Apple just worked with the University of Michigan to conduct the largest study to date of tinnitus. While I don’t know what this means long term, it seems to see a baseline to understand just how much tinnitus affects people.

I want to look more into Apple’s Research app listed in the article. Somehow I missed this is a thing Apple offers for large public research studies.

Last year I suffered from tinnitus, after about a half dozen years of hearing some light, intermittent, high pitched sounds.

It was horrible.

The tinnitus was a low pitched pulsing, around 48Hz if I’m remembering correctly.

I tested every app I could find, praying for a solution. Finally I found a white noise sound that matched the exact Hz range, and was able to fall asleep with AirPods blocking out the pulse. It was an immediate relief.

It also meant I was completely blocked off from the world, unable to hear a thing.

Thankfully it went away after a week, and my hearing has seemingly returned to normal. But it was horrible.

At the time I looked into everything I could find online, and was terrified to learn there is no apparent cure. The biggest relief I found was a post on Reddit, getting into the mental way of handling the issue; realizing that it will never be worse. Meaning, your brain can rewire and learn to ignore the sounds.

Seeing Apple conduct a research study with the university of Michigan on this topic is fantastic. As a recent, temporary, extreme sufferer of tinnitus, I hope they’re able to find an answer, or at least improved tools to help.