[twangist]

1920 Hz in my case. I had tinnitus after I got rear-ended at a stop light. Decades later, it still recurs once in a blue moon, lasts for a mere 10-15 seconds then vanishes when I tell myself repeatedly "nothing is playing 1920 Hz".

[yc-kraln]

Really sorry to hear that.

When I worked for Daimler, I was surprised to learn that all of their cars ship with something called "PRE-SAFE Sound" which, when it detects that you might be in a crash (i.e. at the point when the seatbelts are pre-tensioned), it plays a loud-ish burst of white noise through all the speakers, triggering your ears' automatic response which disconnects your ear drums. This means that when the actual (very loud!) crash happens, your hearing is saved. They developed this in the 90s when, after the advent of airbags, they saw that most injuries from moderate car crashes were hearing related. (Here's a video with some cool detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTmLYY-Z2rc)

I always thought it was a huge shame that 1) this technology isn't required/mandated for all cars and 2) Mercedes doesn't advertise this more

[qball]

>This means that when the actual (very loud!) crash happens, your hearing is saved.

The loud part is not the crash itself, but the airbag deployment; it's as loud as a rifle shot because, fundamentally, it is a rifle shot. That's bad in open air; it's way worse in a confined space where that pressure is going to persist for a much longer period of time.

The combustion gas needs to fill the airbag coincident with your face being mashed into it at high speed, and mechanical suppressors slow down the gas so that won't work; using the acoustic reflex (as Daimler clearly does) to get that extra 15 dB of protection means the difference between maximum safe exposure and permanent damage.

I'm surprised that this sound doesn't start playing right before the similarly-explosive pretensioners are fired, since they're also pretty loud, but perhaps they figure it's part of the way to prompt the reflex.

[kloch]

The crash itself isn't usually that loud but airbag deployment can be 170 db which is very dangerous to hearing.

[Paul-Craft]

That is absolutely amazing. I would have never thought to do such a thing. It's kinda too bad this sort of feature is inherently restricted to more modern, "smarter" cars.

Any idea how many peoples' hearing has been saved by the type of technology?

[walterbell]

Could a phone accelerometer achieve comparable detection response and play a warning sound?

[somedude895]

> Decades later, it still recurs once in a blue moon, lasts for a mere 10-15 seconds then vanishes

Not trying to minimize your issue, but is it really still considered tinnitus at this point? I ask because I've been getting this regularly, probably on a weekly basis. It's not a big deal, because it also lasts for only 5-15 seconds or thereabouts, but I've never considered to actually call it tinnitus.

[taejo]

AIUI tinnitus is the name of the symptom, not a specific disease, and it's still tinnitus whether it occurs occasionally, frequently, or constantly.

[disantlor]

I can relate to the last bit; I sometimes have (or notice) tinnitus when going to bed. I try to think about what frequency it is exactly and it seems like the direction attention to it causes it to go away (or at least get much more quiet)

[mderazon]

I have something similar. I got mine after my first COVID infection. The infection was mild, but my sense of smell was gone for a week and i was left with a tinnitus

[jabits]

Same with me. Did not know this happened with other

[somedude895]

Huh, as I commented on the grandparent, I've also been getting it intermittently for very short durations each time. I also had the no-sense-of-smell-only Covid in 2021, but since the "tinnitus" thing really doesn't bother me much, I never thought much of it and can't say whether it started before or after my infection.

[lisper]

> 1920 Hz in my case

How do you measure that?

[kadoban]

You can just use a program that plays adjustable frequencies and shift it up/down until it matches.

[lisper]

Ah.

My tinnitus frequency is higher than anything I can actually hear so that doesn't work for me.

[tonymillion]

I have something similar - or rather I thought I did.

An incredibly high frequency sine wave noise almost inside my head.

I remembered when I was younger (a long time ago - early 80s) that I used to be able to “hear” when a computer CRT was on in my school computer room (uk, so BBC micro, with the standard monitor).

Ultimately I figured out I could hear the switching frequency of poorly designed / made power transformers.

specifically 110/220v to 5v or 12v transformers and cheap USB outlets.

I spent a day up close and personal around all my power outlets and now my head is clear of that super-sonic ultra high frequency nightmare.

[geoelectric]

I could hear flyback transformers growing up, too—-I could often tell from outside when someone had their TV on, even when adults couldn’t hear it at all.

Unfortunately, that frequency is a pretty accurate comparison to my now ever-present tinnitus. It’s not fun.

[lisper]

Well, this is interesting. I was going to respond: I hear it even when I'm outdoors so it can't be transformers.

However, then I decided to check if my phone could hear it, so I fired up my DB Meter app. And funnily enough, there is a little spike right around 12kHz, which seems to be right around where my tone is. It's not a huge spike, but it's definitely there.

Weird.

[wizzwizz4]

Is the sound from your phone?

[kadoban]

Oh wow, I did not consider that, interesting.

[mock-possum]

That… doesn’t really make any sense to me. Tinnitus is a ringing - call it a thin buzz, a whine, a whistle, but it’s a tone isn’t it? How could you not tell whether you were matching the pitch?

[lisper]

Because I can't actually hear that frequency. If I play sine waves through ear buds and increase the frequency, the highest pitch I can hear through the earphones is lower than the pitch I "hear" through the tinnitus.

[pyinstallwoes]

About how much higher do you think it is if you followed the curve?

[dehrmann]

Can you match it to half or a quarter of the frequency?

[adzm]

You can actually hear the beat frequencies like tuning a guitar. So intervals like the fifth or an octave are definitely 'in tune' when you try it. Interestingly if you play a pure sine in each ear with one slightly detuned, your brain will also hear the beat frequencies as if the waves were interfering despite each ear getting separate pure signals! There was even an open source program Gnaural for experimenting with this effect - binaural beats.

[dahart]

I can’t hear a beat frequency against my tinnitus tones, and I really wish I could. (I’ve tuned my guitar with beat frequencies for decades.) The tinnitus tones are very elusive when I try to pin them down with a sine wave, but I can get close by alternating a sine wave on and off while I vary the frequency... the memory of the tone from a second ago has been more reliable than trying to hear if they’re close when overlapping.

[lisper]

Interesting suggestion. But no, I don't think so, and I'm having a really hard time describing why. It sounds like a pure sine wave, but it's so high I have a hard time relating it to any real auditory input.

Also, interestingly, since I started focusing on this it has gotten less intense.

[IIAOPSW]

How high does your range of hearing go. We can at least narrow it down to somewhere above that.

[kadoban]

Is there some kind of resonance or something that happens at half/quarter that lets you identify it?

I experimented real quick and wasn't able to do a great job estimating half of a frequency from playing with the slider on the lower one. Wasn't _totally_ off, but nothing magical seemed to happen when I got to half.

[adzm]

Can you tune a guitar? I can hear it when the frequencies become small integer proportions like the octave (2x) and the fifth

[dalmo3]

Not OP, but same problem. Interesting suggestion!

[idontwantthis]

How do you have tinnitus if you can’t hear it?

[eru]

Hearing tinnitus seems to work according to different rules than hearing outside sounds for lisper.

Since tinnitus uses different mechanics and pathways, that seems plausible.

For comparison, think of a recently blinded person still dreaming visually. Or think of phantom pain.

[Ankaios]

You could have tinnitus at a frequency you can't hear if the tinnitus arises downstream of auditory issues that reduce hearing sensitivity.

For instance, if someone couldn't hear a certain frequency because the corresponding hair cells in their ears were damaged, they could still have tinnitus at that frequency arising from parts of the brain that process that frequency.

[pastaguy1]

They can hear the tinnitus, but not real sounds at that freq.

IANAD, is there any kind of "gain correction" theory for tinnitus? ie, the brain notices your ear can't hear this frequency very well, so it pumps up the volume ... maybe too much.

That would fit this data point, at least.

Weirdly, maybe not so different than when a hearing aid starts ringing.

[wizzwizz4]

> ie, the brain notices your ear can't hear this frequency very well, so it pumps up the volume

I've heard this theory. Apparently weak stimulation of the nerves prevents some people's tinnitus.

[LeifCarrotson]

Go back to the old question of if a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound if no one hears it?

Tinnitus isn't caused by actual waves of air pressure on the eardrum. We'd not call that tinnitus (unless it was actually inescapable, eg. a perception of rushing blood flow), that's just an annoying real-world sound.

Hearing is connected to eardrum vibrations by a complicated system of the outer ear, eardrum, tiny auditory bones, the fluid-filled cochlea, tiny hair cells with sensory neurons, the auditory nerve, and eventually the brain.

When all these work properly, the brain gets accurate information about sound waves.

When those hair cells are damaged (or wherever the stimulus arises) to send bogus information up the auditory nerve, the audio perceived by the brain as a result of that stimulus is not necessarily correlated to any accurate frequency data that could make it through that pathway.

[edgyquant]

Mine starts as a high pitch and then I can’t hear anything out of that ear for a good 10 seconds.

[jacurtis]

How can you hear something that you can not hear?

I'm not trying to be facetious, genuinely curious.

[DougWebb]

Hearing loss is a physical problem. Tinnitus, often, is a signaling problem. The signal can represent a sound that the physical sensors can't produce anymore.

[lisper]

It's a fair question, and it's hard to describe. What I perceive is a very high pitched pure sine wave. When I take a hearing test, my ability to hear real tones drops off long before I can hear anything approaching the pitch that I perceive. Does that make sense?

[dahart]

It’s two different sources, and a subjective tinnitus source is perceived but not “heard”, if that makes sense. You might be able to experience something perhaps similar: many people can hear much higher frequencies when the speaker is in contact with their skull than through the air.

[Fauntleroy]

You're not actually "hearing" anything. For one, the sound (usually) does not actually exist. In many cases it's more like an inappropriate signal from a damaged nerve or some of the teeny tiny "hairs" within the ear that sense sounds.

[rajsandhu]

https://onlinetonegenerator.com/ simply does what it says, and tells you the frequency, while this one, https://www.tinnitracks.com/en/matching# gives you a test that takes a few minutes, which I found worth the time.

[bradknowles]

Mine is at 8900hz.