Coping with T

[day-break53]

Hi all I hope you all had a good Christmas. I wished for one present,a cure/treatment for T,santa was a bit waylaid so I didn't get what I wished for.I went to a lot of rock gigs when I was a teen(many moons ago) I have a theory that any noise above 100 decibels get's" trapped" inside your ear,my T always sounds like a speaker that's amped up,with various degrees of ringing/humming,sometimes a high pitched whine,I still adore music,I don't listen to my old vinyl very much now as it makes my T go into overdrive.Has any medic studied the affect on musicians hearing/T? Tc all Happy Hogmanay/New Year

[KC1961]

Hi D-B,

Altho' I've had T for over 16 years and I guess I've learned to live with it (I do struggle to sleep however), I still wish someone would come up with a cure. I went to see loads of bands during the 80's and if I could turn the clock back I either wouldn't have gone or I'd have worn ear plugs. As much as I liked, and still like music, there's nothing I'd love to hear more than silence. I do still regularly listen to my albums but not at the volume levels that I did in the past.

Best wishes to all for '18

[les24preludes in reply to KC1961]

I was a professional musician for many years before becoming a psychologist. My T is left ear only - that was usually where the drums set up, and as a bassist I was right next to them. I agree - noise induced T is caused by sounds of over 100db. Can be live music, but also be aware it can be your music system. If there are any oscillations inside your system they can in the worst case generate some pretty nasty high frequency peaks.

As for coping, I've found that you need to reprogram your thinking in a positive way to make any progress. I say to myself "the sssss sound is only at a high frequency and I can cope with that" and "I really do believe that my T is getting slightly better today". Anything positive can work. There is no alternative to this - the T isn't going away and you simply have to be able to ignore it for as many hours in the day as possible.

As for sleep, I go to sleep with music in my room every night - an hour's playlist on iTunes. Distraction is the way. Favourite is Modern Gospel - it's a very positive message in terms of lyrics and I love the music. Artists like Dorinda Clark-Cole, Kim Burrell. Classical music works as well - Wagner operas like Meistersinger, Parsifal, Gotterdammerung. Again, an hour or so playlist. I'm usually asleep inside 30 minutes and it's very pleasant listening to soft music at night when everything's still.

[NicBTA Partner]

Hello and welcome to the British Tinnitus Association forum. Do feel free to ask any questions, I hope that you find this a helpful and supportive place to help you manage your tinnitus.

There's been some research conducted into musicians and hearing, including tinnitus. It's mostly been with classical musicians (rock musicians tend not to come forward as research subjects).

Here's some links you might find interesting:

tinnitusjournal.com/article...

scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S2...

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/211...

Warmest wishes

Nic (BTA Communications Manager and Forum Administrator)