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Originally Posted by M_Six
My tinnitus is somehow tied to the range of hearing loss I have. Upper freqs, so my ears ring (or whine) all the time at a high pitch like I just came out of a rock concert. The thing about ambient noise with me is crucial because any ambient noise at all makes my ears ring louder. I often sleep with earplugs if it's raining or windy at night because that noise makes them ring louder. Same with flying. I always have to wear earplugs on a flight. I rarely watch TV except for the occasional baseball game, and those I watch with the sound muted. So drowning out the ringing with more noise is not an option.
It was once explained to me that my tinnitus is similar to the phantom pain an amputee feels, even though the foot or limb that "hurts" is no longer there. It's just the brain making up for the loss of sensation from the missing nerves. With my tinnitus, it's my brain making up for the loss of the high frequency noise range. The louder the mid-level and lower frequency noise, the louder my tinnitus gets, as if my brain was trying to match the sound level of the real noise. This makes sense to me because I can clearly hear my ears ringing above any music, not matter how loud the music is playing.
I know there are programs that try to induce a noise that cancels out the range of one's tinnitus. I can't think of the term off the top of my head, but basically it's an inverse frequency. It supposedly takes a fair amount of time to dial in the correct frequency. Trial and error, as it were.
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It might be noise-cancelling technology. It's built-in to high end aviation headsets and works pretty well. Even some newer airliners have it built into the cabin.