The tinnitus I hear – all the time

I just came across some sound-samples that simulate my own tinnitus. I wanted to share them, so perhaps people around me better understand why I am tired or unable to participate in social activities.

1. This is similar to the "quiet" tinnitus that I have all the time 24/7 
   (I can barely hear this sounds when I listen to it, so I guess it’s pretty close to my own)
2. Also barely audible to me, meaning it’s similar to my own
3. Whistling sound
4. This one is totally inaudible to me, meaning that I have this as tinnitus for sure…
5. Screeching
6. I also have “white noise” kind of tinnitus, but all the examples I have found are too high i frequency, so “white noise” with deeper frequency is another example (you just hafve to imagine the sound)
7. All these above combined, and you might have a sense of the cacophony that is in my head at all times…

The only time I don’t have tinnitus, is when I am so preoccupied with something else that I “forget” it, or when I sleep.

Tinnitus get’s worse (more loud and more “present”, harder to ignore) when I have slept bad, or when I am getting more tired or sick like with a flu.

Why do I have tinnitus, even with CI’s?

I have been thinking back, trying to get a clue as to the reason why my CI-operations didn’t “solve” or remedy the tinnitus problem, and have worked out this theory:

From around 2000 and onward, I cranked up the sound volume on my hearing aids every time I had a control or new hearing aid or simply needed adjustments. The result of this cranking up? I walked around with an aproximate loudness of 100 dB to 120 dB and more for 10 years! This might have resulted in the development of recruitment (norsk), hyperacusis (norsk), even more hearingloss (aka more rapidly deterioriating hearing) and tinnitus.

Furthermore my theory is that all these years of unusual loud sounds coming from my hearing aid, resulted in my brain (the parts receiving and processing the electric nerveimpulses of sound) underwent some structural change or that my sensorineural system developed some kind of damage. I am not a neurologist or expert in any medical field, so these are a laymans theories…

I feel that the health services in my country failed in providing adequate help to me in a reasonable time-frame. Maybe I could have been without the tinnitus, had I been helped 5 years earlier… I’m not bitter, I just want others to learn from what happend to me. And to prevent others to have to deal with the same things, if it’s avoidable…

Going deaf – twice

In many ways, the process I have been in after the second operation has been about accepting that I am nowin fact deaf. Yes, I can hear with the CI, but I can’t use them (to hear) all day. In fact, two – three hours per day is my present maximum dose of sound. I have to learn to live a large part of my life as a deaf person. Also it’s not just me, but my family has to learn to have a deaf person around them too.

Learning sign-language at Ål – School for deaf

My wife has identified the need for us all to learn sign-language. I have been too stubborn to realize it or initiate it. At the same time I have always been open to it, thinking that refuting something that might actually help, just because I don’t want to be deaf, is a counterproductive thing to do. So I am open to it, and we actually went to our first week of school, for the whole family, to learn sign language just a few weeks ago.

It was an eyeopening experience, and we will learn to sign in our family.