• Welcome to the DeeperBlue.com Forums, the largest online community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing. To gain full access to the DeeperBlue.com Forums you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:

    • Join over 44,280+ fellow diving enthusiasts from around the world on this forum
    • Participate in and browse from over 516,210+ posts.
    • Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
    • Post your own photos or view from 7,441+ user submitted images.
    • All this and much more...

    You can gain access to all this absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!

Tinnitus after extensive breath-hold exercises

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.

Julian Magata

Member
Oct 11, 2016
2
0
11
50
I experienced a permanent tinnitus (ear-ringing) after extensive breath-hold excercises. It happens a day after and it a constant tone in the range of 14-15 kHZ.
The inner ear (colchea) contains hair-cells which could get damaged by mechanical impact (loud music, noise..), chemicals (medicine), but also due to oxygen deprevation and maybe other reason.
Unfortunately, these hair cells are irreversibly damaged and dont grow once destroyed.

I wonder whether i am the only one who is suffering from tinnitus as a cause of breath-hold exercises. Maybe I have other preconditions which brought me into this situation.

Anyone having similar issues?
 
I noticed it several times after long STA or hypoxic breath-hold training but it was always gone after few minutes. Unfortunately, long-lasting tinnitus usually indicates damage to the hair cells. In my opinion you should give up the exercises that induce this symptom.
 
Tinnitus is something that you have it permanently....after breath-hold and ear ringing might be something else.
 
Tinnitus is something that you have it permanently....after breath-hold and ear ringing might be something else.

Sorry for my unclear statement
I mean that Not everyone has tinnitus. Once you have it then it will stay permanently. But it has nothing to do with freediving/breath hold
 
tinitus is a symptom of stress, the breath hold is pure stress, sometimes I also have this issue (high beep) after breath hold, but after 5 min relaxe or meditation (and concentrate for muskle relaxation in my neck) the tone is slowly softer and then gone. Another Tinitus (with hardcore deep tone) I have after a hard swim training, my ENT told me that is from my shouder muscle go up to my ear, after a bath in warm water, some exercises for the atlas (c1 spine) and shoulder relaxing the tone also gone (ok after 2 f... weeks).
 
Hi, I have tinnitus too but it was happened after diving. I have a theory for your disease. After you inhale you need to swallow and keep the breath under your throat not in your mouth. If you keep the breath in your mouth and lock it up with your lips, you would feel all pressure in your inner ears, nose and cheeks.

So, first of all you should go an otorhinolaryngology clinic (ear nose and throat specialist) to checked your ears. Then you can continue your training after a theorical education of freediving. I suggest you to watch Adam Stern's videos on YT. I hope, you get better soon.
 
Hi all,

I have spoken with a number of med students fresh off of a ENT rotation as well as an ENT that has a lot of experience with divers.

None of them can think of a reason why breath holding would CAUSE tinnitus. What they do all agree on however is that when training breath holds, we are laying still and it is generally quiet. We have nothing to distract us from tinnitus that may already be present, so it may just be that it is more noticeable if someone already does have it.

I have tinnitus myself and do notice it quite strongly when I am doing breath holds so I generally put on some kind of relaxing music to drown it out. Otherwise, if it doesn't bother you or you can ignore it, then simply carry on. But none of the research or people I have spoken to have found that breath-holding CAUSES tinnitus.

If you go to an ENT, you can request a tinnitus test and they should also give you a self-reporting test that you can take every now and then to rate your perceived levels of discomfort with tinnitus. That way, you can check your answers as time goes on and see if it is getting worse or not.
 
DeeperBlue.com - The Worlds Largest Community Dedicated To Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing

ABOUT US

ISSN 1469-865X | Copyright © 1996 - 2024 deeperblue.net limited.

DeeperBlue.com is the World's Largest Community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving, Ocean Advocacy and Diving Travel.

We've been dedicated to bringing you the freshest news, features and discussions from around the underwater world since 1996.

ADVERT