At least for me it has been the case that as my hearing loss becomes more profound my tinnitus is noticeable and bothersome whether I have my HA in or not, since I’m no longer very much in touch with environmental sounds. I have also now begun having repetitive musical auditory hallucinations, which I concluded is my brain trying to supply sound as I lose more and more ability to hear the sounds I used to hear all the time. At a recent visit my audiologist confirmed that that is indeed what my brain is trying to do. She has programmed several different subtle sound choices into my HA phone app for me to choose from when I need to lure my brain into listening so that it doesn’t have to create musical noise for itself.

The combination of tinnitus and auditory hallucinations has been upsetting and frightening to me, but I am finding myself comforted by an appreciation of my brain’s remarkable creative efforts to take care of its needs on its own without any conscious assistance. My audiologist assures me this is not mental illness or dementia, which of course are frightening to all of us, just the brain reacting to too much silence where there used to be a rich sound environment.