About - Tinnitus Review

How This Site Started

My name is Mike Peterson. My wife Linda and I live in Phoenix, Arizona. We're in our late 50s, recently retired, and we both have tinnitus.

Linda got it first. She was 50, it was 2019, and one morning she woke up with a high-pitched ringing in her left ear that never went away.

The scary part wasn't the sound. It was not knowing what was happening.

We went to our family doctor. He said it might go away. It didn't. We saw an ENT specialist. Hearing test came back mostly normal. "You have tinnitus," he said. "There's no cure. You'll learn to live with it."

That was it. No pamphlet. No resources. Just... learn to live with it.

Linda spent the next few months pretty scared. She couldn't sleep. She'd cry in the bathroom so I wouldn't hear. She thought something was seriously wrong with her brain. She Googled everything and got more scared reading about acoustic neuromas and other worst-case scenarios. (She didn't have any of those things. The MRI came back clean.)

Finding Something That Actually Helped

After the initial panic settled, Linda started looking for anything that might help. A friend mentioned meditation apps. We tried a few. Then we found apps specifically for tinnitus. Ones that play soothing sounds, white noise, nature sounds.

Some of these apps actually helped Linda fall asleep. Not a cure, but something.

Over the next year, Linda must have tried 15 or 20 different apps. She started keeping notes in a little notebook. Which ones worked. Which ones were annoying. Which ones cost too much. Which ones stopped working when you opened YouTube.

Friends Started Asking

Here's the thing about tinnitus. It's way more common than we realized. Once Linda started talking about it, friends would pull her aside. "I have that too." "My husband just got that." "Do you know any good apps?"

Linda started sharing her notebook. Then she typed it up as a PDF. For a while, we'd just email the PDF to whoever asked.

But over the holidays, we realized we were constantly updating the PDF and re-sending it to the same people. One of our kids said "Dad, just make a website." So that's what we did. This site launched in January 2026. It's basically Linda's notes, finally in a format that's easier to share and keep updated.

Then I Got It Too

Last year, I started hearing a low hum in my right ear. My doctor thinks it's connected to my blood pressure. I've been on medication for hypertension for a few years now, and apparently that can be a factor.

So now we're both in the tinnitus club. Great.

The upside, if there is one, is that I understand what Linda went through. And now I've got my own opinions about which apps work and which ones are frustrating to use.

What This Site Is (and Isn't)

We update this site when we find new apps or when our opinions change. We're not doctors. We're not audiologists. We're just two people in Phoenix who have tinnitus and have tried a lot of apps.

A few things we want to be clear about:

We don't get paid by any app company. No affiliate links. Nobody's sponsoring us.
We don't know if these apps will work for you. Tinnitus is different for everyone.
We're not saying apps replace medical care. If you have new tinnitus, see a doctor. Get your hearing checked. Rule out the serious stuff.
Our ratings are just our opinions based on using these apps ourselves. Your mileage may vary.
We might be wrong about some things. We're not experts, just users.

If you have an app you think we should try, there's a form to submit suggestions. We can't promise we'll review everything, but we do read the submissions.

Why We Bother

Honestly? Because those first few months were really hard for Linda, and nobody gave us useful information. If our little list helps someone else sleep a bit better or feel a bit less alone, that's worth the few hours we spend keeping this updated.

Tinnitus isn't fun. But it's manageable. And there are tools that help.