From Ken

TINNITUS

I thought this would be informative for my followers. Many times we jump to conclusions and do not take time to understand what someone close to us may be going through. This is a family member that I spend a lot of time with and I needed to understand how this condition affected that person and why. This picture was copied from the Mayo Foundation website. Shirley

Tinnitus

I am not an audiologist, an M.D., a physiologist nor have I had any formal training in the medical field. I was an engineer and I worked in a manufacturing environment for nearly forty years. I was continually in close association with loud, sharp, sudden noises and various other conditions related to that industry. As a result, I have contracted a hearing condition called Tinnitus. When I began my career, the idea of hearing protection was unheard of and by the time it began to be required safety equipment, it was too late for me. The damage had already been done and has progressively worsened over the years since then. By now I have what I consider to be a severe case of this malady.

To those that do not have tinnitus, it may be difficult to understand and get a clear concept as to what those who do have this condition have to deal with. So I will try to explain it in terms that can be understood by most people. First of all, let it be known that there are various levels of tinnitus. From mild to very severe. As stated, I consider my level to be severe because of the degree I struggle with when trying to hear what is going on around me. Especially as far as hearing voices and understanding what people are saying. It seems that this condition causes the greatest degree of difficulty when it comes to listening to speech and attempting to interpret what people you are trying to have a conversation with are saying.

To get some idea of what living with tinnitus is like, picture yourself in a room with absolutely no acoustical benefit at all. That is, no sound in the room is being “smoothed” or “dampened” or in any way made more pleasant to the ears and there is some level of echo. And then having somebody scrape their fingernails across a black board producing that screeching whining hissing noise that most of us have heard at some time. And imagine that there is no end to It. It is continuous, unabated and unending. It never stops. And it can vary in its frequency. And if both ears are affected by tinnitus, it can be a different frequency in each ear, and also different levels of intensity or volume. And the frequency can change from time to time. Sometimes being a high pitched squeal. Or sometimes at a lower pitch but still a squealing, hissing, whining sound. And the volume also varies depending on several factors, most commonly the level of background noise in the immediate environment. I have even experienced something that is somewhat akin to the chirping of a bird. Or at least that is the best way I can explain it.

I will insert here that the condition I have tried to explain never improves. It can only get worse. In an effort to research what I can find out about this condition, I have come to the conclusion that once the damage is done it is irreversible and there is no chance of improvement. There is no cure, there is no “healing” process that can facilitate improvement, and there is no medical procedure that can “fix” it. And because of the nature and how the hearing process functions and is constructed there most likely never will be anything that can be done. The effected area is so sensitive, and complicated and functions in such a way that it is highly unlikely that anything will ever be developed to solve or “cure” this condition.

Now then, the usual procedure in an effort to help those who have various types of hearing deficiencies, is to perform a series of tests and then find a “hearing aid” that will sufficiently reduce background noise and amplify the sounds that are desirable. And this is very beneficial and helpful for many that have ordinary hearing deficiencies. For the “hard of hearing” modern technology has done some marvelous things to assist those who have trouble hearing. But those who have tinnitus are dealing with something completely different than ordinary or common hearing loss. They can usually “hear” just fine. The problem lies in WHAT they hear. And merely increasing the volume of the sound that reaches the ear drum is not going to help. In fact it has just the opposite effect. Increasing the volume that reaches the ear drum, only results in an increasing of the volume of the hissing, whining, screeching of what is already being heard. And even if the volume of the incoming sound does reach a level that will overcome the tinnitus it will be so badly distorted that it is nearly impossible for the brain to interpret the noise and come up with anything intelligible or understandable. Of course I want you to understand that I am talking in the context of speech recognition. Many loud noises such as airplanes, thunder, jackhammers, noisy cars and trucks for instance are easily recognized even with tinnitus. I am referring to the problems when attempting to carry on a conversation and making sense out of what people are saying to you. Although I have at times heard many ordinary noises that I could not recognize until someone tells me what they are. Such things as alarm clocks and telephones are almost impossible to hear.

Let me give you another example. Suppose you are in a room with a considerable amount of background noise and someone is talking to you. What they are saying is drowned out because the background noise has intensified the tinnitus and made it impossible for you to understand what they are saying, so you ask them to repeat what they said. So they increase the volume of their speech and repeat it. This only results in a nearly equal increase in the volume of the tinnitus which has the effect of further distorting the sounds that are reaching the listener making it even more difficult to understand what is being said. Increasing the volume is effective only under limited conditions.

I do not place the entire blame for my hearing problem on work related conditions and environment. There are so many things that contribute to this problem and I have been exposed to many of them. I was a shooting enthusiast and have fired a variety of guns of all calibers and gauges. Other problems come from operating lawn mowers, chain saws, weed eaters, snow blowers, hammering nails, log splitters or anything that has a poorly muffled internal combustion engine. Everyone almost daily can find themselves in a potential environment that can produce sounds that are damaging to normal hearing. And most people that have reached middle age or beyond that would have otherwise had no problems have some degree of hearing problem or hearing loss.

The human ear has the capacity to absorb a level of damage and still function pretty much normally. It is when we exceed the “safe” level that trouble begins, and once it reaches that problem level it usually continues to deteriorate and is irreversible. So, the best solution is prevention. Hearing protection of all types are available in a wide variety of retail stores. My advice is to use them even if you are not sure if it is necessary but anytime and anywhere that continuous or sharp sudden noises of an elevated volume are possible. Your hearing is worth protecting. Once gone it cannot be recovered.

Now then. I want you to know that I am not looking for sympathy. I just want you to know what the consequences are of not doing something early on when it comes to hearing protection and doing what you can to preserve and protect your ability to hear plainly. I can't go to movie theaters. Or at least it doesn't do me much good to go there. I miss at least half or more of the conversations that take place during the movie. And the volume in the theaters is usually so loud that after leaving it takes most of a week for the tinnitus to settle down to a level that allows me to sleep or to hear much of anything. When driving a car on a long trip for many hours also aggravates my hearing and takes time to recover. In restaurants, I have trouble communicating with the waiter or waitress. Watching T V I most often turn off the sound and just use the captions. But sometimes the captions go by so fast I am not able to read all of it and have to “fill in” what is being said. And when a program comes on that has no captions, I am out of luck. As I said, just increasing the volume only makes it worse and has little help or value. While driving, if something would go wrong mechanically with the car, before I heard anything, the car would most likely be completely destroyed. And the list could go on forever of annoyances and also potentially serious and dangerous situations created by poor, or the inability to hear properly.

The tinnitus becomes least noticeable when I have spent an extended period of time in a very quiet environment. It seems to settle down to a more tolerable condition when I have spent a few hours in as near of a zero noise environment as possible. But that is difficult to achieve because there are always refrigerators, air conditioners, airplanes, motorcycle, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, and many other sounds that we are surrounded with almost 24 hours a day. My favorite pass time has become reading. I can set for hours in a quiet place with a good book and I am content. I think my age is a contributing factor to that. If I were younger I would want to get out and do something, but many things would limit my ability to enjoy them for no other reason than my hearing. I wear ear plugs to football games.

What has become most helpful is my wife. I spend most of my time in her presence and her voice is the voice I am most exposed to and familiar with. I believe that my brain has adjusted to her voice and has compensated for the distortion and I can usually hear and understand her better than anyone else. When in public, I rely on her to interpret for me when conversing with others that I just can't seem to make out what they are saying. And the most difficult are those that have an accent. Most of the time, any kind of accent makes it impossible to understand, because, although I am not an accomplished lip reader, I watch the lips of those I am speaking with and associate the sound of their voice with the movement of their lips. People who speak with an accent, form there words differently and it doesn't help to watch their lips.

An important issue is that those of us that have a severe level of tinnitus, do not need the advice of those that do not know what it is like and are not aware of what we are dealing with. We do not need ridicule or criticism. I have looked into hearing aids and what I have determined is that most will admit that tinnitus is at best only occasionally helped by the latest and newest in hearing aid technology. I was once acquainted with a man that when he described his condition it sounded very much just like what I was dealing with. At the insistence of his wife, he went through the whole process of getting hearing aids. Got the best and most expensive and newest thing on the market at an expense of thousands of dollars per ear. He confided to me that it wasn't much help. He just heard the same thing he heard without the hearing aids, only it was louder. But he wore them anyway at the insistence of his wife. She would just point out that he wasn't using them properly and wasn't allowing himself to “adjust” so they could work for him.

So, what is the moral of the story. If there are those that read this that live with or are around someone that has severe tinnitus, maybe this will help them to identify and understand what we are dealing with. It is incurable, but there are things that can make it at least nominally tolerable. And maybe it can produce a little patience and understanding among those that are exposed to this problem on a regular basis. And it may encourage someone who does not wish to experience what we live with on a daily basis to take steps to protect themselves before it is too late. As with all health issues, prevention is far better, less complicated and worth any amount of effort than to have to live the rest of your life with aggravating, burdensome, and difficult consequences. 

There are websites with information regarding this condition and more information than is provided here.