On Living With Tinnitus

An essay on when your ears ring and various other things.

Selected Works is a weekly (usually) newsletter by the Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand) based freelance music journalist, broadcaster, copywriter and sometimes DJ Martyn Pepperell, aka yours truly. Most weeks, Selected Works consists of a recap of what I’ve been doing lately and some of what I’ve been listening to and reading, paired with film photographs I’ve taken + some bonuses. All of that said, sometimes it takes completely different forms.

I generally tell people I started writing magazines, newspapers and websites in 2007, because that was the year when I really got serious about trying to make something of myself as a freelance culture journalist. In reality, I actually started writing for local gig guides and music magazines just after I left high school at the end of 2001. The thing is, at the time, I was also dabbling with DJing, organising events, and making music. It took me a few years to realise I really wanted to give writing a proper go. Since then, I’ve interviewed a lot of people and written about a lot of things. One thing I’ve almost never done is write about myself or my personal experiences. Over the last week, I’ve spent a bit of time writing a personal essay about my experiences with Tinnitus and other adjacent ear issues. You can read it below.

Tinnitus: a sensation of noise (such as a ringing or roaring) typically caused by a bodily condition (such as a disturbance of the auditory nerve or wax in the ear) and usually is of the subjective form which can only be heard by the one affected.

I first experienced tinnitus after an all-ages concert at the TSB arena on Wellington's waterfront. It was the mid-90s, alternative was mainstream, and grunge and Britpop music videos were in high rotation on MTV. I don’t remember who performed, but I do recall leaving the venue with a high-pitched buzz in my ears. I didn’t think about it too much at the time, though.

Throughout my teens, I regularly attended punk and rock concerts and went to all-night warehouse dance parties. Although I was vaguely aware of the risks associated with excessive volume levels, I rarely took any hearing precautions. Sometimes I’d use disposable earplugs, but the music didn’t sound or feel right. I’d often discard them and enjoy myself, later on falling asleep with ringing ears. But here's the thing: by the time I woke up the next day, the high-frequency buzz was always gone.

In 2003, I was two years out of high school and working as a barista at a coffee shop near the New Zealand parliament buildings. 'Gimmie The Light' by the Jamaican rapper and singer Sean Paul was playing everywhere, and I was obsessed with jungle/drum & bass music, dancehall ragga, and jiggy hip-hop. Just listening to music and attending gigs wasn't enough for me anymore. I was spending my evenings and weekends organising and DJing at some rather fun, moderately attended, and badly produced club nights in a small inner city basement bar called Happy. One of my uncles is a music guy. He used to rent me a beaten-up old nightclub sound system for a token fee. The only problem was I had no idea we needed to have a proper sound technician run the system at the shows. Whenever I hired it, we ran it far too loud. 

I was living around Oriental Parade at the time, which is about as Balearic as it gets in Wellington, New Zealand. I remember waking up one morning after a show and realising the ringing was still there. It hung around all weekend and even showed up for work with me on Monday. That afternoon, I went to an internet cafe and looked up "ears ringing". After reading a few anxiety-inducing web articles about tinnitus, I headed home freaked out and upset. Once upon a time, people used to say things like "Google is your friend" or talk about how great Youtube was for D.I.Y tips. There's an irony to that now. Regardless, here we are, or more aptly, there I was.

That week I booked an appointment with an audiologist for a hearing test. She made me listen to a range of different noises in a set of headphones before informing me that although I had tinnitus, my hearing was still in pretty good condition. Her explanation of tinnitus was interesting. We all have these tiny hair cells in our inner ear that move when we hear sound. If - due to damage or aging - they bend or break, the hairs leak random electrical impulses into your brain, which causes the ringing. 

As to what I should do next, the audiologist’s suggestion was to get a set of custom-moulded, musician-grade earplugs made up. It was expensive advice, but I took it. I couldn’t believe how much better my ears felt after a night out. At first, some smartass always used to have something to say when they realised I was wearing earplugs at a show. That sort of social interaction gets pretty boring pretty quickly. 

The ringing in my ears never went away, which led to some very sleepless nights, but the whole experience became increasingly manageable over time. After a while, I learned that anxiety and stress made the noise worse. Something that helped was shifting my attention away from the noise. I've tried a few different focus and relaxation techniques since then. Like most things in life, you work out what works for you.

At the start of the new year, I applied for a Canadian youth working visa, packed up my life, and moved to Montreal. While living there, I worked in a call centre and hung out in dive bars and dancehall clubs on Rue Saint Laurent Boulevard. I learned about Quebecois swear words like tabarnak and câlice, drank malt liquor in the parks with new friends and discovered the wonders of ordering a plate of poutine at 2 am. I also got to know the manager of a music company that included a small record label, music distribution services, and even an in-house recording studio. He was kind enough to let me rent the apartment above their studio for a meagre monthly sum. 

Montreal is a gloriously carefree, music-filled city in the summertime, but during the winter months, the place is rather grim. When I had time off, I’d often catch Greyhound buses to nearby cities like Toronto, Ottawa, and New York. The experiences I had gave me enough material for several personal essays. I won't share them right now, but maybe one day I will.

At the end of 2004, I returned to New Zealand by way of a three-week tour through Australia, which included one of the best DJ sets of my life, playing from 3-6 am at Suzi Qs, a lavish and now-shuttered nightclub in Sydney's Surry Hills. Once I was home, I started thinking about ways I could be involved with and contribute to the music community. In high school, I always got my best marks in English class, so it wasn’t really that surprising when I finessed my way into writing about music for a few New Zealand magazines, newspapers, and websites. Initially, my wheelhouse was genres like hip-hop, reggae, jungle/drum & bass, dubstep, beats, soul, and funk. As the 2000s rolled on, I became more interested in folk music, different forms of rock, jazz, and noise. I also reconnected with a teenage love of electro, house, and techno forged during those early warehouse party experiences.

Article by article, I realised that, despite the unique challenges that come with writing work, and the very special torture of transcribing interview recordings, I really enjoyed helping relay people's stories and provide context around them. Although I was working casually in a call centre, by 2007, music, arts, and culture journalism was looking like a viable income stream. Alongside writing and DJing, I was also broadcasting for the local student radio station, Radio Active 88.6 FM. Later on, I put together weekly new music segments for every station in the national student radio network. Tinnitus became something I just lived with. In the absence of silence, that high-frequency buzz became my new version of silence. That was that, or so I thought.

As the 2010s dawned, I was flatting in a sprawling warehouse in Wellington’s inner city with about ten other people. One morning, my tinnitus woke me up like never before. It might as well have been screaming at me. Throughout the day, I slowly realised certain noises weren't right. The sound of buses breaking was excruciating.

When I was seventeen, the hearing in my left ear temporarily vanished for a couple of days. After my doctor examined me, they informed me that my left ear drum was covered in wax. The fix was pumping a water syringe into my ear to clear the passageway. It was a strange feeling, but my hearing immediately returned to normal. In the twenty-three odd years since I’ve had recurring wax issues in my ears. 

By 2011, the water syringe had been replaced by micro vacuum cleaning. I booked in with a clinic that week to get my ears cleaned. The tinnitus volume dialled down substantially afterwards, but I still felt weirdly sensitive to specific, mostly high-frequency noises. When it didn’t go away, I jumped on google to try and figure out what was happening. The results were a textbook example of why doctors tell you not to look up your symptoms.

Hyperacusis: a rare disorder that makes it hard to deal with everyday sounds. Those affected experience a heightened sensitivity to sound, making certain sounds, such as a running tap, a car engine, or even a loud conversation, seem unbearably noisy, while others around don’t seem to notice. It can vary in its severity, from being a mild inconvenience to a life-changing condition.

I headed straight to the audiologist for a check-up after reading that. They gave me another hearing test and informed me that my ears were still in pretty good condition. The only real suggestion they had around my sound sensitivity issues was to try listening to white noise at night as I was going to sleep. I downloaded an app onto my phone that made ocean, river, and rainfall noises and started putting it on in the evenings. I’ve never been particularly sure if it helped or not, though. 

Over the following weeks, I started feeling physically uncomfortable while listening to music. The main offending elements were drums and sometimes certain types of vocals. Most of my working life revolved around music journalism, which made things pretty tricky. For a few months, I stopped attending concerts or listening to albums. Something very interesting that I observed during this period was how my brain responded to being deprived of music. After long silent days, a wild variety of songs filled my dreams. Sometimes it seemed like I’d listened to an entire album or two in my sleep. Dream music didn’t make up for how I felt during the days, but it certainly made me feel a little bit better in some dark moments.   

As I reflect, I realise one of the craziest things about this experience was how secretive I was about it. The only people who really knew were my family and a very small number of friends. I don't think I even told anyone who worked at the local music and lifestyle magazines I was freelancing for. Most of those publications are closed now. For some, it's like they never existed. Time marches on. 

When I was writing about music, I’d listen at the lowest possible volume. I had no idea whether things were ever going to improve. This is a strange way of putting it, but I felt like a butterfly, beginning to shrivel up as its final days drew near. Over the next few weeks, I set about memorialising everything interesting I’d ever done in a series of tweets on the Twitter app. Given the lack of context around them, they were immensely annoying to some people who followed me on there, which was a fair call really.   

As randomly as it arrived, my sound sensitivity eventually faded away. Listening to music at a normal volume again was a revelation. I remember playing an album by the Berber folk trio Imanaren and being the happiest I’d been in months. It was such an exquisite experience. Not long after, I went to the Newtown Festival. Being around live music again felt so good. From that point, my life went back to “normal.” In the past, I’d been a bit complacent, but after “recovering”, I made a very real point of wearing my earplugs whenever I went out to concerts or nightclubs. This time around, I noticed that people were far less socially punishing when they realised I was wearing earplugs. I guess the message around earing damage was starting to get out there.

At the same time as I was dealing with tinnitus and noise sensitivity issues, I was plagued with sore sinus and eustachian tube dysfunction. For those who don’t know, your eustachian tubes connect the middle of your ears to the back of your throat. They help drain fluid and equalise the air pressure inside our ears. I know I’m speaking pseudoscientifically, but I think all of these problems were connected. When my eardrums were waxy or my eustachian tubes were blocked up, my tinnitus and sound sensitivity were worse than normal. I tried everything, nasal sprays, nasal rinses, eucalyptus oil-based steam inhalations, sitting in the steam room at the pool. I never quite got it under control, but some weeks are better than others. Sometimes these home remedies were disastrous as well.  One morning during a steam inhalation, I accidentally spilled the bowl all over my upper thighs. The burns were so bad that the hospital staff had to wrap them in silver gauze bandages before dosing me up on codeine for two months.

About a year after my sound sensitivity died down, I started wincing at the sound of buses breaking again. A physical irritation at musical elements and electrical noises followed. The issue was back. The audiologist didn't have any new information to offer, so I decided to do my own research. I came across stories of musicians whose hyperacusis had been so bad they had committed suicide. I also read that you could incrementally rebuild your tolerance to sound over time. It was pretty sobering, but some of the academic studies I read gave me some real hope.

One day, I received a medical letter offering me an appointment to see an ear, throat, and nose specialist about my sinus issues. During the examination, I mentioned my sound sensitivity problems to the specialist. Although he couldn’t do anything about my sinuses or blocked eustachian tubes, he told me something that I found very helpful. What I was experiencing appeared to be a temporarily collapsed tolerance to certain sound frequencies. He put it to me simply: every trade comes with occupational hazards. Builders injure certain parts of their bodies through overuse. Musicians, DJs, music professionals, or anyone working around loud noise can do the same with their ears. His reassurances helped dial down my anxieties. Several months later, the sensitivity subsided. 

Ever since, I've lived with an uneasy awareness I might go through that experience again and a renewed appreciation for being able to derive pleasure from - and experience the world through - sound. When I go to concerts or nightclubs, earplugs are non-negotiable. Once a year, I get my ears micro-vacuumed. I don't know what the future holds, but I know the value in both appreciating the moment and accepting that the way things are isn't how they'll always be. 

I can't say this essay really has any purpose beyond relaying a set of personal stories, but nineteen years after I first woke up to my ears ringing, my tinnitus barely bothers me. If that means something to you, cool. If it doesn't, that's cool as well. In many ways, my tinnitus is a reminder I’ve lived a life rich in musical experiences. I hope to stay engaged with music for as long as I can. If I eventually can't, I'll be able to look back fondly and appreciate the memories. People often say everything has a price. If tinnitus is the toll, so be it. I've seen more be paid for far less.

If you’re experiencing any issues with Tinnitus and feel you could benefit from some external help, here’s a list of a few different organisations that operate around the world.

Tinnitus Hub

Tinnitus Research Initiative 

American Tinnitus Association

British Tinnitus Association

Health Navigator New Zealand

Tinnitus Australia

Photographer credit: Amanda Shoots Bands