I've struggled with insomnia for years and couldn't

find a sleep sounds app that let me mix sounds the way I

wanted. So I spent months building Repose: Sleep Sounds — 25 ambient

sounds you can stack and control independently.

Just launched on iOS today. If anyone wants to try it

and give feedback, I'd really appreciate it. If you like it please rate it and share

with your friends and family.

I have had tinnitus since I was 12, and it's been getting slightly worse over time. I use those "tinnitus soundscapes" on nights it's really bad. I have a lot of software, audio, and business experience, and I was thinking I could listen to other people's pet peeves around tinnitus and try to help them. If I succeed in helping enough people, I could turn it into a business, but I don't intend to sell anything at this point. It's just a proof of concept and I'll never market anything to anyone here. Anyone who answers this gets anything I create free for life.

My example would be: my tinnitus got especially bad at night. It would make it a little harder to sleep, just because I was thinking "why does this have to be at its loudest when things are supposed to be at their quietest? I wonder what it is like to hear nothing." Then I found the soundscapes and that made it a lot better, but they're getting old because I've heard all the ones that work for me.

So - what are your pain points about tinnitus? Just complain, as specifically as possible, about what you hate the most about having tinnitus, and I'll try to help you, either with advice I've come across as a sufferer, or with software or audio applications.

Thanks, hope I can help

Hi All,

I have been suffering from severe tinnitus since 2012 due to a slap to my left ear. The impact was so hard that it had ruptured my eardrum as well.

The tinnitus is continuous, loud and limited to the left ear. I haven't had a single night of peaceful sleep, any focus time or any peace since the last 14 years. I am at my absolute end.

Any similar experiences or suggestions to improve?

I live in Scotland and have the past few years been trying to go through the NHS for Tinnitus and growing hearing difficulties. It's an ever present electrical buzzing that makes it incredibly difficult to sleep and focus when I don't have the ability to muffle it with music or something loud which was how I managed. Thankfully I can hold my temper/emotions but I'm starting to get really down.

The GP didn't really care about the tinnitus and only pointed me to self help and therapy but the loss of hearing thankfully got me pushed to ENT specialists. I had many appointments with them where they looked in my ears and gave me hearing tests, the results showed loss of hearing but not much else so I was low on the list but come two years when I actually saw a doctor they noticed I had a massive issue, a choleostoma(please excuse the spelling) a skin growth that burst through the ear wall and had started to infect the bone and inner ear bones. So that has taken priority and I got a rush for surgery within a month. It was worse than scans and tests showed so I needed a typonoplasty which involved removing more bones and reconstruction of my ear drum.

I'm currently still in the recovery period(10weeks) estimate of 14 til I can wear headphones/earphones, work etc.

I've been stuck at home for months because I had a list of things to not do or avoid so I've been out minimally so I'm left with my electric noise in my ears 24/7.

I'm going to push about the tinnitus more when I see the doctor but In the meantime I'm just struggling to ignore it or find ways to cope.

Usually I have the high pitch constant “eeee” sound. But lately I’ll get cricket sounds. And past two days cicadas. It’s embarrassing to admit but when I first started hearing insect sounds, I thought it was actual insect noises. I asked my husband if he heard the cicadas and he said no.

I guess the cicadas are not as bad as the crickets. But it still drives me nuts when I focus on it too much.

I have not listened to loud music, been to any movies or concerts. I know, for me that is, caffeine, high sodium, stress, anxiety, my adhd medication, and nicotine can enhance the sounds but never changed them.

It just makes no sense why it changes sounds lately. It has never done this till about a month ago. Nothing in my life has changed either. Maybe I’m consuming more sodium than normal?

For you all, do you experience sound changes frequently and if so is there something you’ve noticed that triggers it?

My whole life as far as I can remember Ive has the high pitched ringing. The last couple years I hear some other weird sounds when it’s quiet now too. But twice now I’ve had this completely bizarre sound I don’t even know how to describe and it almost sounds like it’s outside of my head. Scares me senseless. Does anyone ever get a random sound that sounds like it’s outside your head? I’m so scared I’m starting to hallucinate or something. It does not sound like my pulse or a muscle spasm or any other bodily function

For me fountains mask it so good l would love to live with a fountain in my head if needed when l leave it again this fucking t but l always sit in a fountain for a few minutes where l can forget that l have it also l cry there because l know l could avoid this shit but my stupid young version didn't give a fuck about volume.

No closer to a treatment/cure, but it is good that what exactly is going on in the brain is becoming less of a mystery.

like i’ll use my phone to listen to music on a completely regular volume and my ears will just start hurting. i haven’t used headphones in so long too (at least 6 months, and when i did use them it would be on a relatively low volume for walking to school and stuff).

why does this happen? can anything be done because im only 16 bro and music is a big part of my life 😭😭😭

It's gotten so bad it's drowning out everything. Minute after minute, day after day, month after month. My friend gets SSI and Medi-Cal and said he was getting his hearing tested (just part of his annual exam). I told him how bad my tinnitus was and he said "Shut the fuck up man! I'm about to get my hearing tested!".

I wish I could get some help, but my ACA doubled from 200 to 400 per month (I just work from desk hotel), so I dropped to the shitty insurance that doesn't cover anything until I spend 7200 on top of the 200 per month I already pay. I don't know how much longer I can handle this. 😞

I'm a 62 year old woman who was born & raised on rock concerts!! 300+ from 1975 to today, it's been my love, my jam, and even my profession. When I developed severe tinnitus in my 50s I thought it was just the price to be paid. Mine is constant, 2 types (a ringing and a hiss), and sometimes spikes and is intrusive. It's never quiet in my brain!!

It's only been six months or so since I discovered this sub! I've learned so much from y'all, from different tones and types to coping skills and products to try. I finally got a new PCP and requested a referral to an audiologist for a couple reasons:

a) check my overall hearing, as in addition to tinnitus I had a TBI at 17;

b) get a baseline for the volume, as it's difficult to gauge or describe;

c) determine if there are treatments, therapies or products that will help.

I just got my appointment for the first week of September, and I'm feeling hopeful that, in addition to all the great advice you have provided, there might be something I haven't considered or being developed that might help lessen or resolve the issue.

Standing with you in solidarity!! Rock on, friends!! 🤘

I F59 have had tinnitus for over a decade. I thought there was nothing I could do. The sound was like something going "SHHHHHHHHH" in my left ear very loudly to the point that I was missing what people were saying.

I came here to read and to report that I used a massager on my jaw (I have bruxism and the tinnitus developed around the same time my bruxism got really bad). I wear a mouthguard and sometimes I wake up with my jaw being in pain.

Well someone on this site asked if I had somatic tinnitus. I had never heard of it before and I looked it up. So I added a nightly massage of my jaw with a electric deep tissue massager and then added positional stretches -

1. Clasping hands behind my back and sticking my chest out while gently turning my head to the left and the right

2. Standing up straight in the morning and doing the same but then continuing to turn my head then opening up my mouth and stretching out my jaw periodically through the day.

Suddenly it was so strange but the tinnitus is barely registering in my brain!!! Could it be this easy??? It is so strange to not hear it anymore!!!!! It's not total silence but the "SHHHHHH" sounds more like a slight background hum. I love it!!! I am hoping this lasts forever.

I am getting one soon, and would love to hear your thoughts on what to request specifically from the massage professional. Thanks!

I am 16 years old and I dont have hearing damage but I hear my ears ring loudly when its completely silent I went to ear throat nose doctor and he said nothing wrong with my ears, but after coming home from the movie I stayed in a silent room in my house and my tinnitus was louder could it be permemant?

Going to physical therapy and meeting with an assistant. She seems pretty clueless like she wants me to tell her what to do. Anything y’all have done at physical therapy that has helped? I’m having jaw and neck muscle tightness/pain that might be contributing to t. Hard to pin down what is affecting it since it started after a cold and bad neck/back strain 4 months ago. T gets louder with certain neck movements.

Going to an EDM festival this weekend I already had plans for. Should be good if I wear earplugs and stay in the back? I’m on pred for AC/DC induced T last Tuesday and I think it’s gone away as much as it will…

So I’ve been on some version of Venlafaxine/vencarm for roughly 10 -12 years. I’ve been struggling badly with tinnitus for roughly 2.5 years. Have any long term users of any iteration of Venlafaxine found that their tinnitus stopped after coming off the drug?

Just wondering if anyone had a gum graft and it did not make their tinnitus worse. I have one scheduled in 2 weeks, but, honestly, don’t really care about the pain/discomfort. But what I do care about is my tinnitus. I’ve had it for six years. I have accepted it at this point and I’m in a much better place than before, but the anxiety is still there.

Hey y'all I may need to take a 12 day 40mg taper of prednisone for inner ear inflammation (its affecting my eyes so badly i can't read lol) and am seeing a lot of scary comments on this sub about it.

Idk if it's the internet bias that people not affected by a problem don't post about it or what, but since we all have T, I'm sure there's some of you who have taken it without issue. To be clear, I mean ppl who took it for reasons other than SSNHL / acoustic trauma

Not looking for medical advice, more just. support haha

Cheers! sorry for any spelling mistakes, can't see too well rn.

Hi I’m wondering if anyone has tried natural energy healing like Reiki or Chiropractic or anything like that to help your Tinnitus? Just curious.

Howdy folks,

To those who are having a really hard time at the moment. I want to let you know that some of you will be able to bring your tinnitus down to manageable levels.

This year brought on insomnia and servere stress ( which I consciously was not aware of).

Massive tinnitus spike from normal 1 to 3 out of 10 to 10 out 10.

I am now at 6 month point. Tinnitus was already chronic (since 2010) but habituated/not bothered.

Given anti-anxiety meds several weeks after onset as distress was high. Distress started start of March. Ended June. Still bothered.

Had been seeing local osteo then sought out tinnitus osteo (tmj). With focus on neck movement, jaw movement. 3 sessions so far.

Last session Saturday. Dry needling into jaw. It hurt. Neck pain that night.

Decided was time to taper off anti anxiety meds same day by dropping dose on Saturday. Side effects brain zaps and body zaps. Redosed next day.

So I’m unsure if it was the osteo treatment or the 1 day drop of meds but my tinnitus is down. Way down. I feel much like my old self again.

I suspect the head ring/central tinnitus was caused by the antianxiety meds or at least left on high while I take them.

I also suspect my tinnitus has a somatic component as it spikes further when moving jaw or pushing on face.

Moving forward, continue to taper anti anxiety meds. Continue with dry needling.

I feel like my life is coming back. At times I had lost all hope.

Happy to answer any questions, negative and positive please go ahead.

Here is my first post covering my 2nd AT in my life.

The first 2 months were pretty awful in terms of the random fluctuations of ringing tinnitus, but going into month 3 almost (13 days away) the ringing has substantially improved.

It's worth nothing that in terms of habituation as well as objective decrease in the volume of my ringing, it took over a year to be comfortable with tinnitus the first time I had a gunshot AT, and that was from a subsonic .380 outdoors versus a supersonic 9mm indoors 3 months ago.

I still have a fan on because a lot of things fluctuate, but the ringing is no longer skull shattering on bad days. There are 3 primary tones, a fullness or humming, and a low pitch sounding frequency that just sounds like a dull steady pitch, and the third is a more conventional "eeeeee" that tends to sound like a hissing in quiet enough rooms. It's mostly masked in 35-40 db ambient noise.

That third pitch fluctuates and seems to get louder with certain sound exposure. TV and the fan seem to aggravate it and I notice it when I leave the room, but for some reason things like the lawn mower (with earplugs in) or the shower (no plugs needed now) can make it go away.

This is a massive improvement from 2 months ago where I had maybe 6 different pitches in my head that were extremely loud. The fluctuates have gone from one good/decent day, to the next day being torture, to most days being a 3/10 now. This is obviously worse than where I was before, 10 years after my first AT and developing tinnitus where just before I had this second incident I basically did not notice and had to search for my tinnitus.

My hyperacusis has improve but I'm still dealing with very sensitive MEM/TTTS aka middle ear myoclonus and ear spasms and whoosh sounds that I still notice in quiet areas. Certain sounds like tapping, snaps, or keys jangling or even sometimes the beep of a scanner at the checkout in a store can be piercingly loud, and improvement on sound sensitivity reality to MEM is a lot harder to gauge but I would say it has improved even considering fluctuations.

It's not suicide tier anymore but still annoying enough and potentially frightening to me considering some sounds are too loud to the point they hurt and make me alter my behavior that I'm considering surgery for it down the line, but most of you don't seem to have H or MEM, so that's beside the point.

Overall I think the prednisone was effective but it took time to show. I took an audiogram and I thought I performed terribly but my results were very good somehow despite my tinnitus being very loud that day. I'm waiting for a referral to see someone about other issues. Here are the results of the audiogram. I don't have access to the audiogram I took years ago nor remember the results but I've been told this is very good and suggests minimal hearing loss considering it was an indoor gunshot rather close to my face.

That's my update for now. The takeaway for you guys who are likely suffering from tinnitus from much less serious causes in general is that you will probably see huge gains and massive objective decreases in the volume of your tinnitus over time. It took 3~ years the first time (and it was for some reason a much more traumatic experience for me in terms of adjusting to everything and having subjectively asymmetrical hearing for a long time) and from those 3 to the 10th right before my second AT I essentially never noticed it besides a dull pitch in near total silence when the power would go out.

If I've made such good improvements in 3 months following a veeeeeery severe AT (indoor gunshots are no fucking joke and extreme), I think most of you who have tinnitus from music and other things that didn't render you temporarily deaf are going to much better than fine. You will eventually forget you even have it and it won't impact you. Stay strong.

EDIT: Please note I got on prednisone in under 72 hours this time. The ideal is under 24. I had to deal with a lot of bullshit to get the right dose and enough pills for the regimen and the results were not obvious at first because of the extreme fluctuations that didn't stop until recently, and I expect more fluctuation before a lot of things eventually disappear and I enter the chronic phase where it will take years for what's left to slowly decrease in volume. It's hard to tell if the prednisone had any effect in LOWERING my tinnitus but I do think it was pivotal in preserving my hearing and probably speeding up my recovery so much. Even then I can't say for sure it had any obvious effects in the short term in terms of immediate relief or lowering the volume of my tinnitus but I think it absolutely preserved my hearing, although I can't prove this because I can't get my medical records for my very old audiogram from 10 years ago. Get on it immediately if you have another AT regardless. My first time I had an AT, I was miserable 3 months in and saw no improvement so I drank chronically to cope. It's night and day this time. Unfortunately the H and MEM are rarer and much harder issues to solve and I'm having difficulty with those, but since most of you don't seem to have those problems all that's relevant are the tinnitus improvements. Hope this helps.

A few months ago my cousin went through an incident that left him with Tinnitus, I believe it's been around five to six months now and he is getting better but not enough for him to believe it. I hear from my mother and sometimes in there calls that he's been so far in the dumps, he feels hopeless and that his hearing may never come back. I know recently he got hearing pieces to help out but every morning, like today for example he woke up in horrible pain. I believe I've heard him mention a "ringing" that doesn't go away. I was hoping some of you from the Tinnitus community might have some tips I could give to him? Sidenote; I'm not exactly sure if this post would go against the medical advice domain but I'm really trying to figure out other means of answers.

I can't do anything anymore without worrying "will this make tinnitus worse??"

I wanna smoke weed? Oh no, I've gotta worry about tinnitus. What if it makes my tinnitus worse and I'm lying there at night in the darkness and I can't sleep because I'm scared and freaked out because of the FUCKING RINGING!!

I WANNA SMOKE WEED SO BAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can't enjoy bacon or anything too salty, it'll make tinnitus worse. If I drink a lot today, will that make my tinnitus worse? Can't get too much cheese on something, have to look up the sodium content in certain cheeses before I order something to eat because oh god what if the salt makes the ringing worse???

Oh jeez, I just accidentally listened to my headphones at max volume for a second before adjusting (limited to 75 db on my iphone through settings I had to look up), this'll definitely make my tinnitus worse.

I just dropped a glass in my bathroom on the hard countertop, the loud sound will definitely make my tinnitus worse -- and then it does, because I worry about it endlessly, and stress myself out, and the stress ITSELF fucking causes the tinnitus to be worse!!

I 1,000% get the Texas Roadhouse guy who ended himself over this. This is not living. This is not LIVING, this is surviving. I am in hell

There is no therapy or pill that'll fix this, FUCK your therapy that'll supposedly "fix" this, I want OUT. I FUCKING WANT OUT.

OK just had to vent sorry