u/Brassens71

TIL that there's a tinnitus reddit, so hi everyone.

For the past 5-6 years I've had a serious tinnitus issue. However, after seeing an audiologist and ENTs about it, there's nothing really wrong with the external part of my ear. I was around 50 when I saw the audiologist, and he told me that I have some minor, normal hearing loss at certain frequencies, but my eardrum and ear canals are fine.

The symptoms I experience daily: there's a high-frequency tone that I hear 24/7. It's in both ears, but feels a little louder on the left side (maybe 20%?). The tone seems to be sensitive to things that change my blood pressure; it gets louder after I have coffee, for example, but it also gets louder after I consume THC (e.g. vape from a THC cartridge or eat a THC gummy). It's also reactive to my level of stress, and I'm under a lot of stress these days. Sometimes the tone is so loud I almost wonder if other people can hear it too, although I know that's a silly idea.

The auditory effects: I am very sensitive to noisy environments. One day recently I went to a mall food court to get lunch, and the moment I stepped into the area I felt like I was listening to the sounds around me from another room, and all the sounds seemed like a garbled mess. This is something I've also felt when, for example, I've gone into a bar during a sporting event. When I do that I really can't hear conversations going on around me, and I have to ask people to repeat themselves to the point where they get annoyed with me, so most of the time I try and guess what they're trying to tell or ask me and make that response. I get it right most of the time because that's something I've experienced pretty much all my life.

I feel it's been getting much worse now. Yes, I also suffer from depression AND anxiety, and avoid social situations. I always assumed that the depression and anxiety were something separate, but the more I think about it the more I think that they are probably related to this hearing issue.

I seriously think the tinnitus may be just a symptom and that the real problem could be some kind of brain tumor that's causing pressure to something -- possibly the inner ear.

So how would I approach a doctor in order to get this investigated? Has anyone else here had this kind of problem?

Sorry for the wall of text and possible lack of coherence, but the constant non-existent noise is really driving me crazy now.

This is my regular grocery store due to its location, but Sunday night I was there picking up a few things and as I headed towards the self-checkout when out of the corner of my eye I saw a rat run from under the table where they have the cookies and zoom to the cake display counter and out of sight.

Now I have noticed that the store is poorly managed in many ways, but a rat problem? In a place that seems to mostly operate on the basis of selling location-prepared meals to office workers? yikes.

This has been a pain in the tuckus all day. Finally I found a solution that let me break through and actually install Graphene on my Pixel 8 using a Ubuntu 24.04 PC, so I figured I'd share for anyone who needs it.

https://linuxvox.com/blog/adb-devices-no-permissions-user-in-plugdev-group-are-your-udev-rules-wrong/