whistling in the ears

tinnitus, 38 and I have it. Comes and goes. Me, stress brings it on. I drives me mad, especially when i'm trying to sleep. Do your research, lots of good info on this pain in the ass.

My wife suffers from this. She has found that caffeine has nothing to do with it. She says it is never a problem at home, and mainly occurs outside or in the mall and most often in summer. Her solution is a heavy over coat and a long skirt down to the ankles. ;-)

I agree, I am afraid it's tinnitus, I am a sufferer and a family doctor. I also agree with much of the above comments, in particular that tiredness and stress will aggravate it, not normally caffeine and aspirin, though tinnitus is a symptom of overdoing aspirin. It is usually a corollary of aged related hearing loss, presbycusis. That in turn is related to hair cell degeneration in the cochlea. It's getting older dude. Ironical, as we become old enough to afford High end systems, we lose the ability to appreciate them.
There is little treatment I am afraid, their are rarer causes and if one sided, perhaps with deafness, it needs invetigation. Seek confirmation from an ENT specialist, but there is little treatment and less that works.
It is often the result of earlier noise exposure and I tell my kids, if you leave a gig with tinnitus, you have permanently degraded your hearing, It all adds up. If you have tinnitus, you are very vulnerable to further acoustic damage, so don't go to noisy gigs yourself or play your system at 105db's

I suffered from tinitus quite horribly all of last winter. A major factor was eliminating a specific artificial sweetener from my diet. The one that comes in the pink packet ie "Sweet and Low" I swithced to "Equal"- blue packet and have improved to the point of normalcy.

I just got tinnitus from hiking up high altitude too quickly in the Himalayas (and it was probably exacerbated by the malaria medication I have been told...stay away from that malaria medication unless it's absolutely necessary.) It got so bad I was almost suicidal so I can understand your concern. Some people use a type of hearing aid that puts out white noise to help cover up the ringing.

Fortunately after a few months mine went away but it comes back every now and then, although not as intense as originally. Doctors told me that it may go away permanently and then again, it may come back even worse.

It's truly a curse. The only thing that worsens it is alcohol...i think.