Had tinnitus earlier but really increased in 2002, was recording guitar at home, turned up the volume in the headphones to compensate for the loud guitar amp in the same room. Štupid. Ringing didn’t stop after the 72 hour period afterwards, which meant it was permanent. Was really careful with my hearing for the first while after that, then not so much after a year or 2 lol. I’ve definitely increased it a bit more since then.
Over time, you can get somewhat used to it, avoid quiet rooms as they’ll drive you nuts. I’ve had a fan on in my bedroom every night since. I have a device that mimics rain and nature sounds at the T frequencies that helps mask it and soothes quite well to I can get to sleep.
Xanax in small doses helps when it’s really bad, I rarely take it anymore for that.
The thing to remember is, your brain amplifies sounds that are considered a threat, for example, noises like footsteps, the walls creaking etc are perceivably louder at night when everyone is asleep and you are awake than they are during the day. Your brain is turning up the volume of the T because you are distressed by it. So you need to recondition yourself (easier said than done) to not be stressed out by the sound, which takes time. You can spend thousands on tinnitus retraining therapy, where you wear a hearing aid that produces a lower whoosh sound. What happens is you get used to the whoosh sound being there, so one day as part of the therapy you remove the hearing aid and your brain is shocked by the loss of the whoosh sound and is searching for it, so the sound of the T is diminished because it’s no longer being focused on.
But I never did this, over time you sort of get used to it.
If you google and search the news there are some new promising T therapies in the works that might actually reduce the volume of T, if they pan out if will be a nice relief to improve my T after over 20 years.
