wax. I also don have any injury in my ear. My doc say i got mucus stuck in my eardrum.

Professionals only please. As far as I know I have not been exposed to blasts or excessive loud noise on that side. I have tinnitus. My hearing loss is severe in high frequencies (65 Db). I have some neural damage in that ear (25 Db in high freq.). My right ear is fine (20 Db). I am 40, male, and have developed hearing loss and tinnitus gradually. Loud noises bother me. I have trouble with conversations in noisy places. As a child I had measles which may be relevant in some types of hearing loss. After visiting a hearing test, I was directed to a specialist. After reading on the internet, I am for the first time taking my hearing loss seriously. In fact, I am worried. What is the most probable cause of my hearing loss? It's only in my left ear. What would still be common causes? Noise/environment? Otosclerosis? Acoustic neuroma? Are acoustic neuromas in fact extremely rare? I chose to deliberately wait until after Christmas. 6 more days… Is it still most likely noise?

The tinnitus developed approximately 6 months ago.
Hearing tests confirmed hearing loss from loud noise,
but cannot pick up the ringing that I am experiencing.
With background noise present , conversations are quite difficult to understand. Any ideas?