OPINION
Most people treasure silence. For tinnitus sufferers, it can be torturous
DAVID SILVERBERG
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED February 5, 2022
REPRODUCED WITH THE PERMISSION OF DAVID SILVERBERG
WELLCOME COLLECTION
David Silverberg is a freelance writer and writing coach based in Toronto. He writes for BBC News, Business Insider, New Scientist Magazine, Protocol, and many other outlets.
I envy you. Most likely, you treasure silence as a respite from the noisy life you power through at home, work and play.
For me, silence can be torturous. For me, the quiet lets the low-pitch ringing in my ears enter stage right to perform its incessant solo show.
I have a condition called tinnitus, also dubbed phantom noise, which causes a buzzing or ringing sound that can’t be cured. Approximately 37 per cent of adult Canadians (9.2 million) experienced tinnitus in the previous year, according to a 2019 Statistics Canada report , and 7 per cent said their tinnitus was so disturbing it affected their sleep, mood and concentration.
Various factors, such as hearing loss, ear infections, exposure to loud noise and head injuries are known to be associated with developing tinnitus. Rock musicians have been known to develop tinnitus from exposure to intensely loud music, while military veterans often endure ringing in their ears if they were close to blaring gunfire or explosions. Jaw issues such as temporomandibular disorders may also instigate tinnitus, and studies have shown bilateral tinnitus (in both ears) to be hereditary.
For a writer like myself, whose hobbies included not going to heavy metal shows, it’s unclear how I developed tinnitus when I was 22. As anyone with a mysterious origin story to their condition, I find it painfully frustrating not knowing if I did something to cause it.
Even more agonizing is the realization that tinnitus may degrade my hearing over time. Thankfully, tests in my 20s and 30s show my hearing is perfect, but the fear of hearing loss never leaves me; tinnitus can get worse, and so pose a greater threat.
The second week of February is global Tinnitus Awareness Week, an event that often flies under the radar of maladies that earn attention beyond their niche communities. That could be owing to the condition’s invisibility — no one knows I have tinnitus until I tell them. I’m sensitive to sharp and sudden noises, but anyone observing my behaviour may just think I’m skittish.
I’ve been embarrassed to admit I have tinnitus - anxious I’ll feel “othered” in a community or dismissed as a whining victim when others struggle to hear at all. Shame is such a debilitating emotion, but I’ve gradually learned how the stigma of this chronic condition can be alleviated by simply saying its name aloud. Speaking about tinnitus may wrest power away from its hold on me, a revelation that only came to me in my 40s.
Research into this space is still nascent, even though the condition affects 30 per cent of the adult population worldwide at some point in their lives, according to the British Tinnitus Association. Its low profile in the health care community results in treatment options ranging from the nonsensical to the doubtful to the mildly hopeful. There isn’t any definitive treatment for tinnitus sufferers; rather, we’re given exclamatory YouTube videos claiming a certain massage at the back of the head could alleviate the ringing; or prescribed Lipo-Flavanoid pills, whose efficacy has met with mixed reviews; or new high-priced devices, such as the Lenire system, which seeks to stimulate two neural pathways simultaneously and ease tinnitus symptoms (but is currently available only in Europe).
Some optimistic studies are making the rounds in online tinnitus communities. Researchers from the University of Michigan developed a device that leverages precisely timed sounds and weak electrical pulses in a process that could restore damaged nerve cells. In Japan, scientists discovered cell types in the inner ear cochlea responsible for producing superoxide (a compound that can accelerate hearing loss), which may lead to the development of the first pharmacological interventions to prevent hearing loss and tinnitus.
Thing is, those with tinnitus have heard it all before, for decades. We read these studies with renewed hope, but then comes the kind of ghosting that makes us wonder why so many experiments and solutions fail to help us go about our daily lives free of the chronic distraction that never gives us peace.
But we do what we can to mask our tinnitus. One of my prized possessions is a white noise machine my parents gifted me for my 25th birthday, and my go-to app is chock full of background noises such as rainfall and air conditioner humming. Yes, I’ll even prefer listening to the whirring of an air conditioner over silence.
It’ll be interesting to track if research into tinnitus increases after an alarming recent discovery: Contracting COVID-19 could lead to enduring tinnitus, a British study found, and in another survey of COVID-19 patients in Canada and the United States, 40 per cent of respondents said their pre-existing tinnitus worsened because of the virus.
With this discovery, will researchers and pharma companies set their sights on more studies and trials to develop medically effective therapies, or even a Holy Grail cure? Maybe I’m drinking too much from a half-full glass, but hope is all I have. And I’m sick of suffering in silence.
