'I always thought the noises I heard were normal'

Paul Burrows has had tinnitus for as long as he can remember. He reveals what it's like to live with it.

"I only realised I had the condition in 1994, when my doctor diagnosed me with hearing loss and told me I also had tinnitus. Until then, I always thought the noises I heard were normal, that everyone else heard them.

"I've decided to name all the different sounds I hear because there are so many. The names I give them describe exactly what they sound like. The most obvious one is the sound of the sea.

"I also get whistling, which a lot of people with tinnitus experience, and there's one that I call a flock of seagulls. I've also got one I call television, although it's more like hearing a television in the next room as you can't actually hear what's being said.

"The worst thing about my tinnitus is that I might have the flock of seagulls noise in one ear and the television noise in the other.

"I'm also profoundly deaf, and one night I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I could hear again. I said to my wife, 'I can hear the clock ticking', but it wasa sound caused by my tinnitus.

"My hearing loss bothers me but my tinnitus doesn't. It's always been there."