Tinnitus

odd you mentioned it. mine went into hyper warp this morning, lasted all day. i came upstairs and not long after it subsided back to just annoyingly loud. wondering if i go one more flight up will it diminish even further?
 
Mine does randomly get more intense at times and on some occasions can make me feel a little off kilter but thankfully not very often and usually it's just for a split second or so. It sometimes seems to be related to certain kinds of noise, like white noice, fans etc... or if I am in a room with a lot of echo. Oddly though the times when the tinnitus seems to get really quiet is when I feel the worst. I get a pressure feeling and can feel a bit unbalanced.
 
For me those intense times are very brief and sudden and random.
The tinnitus itself is constant and pretty level. Though the sound changes from a constant whine to a warble like summer night sounds. Think muted peepers and tweeting birds.
I'm used to it.
My hearing loss seems to be getting worse though.
 
Same. I’ll get a sharp increase in the buzz from time to time. No rhyme or reason. Luckily it dissipates as quickly as it came. No clue why but yes it’s pretty intense and annoying.
 
It doesn’t get better once you get it. I’ve been dealing with tinnitus since the late 70’s from working on the flight line and flying in the USMC. Best advice I can give is to have background sounds like music or the tv on. Hearing aids work to increase the volume of people speaking. Had numerous ear surgeries where I now have Meniere’s Disease which is effective by tides, weather and atmospheric pressure. Good news the closer to the equator the tides are less so good bye Massachusetts and hello Florida. It seems to lessen the edge. Sold the house and leaving in 36 days.
 
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For me those intense times are very brief and sudden and random.
The tinnitus itself is constant and pretty level. Though the sound changes from a constant whine to a warble like summer night sounds. Think muted peepers and tweeting birds.
I'm used to it.
My hearing loss seems to be getting worse though.
Muted peepers and tweeting birds. That’s me, but sometimes the mute is off.
 
Yes, late at night when I lived in a house that had something either very wrong with it or due to late night experiments at the labs at the office park a hundred yards away. (not kidding, I'd wake up with colored spots in my vision and my ears ringing at a deafening volume [sound of hundred of triangles being rung] until I turned I light on).

Soon as I moved out of that house I never had anything other than barometric pressure and stress affect the volume of the ringing in my ears.
 
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I had at least a dozen sets of “tubes” in my ears as a kid. Started as an ear ache when I got out of the pool one day. Lingering effects , I wonder ? Idk
 
Mine will ramp up considerably when I’m run down or stressed.

It started keeping me up at night a few years ago so I now sleep with Bose sleep buds which has been a game changer for me.
 
I turned on closed captions on the tv for good a few years ago. Anyone else? [wave]
I wear some wireless rechargeable head phones for tv. The charger base also serves as the transmitter and is connected to the audio output from my cable box. Works great and I can control my own volume without bothering anyone else.

BTW, if you're a vet go see your local veteran agent in town and have him/her/them help you apply for hearing aids. I was out for about 40+ years and got approved. Of course, the shipboard main guns didn't help my ears too much.
 
Isn't it too late? I thought you had to do that when outprocessing for discharge?

Nope. I left the Navy in 91 and after some advice from a VA rep I filed for tinnitus and hearing loss in 2018. They basically put you through with tinnitus pretty easily. They are much tougher on hearing loss. You have to push on the hearing loss. Tinnitus by itself is qualification for a 10% disability.
 
Nope. I left the Navy in 91 and after some advice from a VA rep I filed for tinnitus and hearing loss in 2018. They basically put you through with tinnitus pretty easily. They are much tougher on hearing loss. You have to push on the hearing loss. Tinnitus by itself is qualification for a 10% disability.
Any advantage to being labeled as 10% disabled?
 
Any advantage to being labeled as 10% disabled?

There is a disbursement of money from the VA for all disabled veterans. How much that is will depend upon how much you made when you were in the service. The percentage will go up and the payout increase if they recognize hearing loss as well. A VA disbursement is tax free so there are no tax ramifications.

The VA agent also recommended that I inform my company I work for that i’m now considered a disabled veteran. At first I questioned the benefit of that but he explained that there is state/fed benefits to the company to have a percentage of disabled vets employed by them. Plus it puts you into a protected class if layoffs have to happen. My company was actually happy I told them, which was kind of weird.
 
The disability payment from the Va has nothing to do with what your pay grade was. There is a table that is periodically updated with rates from 10% to 100%, same rate for an E1 or an O9.
 
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