Military Wives star Gareth Malone sent ’round the twist’ by tinnitus stopping him sleeping – Irish Mirror

The Military Wives star tells Elizabeth Archer how he has been forced to change the way he works since developing hearing problems.

For TV choirmaster Gareth Malone, losing his hearing would be one of the worst things imaginable.

“As a musician, the thought of losing your hearing is devastating,” says Gareth, 46, who lives with his wife Becky and their children Esther and Gilbert.

“You immediately think of Beethoven going deaf and still composing music, and you think, ‘Could I do that? How would I go about it?’ It would be very hard to come to terms with.”

So Gareth was horrified when, in 2013, he was diagnosed with tinnitus, aged 38.

Gareth Malone

“I was pretty upset about it,” he says. “I realised it wasn’t something that could be fixed but something I’d have to learn to live with.”

The problems started after Gareth caught a common cold.

“I developed quite a bad sinus infection and I was on the sofa for two weeks and on antibiotics. By the end, I was aware I could hear a high-pitched sound which I thought was a mosquito, or the fridge or television.”

It drove him to distraction.

“I turned off the electricity to the house to try and make the noise stop, and it was only then I realised it was in my right ear.”

He was horrified when, in 2013, he was diagnosed with tinnitus, aged 38
(Image: PA)

After a visit to his GP, Gareth was referred to an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist.

“When I went to see the consultant he said, ‘Well, the good news is that you don’t have a brain tumour or multiple sclerosis.’

“I was stunned as I hadn’t realised the high-pitched sound could have been something so serious.”

Gareth was diagnosed with tinnitus and told to take extra care of his hearing, as 90 per cent of people with it have some level of hearing loss.

He found this distressing, particularly as he had seen his grandfather lose his hearing in the years before he died.

“He’d worked on the Lancaster bombers during the Second World War,” explains Gareth, who rose to fame on BBC2 reality show The Choir.

“He was the wireless communicator so he would have been sitting next to the engine with earphones on listening to morse code, so it would have had to be at a very high volume.

“In the last 15 years of his life he lost all of the low frequency sounds, …….

Source: https://www.irishmirror.ie/showbiz/celebrity-news/military-wives-star-gareth-malone-25411593