AirPods causing tinnitus?

Hey guys, updating a year on. Got high pitched T around March 2021 after just a few hours of using Airpods Pro.

I'm not sure it was them. I mean, they could have contributed, but it may be a mixture of things.

• I discovered my T increases when I turn my head to the left
• I have a bit of high blood pressure and it is an issue with T
• And most importantly, anxiety wrecks my T.

The only time my T went down to a whisper was when I meditated. As I said, anxiety fuels T and I think most of my T comes from anxiety.

The more I think about T, the more I hear it, and the spike lasts days. Probably this T is permanent, you cannot control that, however you can control how to react to it. Easier said then done, I know.

Just try to calm down and I promise it will be a little quieter. Take care.

Mine seems to be lessening. It's most noticeable in the morning as I'm waking up, in fact, sometimes the ringing wakes me. I no longer notice it so much during the day and I'm three days from when it first started. By the way, I posted this on Facebook too and I'm hearing of others who experienced the same thing. Some now connecting the issue with their earbuds as well as AirPods.

I got the Airpods Pro right at launch and very quickly noticed a lingering, high pitched ringing in my ears as well. I stopped using them for over a month and the ringing still persists.

I was not listening at loud volumes, but I was using them a lot every day. Mostly podcasts and YouTube videos in Transparency mode.

No 2 ways about it, if you put your AirPods in your ear and before you press play they fire off a very loud sound (as with mind) than that is an Issue on Apple. Even if there was a potential to get tinnitus, the fact that the airpods exacerbate with unexpected loud sounds means the Manufacturer is at fault.

I purchased the airpods pro 2 weeks ago. When I used it for about an hour, I started to hear high pitch sound in my ear even after taking out the airpods. The tinnitus started and lasted for a day or so, and I logged a case to Apple and the next day I got a call from them who advised me to go and see an ENT specialist.

Around a week later, I used airpod again, this time over a period of several hours, and by evening, the tinnitus started again, and it’s continuing since then for a week now.

I went to an ENT specialist, and after doing the hearing test, he said that the cause is due to exposure to loud sound, but I couldn’t understand because I don’t listen to music that often (maybe max one hour a day) and the volume is always at moderate level.

I had been using Airpod 2 and Bose QC II for a while but never had tinnitus before that, so the most probable cause is due to airpods pro ANC or the pressure system..

I will contact Apple again to see what can be done, but if anyone has similar issue as me and the original post, please let me know.

Mine started in March. It's still here.

I have to say that it improved a bit, some days is less loud than others, but it's here.

I've tried to check with audiologist, dentist (to exclude it is caused by bruxism), physiotherapist (to exclude it is caused by muscles) and I'll meet another more specialized audiologist at the end of October.

Since then I did the following things to try to help:

1. No more AirPods (of course)
2. No more loud noises, I got some earplugs to keep with me just in case I'm exposed to loud noises
3. Healthier diet (no alcohol, no coffee, less salt... you can find some suggestion on what to eat online easily)
4. App - there are some apps on the App Store designed for tinnitus, they don't resolve the issue, but sometimes, when you can't stand it, they help a bit.

I'm trying all I can, honestly I hope my life won't be like this forever.

I have been able to lessen the effects of my APP induced tinnitus by doing a number of things. If 100% is the loudest it ever was, and 0% is silent, then I think I've gotten down to about 50-70% doing these steps:

*I did all these within the same day so I don't really know which one is working and which ones aren't. Sorry about that.

1. Listen to a continuous loop of pink noise during sleep or when awake. You can find many noise "machine" apps in the App Store. I use Sleep Cycle but it doesn't matter as pink noise is all the same. It doesn't have to be loud and you can play it in earphones or through a speaker(stay away from your APP, though!).
2. Do Austin Gohs tinnitus exercises https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztSBhvt4v-E&t=148s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsCTBeGrT8k&t=214s
3. Do the "reddit tinnitus cure" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBgkPOGD6gw

I don't prescribe to Chinese or any kind of "natural" medicin or know why these exercises work, or if any of this can give permanent relief. But it definitely seem to have helped a bit for me and urge all of you to try these things out. All of it's free and only requires your hands and a computer or device for watching the videos.

*I've also only experienced the APP tinnitus for a few weeks and maybe it's just going away by itself(it's been with me 24-7, except when I'm not awake. So I doubt it goes away by itself). I know next to nothing about the field of ENT or hearing so I wouldn't know anything about what's going on.

I often just have them in my ear for a zoom call, and then I leave them in for say an hour with nothing on at all, and when i take them out my ears are ringing. They are definitely causing it.

Same issue, and it wasn’t until I upgraded to the AirPod pros. Now I have continuous ringing for the two months I’ve had them. I keep my volume very low, and never had an issue with my regulars AirPods.

There seems to be a canned response that the solution is to see a doctor, not that there's a common link to complaints about tinnitus following using the AirPods. This thread is dancing on the edge of a major recall or law suit.

I mean, the AirPods Pro have an app that tells you how to “properly insert them in your ear” which is basically sealing all the sound into your ear canal without any chance for it to escape. It took two weeks at a low to normal volume (listening to music for maybe 90 minutes a day at the gym) to make my ears ring continuously and are ringing now as I type this. Before switching to AirPods Pro’s, I’d been using Powerbeats 3s for years with no issues. Regretting making the switch.

I recently returned my ear-pod pro’s due to a known fault and had them replaced.

After a short while I noticed a high pitched sound I can only compare to pushing a wheelbarrow with a squeaky wheel each time the wheel goes round I get an intermittent high pitched squeak.

I mostly use just one at bedtime as they are quite bulky to rest on and more often than not drift off to an audiobook or some relaxing music.

The problem occurs when I awake, it’s quite torturous and continues even when the EarPod is removed, this does not happen with the standard wired earbuds and I can only assume it must be something to do with having a battery near my ear or maybe another component… not sure.

Any one else experience this?

@Gregpillow. The majority of these comments are people mentioning their shared experience with a particular product. We are not engineering experts that understand the intricacies of active noise cancelation technology, nor do we claim to be. I'm 43, and as a musician, have taken extra precautions to protect my hearing as long as I can remember. I do not have an underlying condition and I bet most other people commenting here don't. Most of the people here, like myself, are very sensitive to changes in their hearing. This is my 3rd pair of Airpods and the first 2 caused no problems for me so I'm not here to trash any particular product or brand. In fact, I'm (usually) a huge proponent of Apple products because of their great design. But really, thanks for helping us get to the bottom of this mysterious situation though.

[Edited by Moderator]

Vincee95, I’m afraid you are wrong! The theory may be correct, but I DID get tinnitus which I noticed immediately on taking off the iPods. The tinnitus lasted three weeks. Now it is intermittent. I did not have it before using the pod.

I also have tinnitus prior of owning the airpod pros, and yes, when I first tried the pros the tinnitus got worse, but this is not exclusive to the airpods, I get the same problem with my sennheiser gsp500, even tough I notice this with the sennheiser right away.

That said, some in ears and headphones I have actually seem to remediate the problem, like the sony mdr 1A, the razer hammerhead, and some chifi like Tinhifi P1, T4 and Ikko OH10 actually seem to work in a way that the tinnitus seem to be at a moderate level if not better, I can use the sony mdr 1a all day without much issue.

Maybe this have to do with an specific frequency response. If the iphone had some kind of system wide equalizer we could remediate this by identifying the problematic frequency and turn it down a bit.