My source of tinnitus is stress/poor mental health. So living less stressful life helped me a bit to go from 6/10 to 2/10 level.

I am in a very similar position. I am at an age which ig would be considered “young for getting hearing problems”. Music is my life. Practically all my hobbies involve it in one way or another. Guitar, going clubbing, seeing live bands, going to raves etc. I spend most of my waking hours listening to music in some form. And not quietly either. Im well aware my hearing is getting worse and worse as time goes on, currently at the stage where i have tinnitus, but in one ear more than the other, which can be off putting. Not changing the way I live my life though, so I’m having to come to terms with the fact it is only going to get worse.

First things first, give it time. There have been a few occasions where I’ve thought “Fuck. That’s it. I’ve really fucked my ears this time. I’m never going to enjoy my music the same way again.” Only for my hearing to stop ringing so much after a week or so. Second, if it is permanent (again, I have permanent hearing loss now, thought it would be a good idea to stick my head into a subwoofer cab a few too many times) know that it does get better with time. Our brains can find ways of getting used to it and tuning it out over time. In fact, as I’m writing this, my tinnitus has become deafeningly loud in one ear, because I am thinking about it. Usually I’d have to focus on it for it to become unbearable. I also have ADHD which makes things more inconvenient, especially when my hearing first got worse, was a hard pill to swallow for a couple weeks. Can’t lie, between my adhd and already poor sleep patterns, I had a few sleepless nights, but it does get better.

Cover your ears with your palms, thumbs down (airtight). Use your two pointer fingers and two middle fingers to drum on the soft spot at the base of your skull for about 20 seconds. This may give temporary relief from the ringing.

Stay calm. It can “go away” sometimes if you stop thinking about it. I don’t know how serious or “loud” you perceive it to be but you’ll be fine, you can listen to music but you have to take extra good care of the hearing you have. Don’t listen to music too loudly, I would even suggest set your volume even softer than usual for the next week so you can train yourself to focus on it. Ear plugs at concerts and safety earwear if you are around construction sites or places that produce a lot of loud sounds.

I would get it checked out with a physician if you suspect that some kind of ear infection, stress, new meds or other kind of illness or complication might be the cause.

There was a trick to temporarily relieve it where you cup your palms over your ears and tap the back of your head, can work for some people to relieve it a bit. Doing that might help with the stress you’re facing. The stress from worrying about it I think will do you a lot more harm long term than any of the buzzing or ringing itself.

It kinda depends, I have very light tennitus from construction, most of the time I can ignore it and it only becomes noticeable when it’s exceptionally quiet or I think about it like breathing (HAH your manually breathing now), but 95% of the time I don’t even notice it

I do have a friend who, has it really bad from listening to music at mega volumes. He can’t have silence to any degree. Plays music, drums his fingers on any wooden object in reach, whatever he can find for noise to drown out the ringing. Seems like a lot, but it’s apparently really bad for him.

Here’s to hoping yours ain’t that extreme

I had that once or twice, and for me it worked to treat it like being sick. Simply doing only the minimum for a day or two and then it went away. I assume it was somehow stress related.

But this is not medical advice, better go to a doctor instead of listening to me.

I have transient tinnitus. As with so many things in our perception, if we fight/hate it, it’ll just drive us crazy. Like the floaters in my left eye. Easiest to accept that it happens and it’s a normal part of living in your body. After making sure it’s not got a known medical cause of course.

I’ve had it for as long as I can remember, so I’m pretty used to it. However, sometimes it gets really bad for a bit and it’s annoying.

I’m not too bummed about not experiencing true silence as I listen to music most of the time anyway.

Having never had tinnitus, I’m going to assume the correct answer is:

I’ve had tinnitus for probably close to 15 years at this point. I definitely tune it out most of the time. For a little while I was wearing ear plugs to bed, and the ringing was actually somewhat calming, kinda like my own personal noise machine. It can certainly flare up (gets louder and kinda painful) from time to time though, and the trick with covering your ears and thumping the back of your head helps when that happens, at least for me.

Just keep in mind, you can totally still live a normal life with tinnitus. There are services that can edit music for you to remove the exact frequency of your tinnitus from the audio, so that when you listen to it your body fills in the missing pieces and helps you ignore it. I haven’t used them though, so I can’t attest to their efficacy.

Ugh I’m so sorry. Tinnitus blows and in the more than 30 years I’ve lived with it I will say I’ve tried everything, spent all kinds of money on apps and gadgets and tests therapies of all kinds, and nothing works for me.

Maybe something will work for you, but the only advice I can share is do everything you can to protect your hearing from loud noises now to reduce the chances of getting more damage and making it worse. You only get one hearing capability and it doesn’t seem to regenerate and there’s currently no treatments to help it do that, so save what you have now!

I was an idiot in my 20s a loud concerts right next to speakers because it felt awesome, and I’ll pay the price for it till I die.

I got some tinnitus too but it’s luckily not audible in normal situations. I hear it in quiet rooms but it’s not something that bothers me anymore.

Hopefully yours is not super loud. It may also decrease in strength with time and it doesnt have to become worse. I’ve had mine for 25 years and it’s still not worse.

Check your blood pressure

Have you spoken to a doctor about this? Please do, especially if you have sudden hearing loss in one or both ears. You could have an underlying issue that can be treated, but you want to get it checked sooner rather than later.

Disclaimer: (classical) music lover, here. With a lifelong allergy to noise. Suffering from constant loudtinnitus for the last 20 years or so.

Sorry you got that. It’s a sad shit.

Mine appeared one night, out of the blue and never went away. The next day I got an appointment to have my ears tested and the doctor told me I got tinnitus plus I was starting to lose my hearing (which slowly got worse as the years went… now to the point that I’m really considering I should be using hearing aids).

I’m unable to cope with and this adds to the burden.

I was unable to, at first.

Don’t fight it. To me at least, it was making it so much worse as I was only thinking about that stupid noise, it was everywhere I looked, so to speak.

Nowadays, I’m able to barely think about it… It’s there, I can hear it, like right now I just heard them, but I can also ignore them like I will ignore the roaring traffic noise coming from the street through the windows. Not all the time though. And it shows, when I’m overwhelmed by that sad noise, my spouse instantly notices it as I suddenly look… exhausted and very much unhappy.

You might want to check with doctors (plural) what you can do but what helped me the most was to learn to consider that ugly noise part of myself… Accepting it for what it is: one more limit I have to learn to live with.

Like me getting older each year (nearing my 60s) and not being able to have all night long intense fu…, sorry, not being that physically able to provide long lasting efforts, anymore. Like me knowing for a fact I will be immensely lucky if I manage to reach 70 years old, because I’ve already been incredibly lucky for the past 20 years or so to be alive, as I should not be.

The level of noise constantly comes and goes. It mostly depend how stressed I am but it’s not just that (it would be too simple).

To this day, my spouse is impressed how ‘easily’ I learned to live with those two whistles constantly blowing their uninspired single note and loud music directly into my ears … but the real secret is that I did not learn to control them. I just capitulated to their invasion of my personal space. The only thing I did is to study those noises (as there is a narrow range of variations between loud as fuck and just loud) and teach myself to be fine with them being there.

One thing that often helps me a lot when it’s too loud to ignore it is to go out for a (long) walk, without any music/podcast… nothing in the ears. Just me listening around to nothing but random outside noise… Birds singing are great for that, plus they’re great to watch too, and I will often try to walk wherever I know I might hear them, even though there are quiet a few whose cute voice I can’t hear that well anymore.

Herbal infusions can also help, or even a good tea. And just having a calm chat with my spouse talking about mindless things (we would avoid talking politics or anything stinky like that).