Noam Hassenfeld

Kelly started hearing things almost four years ago, just a couple months after her 25th birthday.

At first, she wasn't sure what was going on.

She did the WebMD thing.

She Googled all her symptoms.

She got worried.

When she told her family, they told her to relax.

But the sound didn't stop.

And pretty soon, she started hearing something in her other ear.

Wow, so different sounds right in left ear.

Eventually, Kelly decided she needed to get her hearing checked.

Almost 15% of all adults have had tinnitus, and 100 million of them have severe tinnitus, like Kelly.

They hear persistent noises, ringing, buzzing, sirens, even construction or drilling sounds, which seriously impact their life.

But when a lot of them get their hearing checked, the test comes back fine.

It's one of the things that makes tinnitus so maddening.

Why would so many people keep hearing noises like these if the test says there's nothing wrong with them?

And it's not like most of the people Kelly was talking to were any more help.

They didn't take her seriously because they had no idea what living with tinnitus actually feels like.

Yeah.

Kelly's tinnitus got worse in louder environments, so she had to leave her job.

She stopped seeing her friends.