Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum tinnitus, oh the joy for a music lover...

Sooooo... to compliment me snapping the bone in the back of my hand a couple of years ago ( knuckle of fourth finger on right hand pshed right back.... bone set jutting out in a lump on back of hand...) i have been gradually getting worse tinnitus....


For a few years i have had intermittent episodes of deafness, with ringing filling the void.... well, six days ago i had the start of a continuous phase of this.... now its been going nearly a week and getting louder. To the point i hear it all the time, and its now interferring with me understanding conversation.


Im 32, will be booking a docs apointment tommorrow and if it is permenant i will be a very grumpy bear. Getting on amazing with my new teacher though.... and progress will not be halted just because i cant hear and have a smashed up hand..... minor issues haha :-)

Paul, interesting that you posted this now. I too have had periodic hearing loss and wicked bad tinnitus. My first onset was about 15 years ago. I totally lost the hearing in my left ear for a few weeks. The specialist thought I had meneres. No. My hearing finally came back but I had lost about 25% permanently. The tinnitus got better as hearing returned but it never went completely away. I have just learned to live with it. Then, about a week ago, BAM... it happened again. I lost all hearing in my left ear. Nothing but ringing left. This time I googled the symptoms and came up with "Idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss". It said immediate treatment is needed or permanent damage could result. I went to the doctor the next day (a different doctor from 15 years ago) and she jumped right on it. Prescribed a large dose of prednisone. Two days later and my hearing is back to where it was. (The prednisone is also keeping me up all night and driving me crazy but hey... I can hear!!) Check it out and good luck.

Peyton - did the prednisone do anything to reduce the tinnitus once your hearing returned?

No, the tinnitus, I'm afraid, is permanent. It seems to increase as I lose more hearing and visa versa. When I initially lost my hearing 15 years ago the ear doctor told me that he could cut the nerve in my ear and that would get rid of the tinnitus. Of course I would also be forever deaf. He scared the crap out of me.

The tinnitus reminds me a bit of cicadas down south when I was a kid. Gives me a permanent nostalgic "southern summer" feeling.

I've had off and on tinnitus for many years. Exposure to loud sounds makes it worse. I have long periods of remission, however another blast of sound will bring it back very quickly.

I try to take care of my hearing. Even something as minor as tissue in the ears helps a few decibels. Whenever I am outside and a fire truck or police vehicle goes by with sirens blaring I stop and put fingers in my ears. I keep the digital at a low volume. Same with headphones or ear buds, very low volume. I try to avoid venues where they blast the music.

Band members, orchestra members, certain instruments such as trumpet and saxophone tend to have more of problem than most. While hearing loss tends to be permanent, in my case, my tinnitus is better than it was. Take care.

Cheers guys...I will mention prednisone when i see the doc... i have tried to be carefull and am more vigilant tyan most to loud noises.... being a plumber it seems i may get exposed to more noise than most... drilling and general site machinery.... plus living with a woman..... there may be no hope for me..... earplugs are in constant use... but damage is accumuiated from years of partys and youthful excess :-D

Loud club music in the 1990s (standing next to giant speakers) did it for me.

Was made worse by riding a motorbike sans ear plugs. Problem is with ear plugs eventually you can hear and sort of compensate for them.

Today I get wicked ringing in ears all the time, especially before I sleep.

I've sort of managed it by using very low volume on everything. My CDP is set to about 30% max volume.

My computer is set to 5% full volume.

Open back headphones supposedly help as it allows some of the sound waves to escape.

Bizzarely I only play loud when learning a new piece, but I play a lot softer these days or merely turn the touch sensors off.

heck if I had a soft pedal I'd probably stick a brick on it.

Paul, I hope they find a solution for you tinnitus...it is very tough to live with although many offer solutions. Keep us posted on your journey and I'm hoping your hearing returns and stays.

Paul, just to be clear, my treatment is not for tinnitus but rather for the deafness. It's the deafness that causes the tinnitus. In your case, as in mine, it's the reacurring deafness that should be the major concern. In my case it looks like Idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss is the right call as the prednisone seems to be curing it. But I'm sure there can be many reasons for intermittent hearing loss. Is your hearing loss accompanied by a "full" feeling in your inner ear as if there is liquid in there? I've had that which was why my initial diagnosis was the onset of Menere's Decease.

Lots of clubbing and free partys didnt help my ears either lol...

I will keep posted on here how it turns out.... my left ear once or twice a week will suddenly go completely deaf, with a ringing in it... over a couple of minutes normal hearing is gradually resumed.... t his is a separate problem to the constant ringing i think as i have noticed it happen ontop of the constant ringing.... i registered this morning with the local doctor( moved 6 months ago..) and can make an appointment in 2 days...

My mother has tinnitus. I don't, fortunately, but I have been told by a doctor that there's some hearing loss in certain frequences that she thinks is from listening loud music. So I try to be more careful. I am most worried about playing a lot with earphones on my silent piano. I sometimes get a feeling in my ears that I am going too loud. Anyone with a digital and earphoes should be careful...once you get tinnitus it may not ever resolve, so better be careful.

Hope you get better!

Me too mate... itll be a few days till i can see a doctor... practice pedal or earplugs are in constant use with my piano at the mo.... :-(

I hope you guys get some good news from your doctor. Piano is based on hearing and it would be a tremendous loss if you would loose hearing.

I would love to see an option to deaf people who would like to play piano. I would think some sort of visual representation for the sound would be one option. You hit a key, and a circle with certain color and location on screen appears. The more you press on the key the larger the circle gets. This is closest I can come up with music for deaf people.

There are deaf musicians, and they usually feel the vibrations and go by that. I am sure the piano creates enough of those? Just saw a documentary about a deaf musician and it was quite amazing what she could do. Also I know a deaf singer who can sing with the band, she listens through her feet.

Tinnitus can be a nightmare but it can become bearable and even reduced in volume. It is a brain problem, not a hearing problem as there are stories out there of people having there auditory nerve severed only to be faced with just the tinnitus noise and nothing else. Having said that there is obviously a link between hearing loss and tinnitus. Certainly in my case.

The reason it is a brain problem is to do with the limbic system and fight or flight mechanisms in the brain. In a nut shell, if you lived in a country with deadly snakes, you may become hyper aware every time you heard a 'sssss' sound. It is important for you to hear it (it could be a matter of life or death), so your brain cranks up the volume. Now tinnitus, being musicians, our hearing is very important to us. The minute we hear tinnitus, we start thinking that we are going deaf. A healthy reaction to this would be to take a break from the loud noises, or wear ear plugs if prolonged exposure is likely. However, it is easy to become obsessive and thinking about how our ears are damaged and that we will go deaf and how terrible that is. The brain has then put a label on tinnitus marked 'important' and it becomes the only thing we can think about, and the brain cranks up the volume. Further more, becoming obsessively vigilant with ear plugs, cuts out the 'outside' sound and the brain trying to balance, cranks up the internal sounds (tinnitus). A catch 22 you might think.

Tinnitus retrainment therapy 'TRT' helps cultivate a healthy attitude towards tinnitus and a scientific understanding on how the brain processes sound. It seems to be helping me so far after having tinnitus constantly for 6 years.

I am no expert, this is all just from my experience with TRT. I am playing the piano more than ever these days. My TRT guy even said I could feasibly practice piano all day, as long as I took regular breaks.

obviously it is important to get your ears checked out properly as some of the previous posters have said, tinnitus can be caused by a number of reasons

i developed tinnitis about 6 weeks ago, and the onset was acute but not caused by any external stimuli (e.g. loud noise). it was quite unstable (fullness in ears, buzzing, ringing popping) and painful to be around high pitched frequencies (cappuccino makers, crinkling of paper, dishes being stacked etc.). i saw an internist who was no help at all, other than to refer me to an ENT guy.

tinnitis could be related to TMJ, and physical therapy seems to help. google reveals interesting info. also, i've gone to a chinese herbalist & acupuncturist and it seems to be stabilizing the tinnitis into a single very high pitched frequency, which i can manage.

The connection between tinnitus and loud sounds is assumed but not proven as it is with loudness and hearing loss. There are many people who have industrial exposure to loud sound with it's commensurate hearing loss who don't have tinnitus. There are also people with tinnitus who have no significant exposure to loud (above say 95 db spl) sound. From what I 've read, yes I have tinnitus for about 15 years now, it's clear that it's psycho auditory and not just mechanical damage. I found Fordsnack's post about evolutionary biology responses interesting.

>my left ear once or twice a week will suddenly go completely deaf, with a ringing in it... over a couple of minutes normal hearing is gradually resumed....

I also have something like this occasionally but not so bad as you describe. It's like something pops in one ear and then things become suddenly much more silent (like 20dB reduction) on that side with a high pitch (15kHz?) sound on top of it. In about a minute, it returns to normal, gradually the volume increases.

If this is the same as your problem, this might be something different, unrelated to the ringing. The ringing might just become more audible because other signals are lacking during that period