Air Pods Pro 2 and Tinnitus

[jr5x]

I have tinnitus, and when I tried the Bose QC35ii and Sony 1000XM4 over-the-ear headphones, even using them with no music and just the active noise cancellation on seemed to worsen the ringing in my ears. I think this was due to sound pressure from the ANC hitting my eardrum even though I couldn't hear any sound being made.

Are the Air Pod Pro 2 similar, in that the ANC creates sound pressure in the ear as part of the noise cancellation process? I'd very much like to try them but messages on Reddit tinnitus about the first gen APP suggest that they can make tinnitus worse. Do these create the same sound pressure as the first gen?

Has anyone with tinnitus here tried either gen APP? If so, how did you fare?

 

[bknaepen]

Don't you think you are just hearing your tinnitus more when you are in super quite environment, like when ANC is on ?

 

[doolar]

I have tinnitus, and the Airpods Max and the Airpods Pro (I have 1st gen) are a godsend. Somehow they make my tinnitus almost go away. I use them a lot with no sound, just on my head/in my ears.

The Max´s are better, mainly because they "disappear" on my head. The Pro's I feel in my ears.

YMMV of course.

 

[ssledoux]

I have tinnitus and silence always makes it worse for me. In fact, I rarely notice it unless it’s quiet, or if I have had alcohol (which isn’t very often).

 

[jr5x]

Don't you think you are just hearing your tinnitus more when you are in super quite environment, like when ANC is on ?

Thanks, that’s a good pick up. Actually it’s that after I wore them it caused a spike in my tinnitus, ie the ringing was louder afterwards.

 

[Lee_Mac]

Its varies from person to person, but typically your tinnitus will be worse in a quiet environment. If you’ve ever sat in a mega quite room after about 15 minutes or so you’ll start to hear your own heartbeat, and typically everyone will hear some form of tinnitus. This is actually your brain hearing the things it typically suppresses.

Tinnitus isn’t actually to do with your hearing mechanism as such, I t’s your brain over compensating for hearing damage. So in effect it over compensates for the damaged frequencies, hence you hear the typical woshing noises, typically around 6khz.

Although people do find noise cancelling headphones help to reduce the impact of tinnitus, just as many say the opposite. I’ve personally gone down the training my brain to reduce the noise to a background noise, such as my heartbeat. It’s still there, but its pushed to the background. For me it helped by walking on the beach with the sound of waves masking the tinnitus. To a point that we actually moved onto the coast a few years back.

 

[MajorFubar]

Tinnitus is weird. I've always got it in my left ear, have had since my late 30's. Within the last 10 years it's started to be temporarily exacerbated when I'm in a loud environment, be that music or any other loud noises. Yet if I put headphones on/in and listen at any level you can name, it makes no difference at all.

 

[Lee_Mac]

Tinnitus is weird. I've always got it in my left ear, have had since my late 30's. Within the last 10 years it's started to be temporarily exacerbated when I'm in a loud environment, be that music or any other loud noises. Yet if I put headphones on/in and listen at any level you can name, it makes no difference at all.

I know a friend of mine who committed suicide down to his tinnitus, drove him mad.

 

[MajorFubar]

I know a friend of mine who committed suicide down to his tinnitus, drove him mad.

Very sad. I'm fortunate mine is not that bad. It's just a high pitched whistle around 15kHz that I'm conscious is always there in my left ear, which increases in volume depending on how loud my surroundings are, except when listening to something on headphones. For some reason I cannot explain, audio/music piped directly to my ears from headphones or earphones doesn't make it louder. Yet loud sound from speakers and other natural causes does.

 

[stiligFox]

For what it’s worth, the 1st Gen. AirPods Pro made my tinnitus unbearably bad, even after removing them. It took a couple months for the effect to go away even after returning them. There were times I had to pull them out of my ears even with no music playing as the ringing had gotten painfully loud.

The AP3s don’t do this, and so far the APP2s don’t seem to be exacerbating my tinnitus as much as the APP1s, but I do notice it when the noise canceling is on and no music is playing - but so far it’s not been painful. I also notice it a bit more when not wearing them, but that could just be that this has been a stressful week.

 

[trerep]

i have tinnitus
it started 10 years ago, it is variable.. so i think maybe is linfatic.. but no solution...

the real question for me is: can you use any airpods with tinnitus? i think it is dangerous, it could become worse.. so i never use airpods.. but maybe it's only my fear....

what do you think? it is not recommended to use earpods of any kind with tinnitus?

 

[jr5x]

what do you think? it is not recommended to use earpods of any kind with tinnitus?

My own tinnitus was caused by (stupid) exposure to loud noises over a period of years and my ringing is now pretty loud.

The owner of the TinnitusTalk website, a message board for tinnitus sufferers, strongly recommends no headphones or ear buds for people with noise-induced tinnitus. He says that they can cause a tinnitus level increase that doesn't return to where it was before the headphone/ear bud use. Others on the site say any danger is entirely about the sound pressure levels that hit the ears, and not about headphones or ear buds. The owner's response is that this is what he's seen happen in many sufferers who used headphones or ear buds.

Many posters on Reddit's tinnitus subreddit also recommend no headphone or ear bud use.

My own experience with Bose and Sony over-the-ear ANC headphones is that they made mine worse.

I badly want to try the APP 2, using sometimes only the noise cancellation feature and other times the ANC + low-volume music and podcasts, but I'm too scared unless the "silent" sound pressure of its ANC is somehow different than in previous types of noise cancelling ear buds.

 

[MrEcted]

For me, AirPod Pros make my tinnitus drastically worse.

My situation:

- I have had tinnitus for about two decades, it was caused by excessive noise - mainly being an idiot and going to concerts without hearing protection, listening to music loudly with headphones, etc.

- After developing tinnitus I became hyper-paranoid about my hearing, doing everything I can to try and prevent it from becoming worse. I use high quality earplugs in any loud situation (bars, loud restaurants, etc), and I listen to headphones at an extremely low volume - for example when I listen using my iPhone I never have the volume level above 25%, music is so quiet that it's barely audible.

- I can tell within a few minutes if a pair of headphones are going to be problematic because they will raise my tinnitus to a level far above baseline, to the point where I struggle to hear normal conversation and my tinnitus evolves from a constant ring into an obnoxious chirping sound and I will experience pain behind my ears that feels like excessive pressure build-up.

- Not all headphones cause this problem. For example, I have a cheap Sony Pulse 3D headset (for PS5) and I could wear those for extended periods of time (again at a VERY quiet level) with no adverse effects.

- ANC isn't necessarily the issue, but it might not help. I have this problem with most ANC headsets, but I also have this problem with non-ANC headphones - for example any headphones by Grado immediately exacerbate this problem, and they are open-back with no ANC.

AirPod Pros are perhaps the worst offender out of all the headsets I've used. What's really weird is that even just having them in my ears with no sound playing through will cause this problem for me. I have done a number of anecdotal tests and I can only conclude that these are problematic for me. If I just use one AirPod then the ear I was using it in will have a drastic increase in tinnitus effects, including throbbing, chirping, etc while the other will be at my normal baseline tinnitus.

I cannot figure out what is causing the problem, but when my tinnitus roars from AirPods it will last between 2-4 days before finally subsiding. Even if I let it subside for a week or more and try using AirPod Pros again, within 10-15 minutes it goes back up to screaming for 2-4 days.

I don't have this issue with wired EarPods.