Pardon!? (Tinnitus)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	Tinnitus
Date:	23/02/08 (73 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Pardon?

Disadvantages: Pardon?

About 20 years ago I woke up one morning with a loud hissing noise in one ear. It must have happened some time during the night because it wasn't there the evening before. I was surprised that it hadn't woken me up at the time. Maybe it had; perhaps it had only just happened. It was annoying but it didn't affect me too much other than that it seemed louder when the background noise was low.

I assumed that it would go away again in time but it didn't, not that day nor any day. Three months later I woke up with the same noise in my other ear. At least now I was "in balance"!

Now it did start affecting me. Strangely, it didn't affect my sleep. Maybe the constant hissing was masking other noises that would have kept me awake. It certainly was affecting my ability to hear high frequencies. Noises that others in the family could clearly hear were beyond my hearing. Most annoying for my wife is the whistling noises that the thermostatic valves on the radiators can make. I can't hear it so when she asks me to jiggle the valve I have no idea which radiator to do. Yes, I can hear it if I'm really close, about a couple of inches away, but otherwise it's more or less the same as the hissing I hear constantly.

The condition is called Tinnitus. There is no identified cause and no cure. Once you've got it, that's it, you have to live with it for the rest of your life. It may get worse; it is unlikely to get better. I'm lucky, it really hasn't changed at all in intensity since I contracted it.

The cause is damage to the little "hairs" or cilia that line the inner ear canal. They oscillate with the movement of the fluid in the canal in response to the transmission of soundwaves from the eardrum via the tinny bones in the middle ear, or at least, they do when they're working properly. Once they stop working it appears that the brain tries to compensate for the absence of nerve signals by generating noises it expects to be hearing.

It is thought that they can be damaged by a number of causes. The most likely is damage caused by regular exposure to loud noises. Rock musicians are regular sufferers. I don't believe that was my cause. Yes, I did attend rock concerts in my youth but that was around 15 years before.

It's also been suggested that it may result from high blood pressure but that wouldn't seem to apply in my case as I'm not a sufferer and in any case it came on so suddenly. I believe that the cause may have been viral in nature.

The impact on me is that I can no longer hear high frequencies and even lower frequencies are masked by the hissing unless they are louder than normal. This is upsetting because such things as the volume on the TV needs to be higher than normal for me, which makes it too loud for the rest of the family.

The biggest problem is with background noise. Trying to hear what people are saying in noisy environments can be a real trial. The interaction of the hissing and the background noise acts rather like the White Noise that is used deliberately to mask conversations. This also applies to TV programs.

I also find severe problems with "difficult" accents. It's amazing how much you rely on the full range of frequencies to understand what people are saying when they aren't speaking with a familiar accent.

It has also made me more than usually aware of poor music recording. In fact, since I acquired tinnitus I have become disturbed by just how bad the average studio recording is these days. Have record producers really lost the art of good sound production? Some are quite simply appalling. Once you've heard such impeccable records as those produced by Yello, for example, you really notice those where nowhere near as much care has been taken. I can't understand what excuse there can be, what with the quality of the equipment that is available now.

So, what options are available to me? Well, I haven't yet got to the point where I need a hearing aid although I have thought about it. I'm putting that off as long as I can.

There is no medical treatment available. My daughter was looking up the condition on the Internet and came across an article that suggested that it may be related to a Vitamin B deficiency. It suggested taking Vitamin B Complex tablets. I'm doing this but I don't have any great expectations. It's a three month course but if there's no change then I shall not be buying any more.

On a practical note, where the problem is with a TV programme or DVD, there is always the subtitles, and I have used them on occasion. If I'm on my own I do turn up the volume and that can help a bit. Apart from this, there's really nothing else.

The most upsetting thing is having to ask people to repeat things and sometimes not just once. If there's one thing that makes you feel old it's this, and I don't consider myself old by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe I'll have to teach myself to lip-read. Some people can do this even without realising they're doing it.

My father used to work at a steelworks in East London. He didn't work in the workshops; he was the manager of the wages and costing office. Consequently he knew all of the steelworkers. Many were as deaf as a post. This was back in the days when noise protection was virtually unknown. One guy was interviewed by a government inspector and asked if the noise troubled him. He said "No" but Dad knew he couldn't hear a thing and lip-read without even realising he was doing it!

I suppose the one good thing I can cling to is that my condition isn't getting noticeably worse. I and my family have learned to live with it and, if anything, it upsets them more than it does me. Let's hope that it remains that way. If it does then I can live with it. I don't really have any choice do I?

Pardon?

Summary: I'm sorry, can you repeat that please?