[asdkl234890]

Couldn't it just be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus

As I get older, I hear some sounds I am certain are like tinnitus. It terrifies me because I love and need quiet. But so far I've been able to move around, create some other sounds, and the fake sound stops. But tinnitus is a disease of old age.

[andrey-p]

That was my first thought too. I've got permanent tinnitus even though I'm in my mid-twenties (brought on due to headphone abuse when I was a teenager). It sounds more like a high-pitched tweee sound than a hum, but I've heard different people hear different sounds.

Sorta OT, but I've actually been able to get some use out of my tinnitus. If there's background noise that's preventing me from falling asleep (but nothing too loud), I can purposefully focus on the sound of my tinnitus. It becomes more prominent and effectively drowns out the sound that keeps me awake.

[ogig]

I relate to the paradoxical utility of the tinnitus sound. For sleeping and meditation! it's like a never ending chant you can focus back whenever.

I've also tried to use the hum as reference point to get perfect pitch earing, that is been able to tell if a note is a C, a F or whatever. Unfortunatly my tinnitus seems to be composed of several frequencies and out of tune. I can't make any use of it for musical purposes (yet).

[coldtea]

Just carry a pitchfork with you. Or a mobile app that can make any pitch at will!

[flomo]

I have the opposite problem. When I was young, I could hear all sorts of hums and whines (including one which came from a nearby Ford factory). But headphones and loud rock shows seemed have killed my low-end hearing.

[lutorm]

A bit off-topic, but there are indications that tinnitus may be relieved by treatment of myofascial trigger points in the jaw muscles (e.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17956784).

I have mild tinnitus and my self-experiments have been inconclusive - in some instances kneading my masseter and the other, minor, jaw muscles has seemed to give relief, but nothing obvious.

Incidentally, I also sometimes experience another form of "tinnitus" (not sure what to call it) that manifests itself as a swooshing sound when I move my eyeballs quickly. It's most noticeable if I'm tired or under the weather in some form. I'm curious if anyone else has experienced something similiar?

[dazc]

I have suffered tinnitus on and off since my late teens. It became permanent around 4 years ago. I don't think this phenomena is related - if you have tinnitus you know you have it.

[kstenerud]

How do you know you have it? I've had a particular high pitched sound in my head that's apparent as soon as the ambient sound in the room goes down to a certain threshold. It's been that way for as long as I can remember, and I'd just assumed it was that way for everyone. Is that not the case? What should absence of sound in a room sound like to a normal observer?

[lutorm]

Any sound you hear in the absence of actual sound is by definition tinnitus, as far as I understand. Once would expect an absence of sound to sound like nothing, no?

[kstenerud]

I don't know. I've never heard anything different from what I hear now in the absence of sound, nor have I thought to question the normalcy of what I hear until now. Without a reference point, I cannot make a comparison.

[ogig]

Been strict you can't know for sure. Birth deaf people probably suffer strong tinnitus for their lifes without realizing. Oliver Sacks has nice essays extending on this.

But if tinnitus comes during your lifetime you do have a reference point, and you will most likely notice.

[sanoli]

well, a "high pitched sound in my head that's apparent as soon as the ambient sound in the room goes down" is pretty much THE informal definition of tinnitus. You may not have it, but I'd bet you do. P.S. I have it, from being young and dumb and into punk rock and having a walkman.

[togedoge]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum#Tinnitus "People who both suffer from tinnitus and hear the Hum describe them as qualitatively different, and many hum sufferers can find locations where they do not hear the hum at all. An investigation by a team of scientists in Taos dismissed the possibility that the Hum was tinnitus as highly unlikely."

[ogig]

I lost earing on my left ear 3 years ago, around my 30s. Normal audition was replaced by permanent tinnitus. Talking to other affected people, old and young, i can tell that mine is the strong side of the spectrum.

I don't suffer the severe symptoms decribed in the article. I think that Hum must be doing something else to the bodys of those affected.

My tinnitus, after some weeks of adaptation, became part of normal life. I can sleep, concentrate and so on. I do miss the old silence sometimes. Good music is the new silence.