TinNOtus

Say NO To Tinnitus

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Welcome to The Buzz

A space for real stories, honest reflections, and small victories from life with tinnitus and hearing loss.

Here you’ll find comfort, perspective, and maybe even a laugh or two as we learn to live a little more peacefully with that damn noise.

So… Apparently My Brain Has the Volume Stuck on “Drama” mode

By Marie

Did you know that when your ears get a bit glitchy, your brain takes one look at the situation and goes:

“No worries dude, I’ll just turn EVERYTHING up.”

So helpful.

So considerate.

So… so very not what we asked for.

And that, my little Tinkerbell, is basically how tinnitus happens.

Welcome to your internal DIY soundtrack.

Curated entirely without your permission.

Your Brain: The Overenthusiastic Intern of Your Body

Scientists (the clever ones with actual functioning attention spans) have discovered that when your ears stop sending in perfect, crisp sound data, your brain panics a little. Now this maybe because of hearing loss, damage to the hairs in your ears, maybe because of aging, or because of that one concert where you thought standing next to the speaker made you cool. I mean, you were cool, but ... bit of a plonker now, aren't ya?

It thinks:

“Oh! Not enough information! Better boost the gain! Turn up the internal volume! Fill in the gaps! Make some noise!”

You know... Casual neural overreaction. I really don't know what that means.

The result?

✨ Phantom sound.

✨ Static.

✨ Beeps, buzzes, whistles, whooshes, and the occasional ‘is my fridge dying?’ noise.

All produced live by your brain, which has apparently gone freelance and is now inventing audio content no one asked for. A bit like that self-help guru dude who thought it would be a great idea to start yet another podcast nobody asked for. "Redundant noise" springs to mind.

Central Gain: or, Why the Brain is Giving You Extra

The “turning everything up” thing even has a sciencey name: central gain.

It basically means:

Your ear sends less sound than usual
Your brain goes “I GOT THIS”
Your internal volume knob gets cranked up
You get the world’s least fun remix of silence (unless you know someone who once had the Pussy Cat Dolls remix, in which case, the tinnitus remix sounds kinda fun!)

I’m simplifying massively, but I've used online dictionaries and everything to help me untangle the jargon.

I mean… if neuroscience wanted to make this easier to understand, they shouldn’t have used words like “neural plasticity”, “dorsal cochlear nucleus”, and “homeostatic dysregulation”. Who hurt them?!

You Are Not Broken. Your Brain Is Just Being Dramatic.

This part matters:

Tinnitus doesn’t mean you’re weak, broken, failing, or doing life wrong.
It doesn’t even mean your ears are “bad”.

It usually means:

There’s been some hearing change (often tiny)
Your brain has overreacted like the drama queen it is
The system is trying to fill in missing sound

You didn’t cause it.

You didn’t choose it.

You didn’t manifest it with your thoughts, moon rituals, or by accidentally watching to one too many reality TV shows. To be fair, they should all come with a serious health warning.

Your brain is just… being a bit over the top.

If You Want the Nerdy Details

(because most of you have more active brain cells than me 🤣)

Here are a couple of summaries about why tinnitus happens, how the brain compensates, and what central gain actually is:

🔗 American Tinnitus Association: How Tinnitus Works

🔗 Hearing Review 2024 updates on tinnitus mechanisms

🔗 Current research summaries on auditory neural plasticity

I’m not going to pretend I understand the full research papers because my brain tapped out at “auditory efferent fibre dysregulation”. But seriously, I have limitations of understanding in this area. Plus, hyperacusis is also in there. I don't have much experience with hyperacusis.

But if YOU can understand those, please come teach me.

I’ll pay you in biscuits. The kind that won't break up in your tea after only 3 seconds of dunking.