StevenCrook,
I have occipital neuralgia, as well as loud tinnitus, and in researching the neuralgia, I found that one of the side effects can be tinnitus. Of course, I worked around F-15 engines, so they're the main reason for my tinnitus. The occipital neuralgia is caused by the pinching of the nerves coming out at C2-3. Your reporting that lying on your side or back at night makes it worse could very well be that you are pinching the nerve at C2-3. One of the branches of the occipital nerve goes through the brain cavity very close to the ear, and therefore can be causing the tinnitus, according to the article I was reading. Gabapentin or baclofen will help also, according to the article. I am consulting a neurosurgeon at the end of December for possible surgery to get that resolved, as I have had 4 nerve blocks now with only marginal success. My neck is a mess. I have had C3-5 fused, and need much more work on my neck to be done. I too have a lot of pain in my shoulders and neck, plus my arms and hands. If you're like me, you only sleep a couple of hours at a time. Good luck getting help with your tinnitus, and don't give up.
I have occipital neuralgia, as well as loud tinnitus, and in researching the neuralgia, I found that one of the side effects can be tinnitus. Of course, I worked around F-15 engines, so they're the main reason for my tinnitus. The occipital neuralgia is caused by the pinching of the nerves coming out at C2-3. Your reporting that lying on your side or back at night makes it worse could very well be that you are pinching the nerve at C2-3. One of the branches of the occipital nerve goes through the brain cavity very close to the ear, and therefore can be causing the tinnitus, according to the article I was reading. Gabapentin or baclofen will help also, according to the article. I am consulting a neurosurgeon at the end of December for possible surgery to get that resolved, as I have had 4 nerve blocks now with only marginal success. My neck is a mess. I have had C3-5 fused, and need much more work on my neck to be done. I too have a lot of pain in my shoulders and neck, plus my arms and hands. If you're like me, you only sleep a couple of hours at a time. Good luck getting help with your tinnitus, and don't give up.
@jaxboy
I've no hearing damage and never worked around anything loud or even been to many loud gigs either. I have the more generalised for on tinnitus and have had for a couple of decades.
Your suggestion makes sense. My sciatica (L4-5 disk bulges) made me rethink things. If this can cause intense pain in my foot, ankle and calf, then why shouldn't C2-3 problems cause the auditory equivalent. After all, if you send signals down the auditory nerve then you're going to get sound, right?
In addition to the tinnitus I also have intermittent pain on the RH side of my face. Just over my upper jaw teeth, around the orbit of my eye, and a swollen feeling around my ear. I don't grind teeth, don't have bite problems, dental X-Rays show no problems.
So far at least the medical consultant and therapists have refused to even consider they might be related, despite them starting at the exact same time as tinnitus.
Funnily enough, I was prescribed pregabalin for the sciatica when it was at its worst and I thought I'd noticed an improvement in the tinnitus, but the prescription wasn't for very long and the medic was very reluctant to extend it. So it remained inconclusive for me.
Sleep is elusive. The sciatica has given me significant problems with nighttime cramp in my right leg. I get 2-4 hours good sleep, then all bets are off. I find the 800mg ibuprofen helps a lot when taken just before bed. A bad night and the 'reward' is loud tinnitus for two days.
Your situation makes mine look positively liveable with. Good luck with the consultation. I hope you get some relief even if surgery is the solution. In that respect at least, we're the fortunate recipients of superb surgical techniques that've revolutionised spinal surgery in the last decade or so...
I've no hearing damage and never worked around anything loud or even been to many loud gigs either. I have the more generalised for on tinnitus and have had for a couple of decades.
Your suggestion makes sense. My sciatica (L4-5 disk bulges) made me rethink things. If this can cause intense pain in my foot, ankle and calf, then why shouldn't C2-3 problems cause the auditory equivalent. After all, if you send signals down the auditory nerve then you're going to get sound, right?
In addition to the tinnitus I also have intermittent pain on the RH side of my face. Just over my upper jaw teeth, around the orbit of my eye, and a swollen feeling around my ear. I don't grind teeth, don't have bite problems, dental X-Rays show no problems.
So far at least the medical consultant and therapists have refused to even consider they might be related, despite them starting at the exact same time as tinnitus.
Funnily enough, I was prescribed pregabalin for the sciatica when it was at its worst and I thought I'd noticed an improvement in the tinnitus, but the prescription wasn't for very long and the medic was very reluctant to extend it. So it remained inconclusive for me.
Sleep is elusive. The sciatica has given me significant problems with nighttime cramp in my right leg. I get 2-4 hours good sleep, then all bets are off. I find the 800mg ibuprofen helps a lot when taken just before bed. A bad night and the 'reward' is loud tinnitus for two days.
Your situation makes mine look positively liveable with. Good luck with the consultation. I hope you get some relief even if surgery is the solution. In that respect at least, we're the fortunate recipients of superb surgical techniques that've revolutionised spinal surgery in the last decade or so...
StevenCrook,
You are describing classic trigeminal neuralgia, with the pain over the lip, around the ear and around the eye. You need to see a neurosurgeon. C2-3 is affected, I am almost certain. The longer you wait, the greater the chance that the tinnitus could become permanent. I too have an L4-5 bulge and sciatica, with ilio-tibial tendon pain. I have had many epidurals for that problem, with minimal relief. That is my next area of attack. The bottom of my foot from the ball out stays numb.
In 1993, I tripped and fell, and landed hard on my hands, and they hurt for 2 weeks, so I went to an orthopedist, who wanted to fuse my thumbs. (He let it slip that he had just come back from a conference on thumb fusion. Fancy that.) I asked if it could be my neck. "Not a chance!". I went for a second opinion, and asked the second orthopedist if it could be my neck. "Not a chance." I ended up getting my elbows and my shoulders operated on, 6 operations in all. One day I just happened to rub my neck when my shoulder was hurting, and my shoulder stopped hurting. After that, they did an X-ray of my neck and found massive damage, 6 unnecessary operations later. Doctors can be wrong, and can be myopic. When you're a hammer, all the world's a nail. I had gone to see orthopedists, and they do elbows and shoulders. They don't think in terms of necks and nerves. See a neurosurgeon. That is their field of expertise. There is a fairly new procedure that involves inserting chocks under the vertebrae to raise them off the disc so they don't press on the nerves, rather than fusing them and chipping away the bone and removing the disc material. It is is a much less invasive procedure. There is a good chance that they could do that for you rather than do fusion. Good luck in your endeavors with this.
You are describing classic trigeminal neuralgia, with the pain over the lip, around the ear and around the eye. You need to see a neurosurgeon. C2-3 is affected, I am almost certain. The longer you wait, the greater the chance that the tinnitus could become permanent. I too have an L4-5 bulge and sciatica, with ilio-tibial tendon pain. I have had many epidurals for that problem, with minimal relief. That is my next area of attack. The bottom of my foot from the ball out stays numb.
In 1993, I tripped and fell, and landed hard on my hands, and they hurt for 2 weeks, so I went to an orthopedist, who wanted to fuse my thumbs. (He let it slip that he had just come back from a conference on thumb fusion. Fancy that.) I asked if it could be my neck. "Not a chance!". I went for a second opinion, and asked the second orthopedist if it could be my neck. "Not a chance." I ended up getting my elbows and my shoulders operated on, 6 operations in all. One day I just happened to rub my neck when my shoulder was hurting, and my shoulder stopped hurting. After that, they did an X-ray of my neck and found massive damage, 6 unnecessary operations later. Doctors can be wrong, and can be myopic. When you're a hammer, all the world's a nail. I had gone to see orthopedists, and they do elbows and shoulders. They don't think in terms of necks and nerves. See a neurosurgeon. That is their field of expertise. There is a fairly new procedure that involves inserting chocks under the vertebrae to raise them off the disc so they don't press on the nerves, rather than fusing them and chipping away the bone and removing the disc material. It is is a much less invasive procedure. There is a good chance that they could do that for you rather than do fusion. Good luck in your endeavors with this.
> When you're a hammer, all the world's a nail.
Yes. It's a common problem. As with almost any profession there's a struggle to see beyond specialisation. There's a strong silo-ing effect of the training required to become a medical specialist and it also generates a reluctance to admit to "don't know".
Heinlein wrote (Time Enough For Love) about this at one point, inventing a scientific 'glue' class called JOATs - Jack Of All Trades who's job was to make sure silo'd specialists got to know useful information from outside their labs.
I have an appointment with my doctor in the hope I can do a reset on the tinnitus thing and approach it from the perspective of it having a physical cause. I'm sure I'm going to have to pay for this myself, but, honestly, after two years of purgatory it'll be money well spent. Even if I find the cause and there's nothing that can be done...
Yes. It's a common problem. As with almost any profession there's a struggle to see beyond specialisation. There's a strong silo-ing effect of the training required to become a medical specialist and it also generates a reluctance to admit to "don't know".
Heinlein wrote (Time Enough For Love) about this at one point, inventing a scientific 'glue' class called JOATs - Jack Of All Trades who's job was to make sure silo'd specialists got to know useful information from outside their labs.
I have an appointment with my doctor in the hope I can do a reset on the tinnitus thing and approach it from the perspective of it having a physical cause. I'm sure I'm going to have to pay for this myself, but, honestly, after two years of purgatory it'll be money well spent. Even if I find the cause and there's nothing that can be done...
StevenCrook,
Heinlein wrote in "Stranger in a strange land" the best definition of love I've ever seen. It is "Love is that condition in which the happiness of another is essential to your own". Pure, simple and to the point. I read that in 1963, and I've never forgotten it.
Mike Rhodes would be an excellent one to be the leader of the JOAT school, with his "Dirty Jobs" and his ongoing (I'm struggling for words this morning) academy which teaches young people the hands-on skills that are not college-based but pay very well, like plumbing and welding, and are based on hard work and self responsibility. He has given well over $1 million in scholarships for it in the last several years.
Heinlein wrote in "Stranger in a strange land" the best definition of love I've ever seen. It is "Love is that condition in which the happiness of another is essential to your own". Pure, simple and to the point. I read that in 1963, and I've never forgotten it.
Mike Rhodes would be an excellent one to be the leader of the JOAT school, with his "Dirty Jobs" and his ongoing (I'm struggling for words this morning) academy which teaches young people the hands-on skills that are not college-based but pay very well, like plumbing and welding, and are based on hard work and self responsibility. He has given well over $1 million in scholarships for it in the last several years.
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Toxins. Mythical things. Treatable with snake oil.
I think I have a neck injury that's giving nerve effects similar to sciatica. The problem is that the medical profession manages to exist on a circular argument.
Them: "We do not understand the causes of tinnitus except in a few very specific cases"
Me: "I think I might have a neck injury causing pressure on nerves that're terminating close to the auditory centres of the brain and being perceived as sounds"
Them: "Oh, I don't think it can be that"
Me: "But it started suddenly and I have a series of neck and face pain problems that started at the exact same time"
Them: "Coincidence. Have a hearing test"
With this sort of reasoning it's hard to get any traction. But I've not given up, though having to read medical papers that describe a close fit to the problems I have, referring to Chronic Cervicogenic Tinnitus or Somato Sensory Tinnitus that both my GP and consultant are unaware of is... frustrating. There was a UK survey of GP practices and their attitude to and knowledge of tinnitus (in 2013 IIRC) in the UK and knowledge then was abysmal.
An MRI is going to be a dream unless I pay for it myself. It's first on my list of things for this year after a return visit with the GP to discuss what I've found. My GP has an open mind, wants to help and can't be expected to know everything about every condition even though I might want him to.
I think I have a neck injury that's giving nerve effects similar to sciatica. The problem is that the medical profession manages to exist on a circular argument.
Them: "We do not understand the causes of tinnitus except in a few very specific cases"
Me: "I think I might have a neck injury causing pressure on nerves that're terminating close to the auditory centres of the brain and being perceived as sounds"
Them: "Oh, I don't think it can be that"
Me: "But it started suddenly and I have a series of neck and face pain problems that started at the exact same time"
Them: "Coincidence. Have a hearing test"
With this sort of reasoning it's hard to get any traction. But I've not given up, though having to read medical papers that describe a close fit to the problems I have, referring to Chronic Cervicogenic Tinnitus or Somato Sensory Tinnitus that both my GP and consultant are unaware of is... frustrating. There was a UK survey of GP practices and their attitude to and knowledge of tinnitus (in 2013 IIRC) in the UK and knowledge then was abysmal.
An MRI is going to be a dream unless I pay for it myself. It's first on my list of things for this year after a return visit with the GP to discuss what I've found. My GP has an open mind, wants to help and can't be expected to know everything about every condition even though I might want him to.
as mentioned before sucralose triggers a horrible buzzing -like a loud weed eater sound "in" my right ear - its something imo to avoid if possible
It's not an insulin problem for everyone (at least not for me), though lowering blood sugar does help. I had a detailed look at the video around the time it came out, and summarised that it wasn't in line with my experience of tinnitus.
My A1C is only 6.1 and my fasting blood sugar is 101 (ice cream junkie), both barely pre-diabetes, and my tinnitus roars. The other night, I saw a show that had the stars running up a jet engine. When it got up to operating speed, it was as though the sound from the jet suddenly cut off, and all I could hear was my tinnitus (the exact frequency of a jet engine at speed, 7264Hz). I don't know if they revved the jet or anything like that, because all I could hear was my tinnitus and them talking. I went to a concert the other night and it sounded like the speakers were awfully over-driven. I could hardly make out a thing that was being sung. I relayed this to my friend, and she looked at me oddly like she didn't know what I was talking about. Nobody else seemed to mind, either. When we got home, she played me a clip she had recorded from the concert. I could understand everything that was being sung. I am a disabled veteran, and recently my disability rating was increased due to my tinnitus, which comes from my working on FB-111s and F-15s on an active flightline.
I'm a retired biomed engineer who has significant tinnitus, some related to presbycusis, but most is from Mirapex withdrawal, commonly prescribed off-label for Restless Leg. Mirapex was making my feet tingle and I told my doctor I was slowly weaning myself off it. Apparently, my "slowly" wasn't slow enough.
Tinnitus is a classic Mirapex withdrawal symptom. It also could have been aggravated by the radar or other equipment I'd worked on in another life. Possibly insufficient protection during target practice. Standard tests are now required for people in high noise employment. Hobby and other activity-related noises aren't included. As you approach the NOISH lifetime work limit of ~ 9 ergs per square cm (per my calculations), you'll be told to find a lower noise occupation.
Fortunately, my tinnitus sounds like familiar racks of electronics equipment and I can often ignore them. Sometimes I catch myself singing silly tunes to myself.
About 10 years ago, I read an article from Siemens' Hearing Aid division. It basically said, if you can duplicate the sound in your head, through earphones, about an hour per day, your brain will eventually say "OK, You win. I give up."
As an audio guy, I tried several freebie music synthesizer programs to duplicate the sounds. It seemed to work, but I'm just not disciplined enough. I've recently noticed a similar program is now a product at some audiologists, in lieu of white noise, etc. I don't know enough about Neuromod, but I'll check.
Since TENS seems to fix lots of things from migraines to ED - I own at least four - maybe..................................better yet, maybe not.
I played with my $45 pair of rechargeable hearing aids, but smoked them. Bought another pair, but haven't found time. You can always put your favorite, repeating tinnitus tone on your cell phone, etc. Since I'm not an audiologist, you're on your own.
Ron
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Ron,
I have researched my tinnitus and found that it is the exact frequency of an F-15 engine at high idle. I used to work on their avionics, and many times, an engine tech would come out to test the engines of the bird right next to mine. I didn't always have the opportunity to put my earplugs in before he would run them up, and the 180db engines 30 feet away could rev for as long as several minutes before I could safely stop what I was doing to put my ear plugs in. The frequency is 7265Hz. I will have to try that Siemans experiment. I'm assuming that I am to adjust the sound level on my headphones to the same volume as my tinnitus. I once tried listening to that sound at my tinnitus volume level over my speakers in my upstairs bedroom with the door closed. My daughter downstairs across the house in her bedroom immediately yelled, "I don't know what you're listening to, but please turn that damn stuff way down!"
I have researched my tinnitus and found that it is the exact frequency of an F-15 engine at high idle. I used to work on their avionics, and many times, an engine tech would come out to test the engines of the bird right next to mine. I didn't always have the opportunity to put my earplugs in before he would run them up, and the 180db engines 30 feet away could rev for as long as several minutes before I could safely stop what I was doing to put my ear plugs in. The frequency is 7265Hz. I will have to try that Siemans experiment. I'm assuming that I am to adjust the sound level on my headphones to the same volume as my tinnitus. I once tried listening to that sound at my tinnitus volume level over my speakers in my upstairs bedroom with the door closed. My daughter downstairs across the house in her bedroom immediately yelled, "I don't know what you're listening to, but please turn that damn stuff way down!"
Dear jaxboy,
I'd mentioned in another thread - I was once a USAF radar tech. Sometimes on nights, I'd cover my eyes with my fatigue cap and doze off next to the equipment cabinets. Now, in addition to presbycusis and tinnitus, I have deep 360 Hz notches in both ears, the PRF of a long range, Heavy Ground Radar. The notches are so sharp, several audiologists have missed them.
I occasionally target shoot, and since my pre-retirement job entailed testing electronics for, and evaluating ANC headsets, I searched for shooter's ANC headsets. There is no such thing, at least for civilians, but there's lots of hype and BS. I started investigating hearing loss and the Agencies involved in specifying hearing protection, etc..
A very friendly Range Officer had helped me sighting. He wasn't an electronics guy, so I wrote the attached paper for him.
Essentially, it says typical 30 dB foam earplugs are nowhere near effective as required to minimize hearing loss in the pulsed 180 dB SPL of a weapons range. The same holds for your jet engines, and they aren't even pulsed. With today's active and/or passive technology, you may need multiple layers of hearing protection.
I'd also mentioned, if you work in a high noise environment today, your hearing must be tested when you start your job, during and at the completion. If you reach the lifetime limit, you may be forced(?) to find a quieter line of work. I couldn't find any data on how employers exchange that lifetime information, coordinate testing or handle job transfers.
That may have all changed since 2019. I wonder how George Orwell would have handled it.
I hope the results of my initial search are helpful.
Ron
I'd mentioned in another thread - I was once a USAF radar tech. Sometimes on nights, I'd cover my eyes with my fatigue cap and doze off next to the equipment cabinets. Now, in addition to presbycusis and tinnitus, I have deep 360 Hz notches in both ears, the PRF of a long range, Heavy Ground Radar. The notches are so sharp, several audiologists have missed them.
I occasionally target shoot, and since my pre-retirement job entailed testing electronics for, and evaluating ANC headsets, I searched for shooter's ANC headsets. There is no such thing, at least for civilians, but there's lots of hype and BS. I started investigating hearing loss and the Agencies involved in specifying hearing protection, etc..
A very friendly Range Officer had helped me sighting. He wasn't an electronics guy, so I wrote the attached paper for him.
Essentially, it says typical 30 dB foam earplugs are nowhere near effective as required to minimize hearing loss in the pulsed 180 dB SPL of a weapons range. The same holds for your jet engines, and they aren't even pulsed. With today's active and/or passive technology, you may need multiple layers of hearing protection.
I'd also mentioned, if you work in a high noise environment today, your hearing must be tested when you start your job, during and at the completion. If you reach the lifetime limit, you may be forced(?) to find a quieter line of work. I couldn't find any data on how employers exchange that lifetime information, coordinate testing or handle job transfers.
That may have all changed since 2019. I wonder how George Orwell would have handled it.
I hope the results of my initial search are helpful.
Ron
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By hanging around those noisy F-15 birds, like a baby bird, they've imprinted themselves in your brain. You need to imprint a quieter momma bird in your brain.
If an ANC headset can cancel sounds entering your ear, if you can get the phase and amplitude just right, you should be able to do it inside your brain. I'll try working on it when I get a chance. I have enough stuff to kluge an electroencephalograph.
Fat Chance,
but you can bet someone is working on it.
Ron
If an ANC headset can cancel sounds entering your ear, if you can get the phase and amplitude just right, you should be able to do it inside your brain. I'll try working on it when I get a chance. I have enough stuff to kluge an electroencephalograph.
Fat Chance,
but you can bet someone is working on it.
Ron
One of the good things about being a Jack of All Trades, like Mike Rowe (a good singing and lecturing voice helps) instead of being a Master of One Trade, like a medical specialist - I'd worked with a first generation OCR machine, where the old fart designers complained about the instability of photomultiplier (PMT) tubes as light detectors. A couple of jobs later, I discovered CT front ends were PMTs. When we designed our own first scanner, it had 20 PMTs. We made sure they were auto-adjusting. The damn things never broke. Watching them do a pre-patient binary search gain adjustment in color was exceptionally cool.
CT image reconstruction needs all sorts of corrections to produce "diagnostic" quality images. Medical ultrasound image recon people weren't aware CT recon techniques could have minimized a number of ultrasound artifacts. Sure enough, about 10 years later, some of those CT techniques were applied to ultrasound images and they worked.
Radiologists are trained to analyze images in some God-awful blurred, streaked and/or speckled environments. The old radiologists couldn't deal with the "color imperfection" of LCD displays. If you improved or colorized images, like ancient priests, they rejected the changes. It took a bunch of newbie, computer-wise docs to convince their elders. It didn't hurt that as small CRTs went away, the larger CRTs made ultrasound scanners dangerously top-heavy. Manufacturers were eventually forced to use LCD flat panels.
CT image reconstruction needs all sorts of corrections to produce "diagnostic" quality images. Medical ultrasound image recon people weren't aware CT recon techniques could have minimized a number of ultrasound artifacts. Sure enough, about 10 years later, some of those CT techniques were applied to ultrasound images and they worked.
Radiologists are trained to analyze images in some God-awful blurred, streaked and/or speckled environments. The old radiologists couldn't deal with the "color imperfection" of LCD displays. If you improved or colorized images, like ancient priests, they rejected the changes. It took a bunch of newbie, computer-wise docs to convince their elders. It didn't hurt that as small CRTs went away, the larger CRTs made ultrasound scanners dangerously top-heavy. Manufacturers were eventually forced to use LCD flat panels.
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I didn't mention two other major agencies - the US Bureau of Mines and the DOD. If I recall, both were using or leaning towards the more stringent NIOSH Standard.
With a quality circumaural ANC headset, a pure sine wave signal source and reciprocity techniques, you can calibrate your gear and test your own hearing. A $45 pair of behind-ear hearing aids can do 75% of what pro hearing aids can do. If you want ear-to-ear or ear-to-whatever Bluetooth, of course, you'll pay more.
Remember, the prime reason for hearing aids is to improve the understanding of human speech. That narrowed bandwidth makes for poor music reproduction. If you want high fidelity, a Bluetooth headset, with or without ANC, with an external equalizer or a so-called smart phone equalizer app will do much of the above.
I may be mildly BS'ing you, since I haven't tried the Bluetooth stuff. Other than inside my SUV, I'm not a big Bluetooth or mp3 compressed audio fan.
Ron
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