'It also made my tinnitus worse.'

I've found any earplug or headphone option will make my tinnitus worse - sometimes days afterwards.

I explain my tinnitus to non-sufferers as being on the threshold of noise intolerance 24/7.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a lawsuit against any of these companies that expect employees to damage their health just so they can save on floorspace?

I've also wondered about that. I didn't feel like I had tinnitus (I have a very mild one) until after I moved my apartment to a noisier street and wore earplugs for about 2 weeks.

Now I have a very faint one that "toggles" once or twice a week and ALWAYS when I wear earplugs.

I had it 'mild' for years.

After ignoring the warning signs and also having an ear infection which I never bothered getting medical help for it got much worse.

It's settled down to a manageable level for me now but heed the warnings, you may save yourself a lot of misery in the long run.

Are you suggesting that I get checked for an ear infection or saying that I should stop using ear plugs? I have pretty much done the latter, only wearing them for the occasional nap once every other week.

I'm suggesting if you ever do get an ear infection to seek medical attention asap.

I had a random infection a few years ago and just waited for it to pass. Which it did, eventually, but my tinnitus became much worse afterwards. I'm guessing, because the infection did further damage which could maybe have been avoided?

I can't say whether you should stop wearing earplugs because you may sometimes be in a situation where they protect your hearing. But, for blocking out background noise in an office, they're probably not a good idea? [based purely on my own experience]

Same here! I had very faint tinnitus (from headphones in the office all day), but after we moved offices (open office space) and I started wearing earplugs UNDER my hearing protection earmuffs, my tinnitus started going wild.

I think it's because when you double-stuff like I did, the only thing you can hear at that point is the ringing in your ears (and high heels on concrete floors). My brain seemed to lock in on the ringing at that point.

Has it gotten any better since? I feel like mine has on a given day but it actually feels worse than ever before when I wear earplugs.

It's gotten better, but not gone away. I've worked hard on identifying the things that bring it on and avoiding them.

When I wear earplugs, the tinnitus is more prominent, so after I take them out, my brain is kind of "latched" on to it for a while.

>I explain my tinnitus to non-sufferers

I thought everyone has it.

Nope. Mine developed a couple of years ago.

You could go the opposite route: good earplugs with good noise canceling over-ear headphones. The advantage of this over the other setup is that the minimum effective volume from music is lower, protecting against tinnitus. I had the same issues and found this setup works well for me.

As an added bonus the obvious rigamarole I have to go through when a coworker taps me on the shoulder makes them more likely to send an email next time.

What's the difference you notice in the "earbuds + noise cancelling headphones" setup vs using the noise cancelling headphones to also play music?

I prefer the music to come from the headphones because my in-ear phones can be overly loud, even on the lowest volume setting on my phone. Having music coming from them hours every day had me feeling like I was damaging my hearing.

With earplugs inside noise-canceling phones I still get two layers of sound isolation but have a layer of sound isolation between me and the phones, providing finer volume control so I can add just enough music to finish the job of drowning out loud people around me without hearing damage.

earplugs + noise canceling headphones is better noise suppression than earplugs or noise-canceling headphones alone.

Thanks, I've tried this and it works slightly better. Can still hear noisy co-workers though.

It seems the best solution is to not have loud people around.