Tinnitus (Page 3 of 3)

I wish that I was joking kara, but mine was/is so bad after getting that syringing that I can't go to sleep without them. Those headphones are comfy enough to sleep with. When I use them at night it's at a low volume and I'm just listening to sounds like rain and thunderstorms and stuff like that. Sounds cheesy, but it's actually relaxing and it's loud enough to drown out the noise from the tinnitus. I've not noticed the tinnitus getting worse at all.

I don't use earphones on my ipod now tho, and at work now I just use big headphones instead of earphones at a loud volume (which I used to do).

Honestly tho, I think as long as you keep your earphones at a reasonable volume you'll be fine, don't think that it would make your tinnitus any worse. I'm just paranoid after a month of sleep deprived hell . So I'm not gonna use mine again with the ipod or at work.

edit - btw, it has improved a wee bit in the last few weeks, that's why I said "is/was"

yeah, stress is definitely a major factor in it.

once you become acutely aware of the sound, your brain associates a negative psychological connection with it, and so then you listen to it more, which makes you stress more, and hence the noise becomes louder, which is a vicious cycle. for me it also appeared in my OTHER ear after stressing about for a few days. I'm really not sure if that was the result of stress or just a delayed physical thing from the syringing. it's slowly faded into the background for me now and after using the headphones + ambiance - I haven't stopped to pay attention to it for nearly a month now and have been sleeping well.

it seems that once you don't pay attention to it your brain starts to 'habituate'. at least that's in my case where the noise isn't really that bad. I read about people like soldiers who developed it after being exposed to loud gunshots or something like that - I'd imagine in those cases the noise is so loud that it's just beyond being able to deal with it with a little bit of habituation and psychology. I've got true sympathy for people suffering like that.