The New Sound of Silence

What is tinnitus anyway?

It seems like most people with hearing loss are familiar with it, and few who have normal hearing know it by name.  It is, in effect, another layer of hearing loss difficulty that's invisible to the observer.

I have an analogy.  (People who know me well are rolling their eyes...)  Before CDs, tape (cassette) technology had come a very long way.  Just about all the latest techniques were aimed at one competitive edge:  reducing hiss in the recording.  That hiss is to tape what tinnitus is to human hearing.

As your hearing diminishes, whatever the source problem may be, the destination (brain) is receiving less and less sound signal.  Over time, it learns to listen to the lower input levels more and more carefully, until it approaches its absolute best effort.  But everything in the world has background noise, even the brain's "electronics".

In the tape analogy:  let's say you record a sound at quieter and quieter levels.  Each time you play it back, in order to still hear the sound, you'll need to turn up the volume (amplification) a little more each time.  But one thing that stays the same throughout is the background (hiss, in this case).  Eventually, as you turn up the volume, the hiss will become loud enough also that it interferes with or masks the original signal that was actually recorded there.

I've had tinnitus for years.  In my case, it's my Little Jet Engine, and it makes hearing tests difficult, because the audiologist is always searching for the lowest levels that can be perceived.  During testing, there's a lot of "did I just hear something...I'm not sure?" moments because of the "noise".

Remarkably, after having my implant activated, I've slept the past few nights in absolute silence (sleeping with  the CI removed).  Before, with aids, I'd remove the hardware and the hearing signal, but the jet engines remained.  Now, there's so much to hear all the time, and at such a level, that my brain just isn't trying so hard to hear those sub-whispers anymore, and amazingly, has remembered how to relax and just be quiet.