Reasons why I suffered tinnitus, insomnia, chronic fatigue, and other health problems after having digital electricity meters installed

Got Rid of My Smart Meter and Got My Life Back

Approximately 8-10 years ago, my utility company began replacing our analog meters with Smart Meters.  I chose to take advantage of the opt-out option, paying the up front opt-out fee along with the recurring monthly meter reading fee.  Several months ago, the utility replaced my electric meter.  Although the new meter had a blinking digital readout, the technician assured me that it was not a Smart Meter.  Within one day after installation of the new meter, I began experiencing debilitating falling down dizzy spells every time I walked past the meter, as well as feeling those same effects inside my home.  EMF exposure symptoms do not subside immediately, even after moving away from the source.  In my case, they can linger for as long as 2-3 hours, forcing me to remain bedridden during that time.

After several months of dizzy spells, brain fog, and inability to perform my activities of daily living, I notified the utility company about the problems I was having and requested that the meter be replaced.  After a bit of discussion, the utility company agreed to remove the meter and replace it with the analog dial unit.  I experienced  immediate relief of all symptoms after the meter was replaced.

Prior to requesting removal of the digital meter, I spent several months trying to find some physical reason that might explain the sudden onset of my symptoms.  As a last resort, I decided to do some research on the digital meter that had been installed.  I was astonished to find (based on information from the manufacturer's website) that the utility company had in fact replaced my analog meter with a Smart Meter.  Even more astonishing was the fact that my meter was changed, even though I had paid the opt-out fees in order to keep my analog meter.

When I contacted the utility and told them what I had learned about the meter they had installed, and requested that they return my analog meter, I was once again told the unit was not a Smart Meter.  I explained to them that turning off the transmitter in no way changed the unit into a different kind of meter.  That would be like saying if you take the wheels off a car, it's no longer a car!

It’s not quite so simple as 'not affected are completely unaffected' when it comes to suffering the effects of EHS. There can be a build-up of small signs of sensitivity, but these can be so subtle they won’t be seen as anything to do with electro-sensitivity. People can suffer symptoms without realising the cause could be (other reasons for these also possible) such as;

• insomnia,
• stuffed up sinuses,
• tiredness,
• dry eyes,
• headaches,
• mild dizziness/vertigo,
• pins and needles/tingling,
• muscle twitches and
• low-level tinnitus.

Without any obvious causation, doctors will often pass these symptoms off as medically [Edit: unrecognised] unexplained symptoms (MUS), leaving sufferers to hope that one day these symptoms will simply go away or get so conditioned to suffering them that they normalise them. Unfortunately, when something comes along and greatly increases the sufferer's exposure to EMFs, they may reach their threshold of coping and their health then falls off a ‘cliff edge’. (See the diagram produced by Professor Hecht in my opening post.) This can happen well below the current exposure limits set by the ICNIRP, hence why a lot of scientists working in this area are calling for the ICNIRP to be reformed or entirely replaced. Once over the threshold of coping, the result can be one or more life afflicting symptoms that include (there's plenty more);

• Cardiac dysrhythmia/arrhythmia,
• musculoskeletal pains,
• chronic fatigue,
• memory problems,
• brain fog,
• migraines,
• intense tinnitus (usually high-pitched monotone non-pulsatile),
• head pressure,
• ear pressure,
• visual disturbances,
• stabbing pains,
• dizziness/vertigo,
• nausea,
• rashes,
• tremors,
• blood pressure anomalies,
• exacerbate behavioural problems such as ADHD and OCD,
• stress,
• anxiety and
• depression.

These can show relatively quickly, but rarely react as fast as the flick of an on/off switch, particularly for EMF exposure rather than ultrasound exposure. I was lucky in some ways that I had one quick blind testable symptom from the above list which led to realising there was interference between the smart electricity meters and my surround sound system, causing it to emit ultrasound or more likely EMFs at ultrasonic frequencies. It doesn't happen now with the analogue meter that turned out to be a solution for my complete inability to live safely in my own home, hence I'm unable to recreate the conditions that created the ear pressure to find out exactly what was happening. The ear pressure and it's almost instant change when I went in and out of the house or turned off the electricity in the house, certainly helped determine the wretched tinnitus was due to the new electricity meter.

Then there are longer term health conditions that scientists looking at the effects of non-ionising radiation are concerned about, a few of which are;

• Dementia/Alzheimer’s,
• ALS (a form of MND),
• Parkinson’s,
• cardiovascular diseases,
• developmental and reproductive effects and
• childhood leukaemia.

There are plenty more long term health effects that scientists researching the effects of EF/EMFs are worried about. (Some now arguing that EMFs should be uprated from Class 2B 'possible' to Class 1 'definite' carcinogen due to the many cancers that have been linked to EMFs, not just childhood leukaemia.) The above list contains those long term effects mentioned in the ICNIRP's low frequency guidelines that are either denied or stated to be are inconclusive or inconsistent. (See: https://www.icnirp.org/en/frequencies/low-frequency/index.html) I've seen enough scientific evidence to say that they at the very least the ICNIRP ought to apply the Precautionary Principle and that equipment exposing us to EFs/EMFs need to conform to the ALARA Principle - As Low As Reasonably Achievable. Unfortunately, the ICNIRP and other organisations charged with protecting us from harm due to low-level EFs, EMFs and ultrasound tell our governments that there's nothing to worry about, we can carry on with our lives as if no harm is being caused and deem those of us making a fuss out of our symptoms to be simple deluded individuals with nothing better to do than seek to disrupt technological advances. That couldn't be further from the truth, we are better described as 'canaries down the mine' trying to stop a health and environmental catastrophe taking place. A recent study of just over 1000 people in each of Canada, Australia and the USA, representing the national cross-section in terms of age, gender and region, indicates that my often mentioned estimate of 5% of the population will become affected by EHS needs uprating to 10% of the population are already affected by EHS, and it may be as high as 14%. (As mentioned previously, Dr Magda Havas believes the estimate is for 35% of the population with ES/EHS related symptoms.) I'm still looking at this new study and will post details within another post I drafted before my latest holiday, which will list more scientific studies to add to those I listed in my post of 2 Sept 2025 (Post: RE: Reasons why I suffered tinnitus, insomnia, chronic fatigue, and other health problems after having digital electricity meters installed )

The science doesn't end with humans either as mentioned in a previous post, it applies to most other living creatures. "Bees, birds and Mankind - Destroying Nature by 'Electrosmog'" (https://www.naturalscience.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/kompetenzinitiative-ev_study_bees-birds-and-mankind_04-08_english.pdf) published in 2007 by Professor Hecht and several other scientists gives a good insight into the problem. The science has moved on since with a greater understanding of the harm and how it happens, eg through the Radical Pair Mechanism (RPM) with its effects on magnetoreception resulting in the release of free-radical Reaction Oxygen Species (ROS) that cause oxidative stress and thus a whole host of medical problems. (See the first diagram in my opening post and also item 87 by Henshaw & Philips; "A mechanistic understanding of human magnetoreception validates the phenomenon of electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS)", in my list of scientific publications in my post of 2 Sept 2025 mentioned in the above paragraph.)

There are scientists who are beginning to get very concerned that the Earth's natural EMFs are being affected by man-made EMFs and metallic pollution in the upper atmosphere. Affect the electrical properties of the atmosphere and that will affect the climate. So, in our rush to electrify our lives, we may be making 'Climate Change' even worse. More to come on that in my future aforementioned post.

Some people argue back that our bodies cope with natural radiation that far exceeds man-made radiation. There're two big problems with that:

1. Our bodies and those of other living creatures have evolved over billions of years from the first tiny living organisms to not only cope with natural electromagnetic radiation, but also to make use of it. Our eyesight is the most obvious, but magnetoreception as mentioned above plays a role in our health. Our bodies have not developed to in order to cope with unnatural pulsed/spiky polarised radiation at unnatural frequencies, leading to oxidative stress as our bodies struggle to cope with increases in exposure at rates far in excess of our evolutionary processes. Add in other unnatural exposures such as pesticides and UPFs, and the body has a nightmare coping. (People with EHS are often chemically sensitive as well.)
   
   
2. This diagram, which dates back to 2010, since when magnitudes of man-made radiation have only increased:
   
   From Bandara P, Carpenter DO. "Planetary electromagnetic pollution: it is time to assess its impact." Lancet Planet Health. 2018 Dec;2(12):e512-e514. doi: 10.1016/S2542-5196(18)30221-3. PMID: 30526934.
   
   The worst case in the diagram, mobile phone radiation, is approximately 1 billion billion times stronger (10¹⁸). Even if the figure is 99.99% over-estimated, that's still 10 million billion times stronger the background level at that frequency. For the low frequency range, the man-made radiation is only one million times stronger, so nothing to worry about there then, maybe, probably.

I could continue on and on, there's so much to reveal on this subject, but I've already clocked up over another 1000 words, some of which are repeating content in my contributions to the previous 36000 words in this discussion. I've another post drafted that will be listing more scientific documents of interest, which I hope to post soon. So, let's take a look at the reasons why 4 years have now gone by with seemingly no progress on this matter, which as someone who found out the hard way that EHS exists and still affects his everyday life, I find extremely frustrating and alarming, particularly as once you have discovered the harm being caused, you see the huge impact this is having on many people, the health service, the economy and the very thing green technology is supposed to be helping to protect; the environment.

It isn't entirely helpful when people rubbish the claims of those of us who have been affected by electrical equipment without themselves actually experiencing that equipment for themselves, nor taking any notice of the scientific publications that vindicate why some people are suffering and complaining. Those who don't experience health effects when exposed to this equipment join the vast majority of people who have higher thresholds than those of us who do suffer and/or the electrical environment in there home is not ripe for the effects to take hold. Congratulations to those in the majority, but please spare a thought for minority who are less fortunate and have their lives turned upside down. There are people who smoke all their life and never get lung cancer or any of the other diseases related to smoking, but does this mean smoking can be deemed healthy? (Results of smoking are therefore inconsistent...) I hope most people reading this will think smoking is not safe. Change the question from "smoking" to "EMFs" and most people will answer conversely. Did you know that doctors in the 1950s were advising patients with stress related conditions to smoke? Unthinkable now. What will people think in 70 years time when they look back on our current attitude towards EHS?

It isn't entirely helpful when I keep being told there is no problem with electricity meters when each time my meter was changed my symptoms would change, culminating with the analogue meter being installed that made a massive relief to my symptoms and allowed me to live in my own home again. Then there are others who have made substantial recoveries after having their homes refitted with analogue meters, like Cheryl (see her 27 Feb 2026 post:  RE: Reasons why I suffered tinnitus, insomnia, chronic fatigue, and other health problems after having digital electricity meters installed), Joseph Cascina (see my 4 Jan 2024 post:RE: Reasons why I suffered tinnitus, insomnia, chronic fatigue, and other health problems after having digital electricity meters installed) and a couple in Stroud (see third paragraph in this contribution to the parliamentary debate on EHS in 2019: https://hansard.parliament.uk//commons/2019-06-25/debates/7D18471E-627A-41C4-B338-11F278CEA9B7/ElectromagneticFieldsHealthEffects#contribution-DEE03C9B-C819-438D-BF2D-EA9C01F7FB98 ). Sadly I have to state that despite this and the other parliamentary evidence, my current MP after I told him about my ordeal and how it was caused, still wants to vote for smart meters to be mandatory across the UK. Not exactly helpful nor respectful of a chartered electrical engineer who has lived through an awful experience and spent over 2 years at time finding out the causes. My recovery and Cheryl's will be cold comfort to those like Mark and his wife, Rudy's wife and Dan, whom to my current knowledge are struggling to have the simple resolution applied to their homes and instead are being left to suffer awful symptoms by their electricity suppliers. At least the two EngX discussions have provided them and no doubt others too, with information about how they are suffering and what needs to be done. Anybody reading this and have the same issues, keep calm, but complain and complain as what's best:

1. Constant medical appointments, futile CBT, drugs that make people so dopey they can cope with medical conditions that cannot be cured by conventional medicine.
   
   
2. Abandoning your home hopefully for another in which the conditions for suffering EHS are not prevalent.
   
   
3. Spending lots of money on all sorts of equipment that will stop (hopefully - buyers beware) harmful EMFs being broadcast all around your home on the household cabling.
   
   
4. A reconditioned analogue meter that costs less than the cost of a single GP appointment on the NHS?

There's no comparison to option 4, yet the energy companies continue to insist that no one can object to having meters in their home on the grounds of health effects despite all the evidence available that these meters are not being made in accordance to existing domestic electrical appliance standards. It's not in their interests in terms of cost and don't expect them to take notice that you have become ill thanks to their equipment. Mike has been examining the L&G E470 meter he's acquired and there's a strong hint in his most recent reply that it's been made 'on the cheap'. Some low cost good engineering practices in the design and manufacture of these meters could have stopped all the suffering from the dirty electricity these meters and many others produce. Such a simple 'cheap as chips' solution and one that wouldn't have happened had electricity meters been deemed domestic electrical appliances in the first place. No one has ever explained to me how I was able to tune in to the audible noise the SMPS was making in the Kaifa MA120 meter at many carrier frequencies on the both AM bands of my radio, even near sockets in my bedroom, let alone in the meter cupboard where I took the videos shown in this post: https://engx.theiet.org/f/discussions/28276/severe-tinnitus-following-the-installation-of-new-electricity-meters/122707 Then there's the interference with other electrical equipment in the house as I experienced with my surround sound system creating the easily 'blind testable' ear pressure. Other people have reported other electrical devices being interfered with by electricity meters and dirty electricity can shorten the lifetime of electronic equipment connected to the household supply. How can making things that shorten the lifetime of electrical equipment be considered green? The fact that the design life of modern meters is less than half that of old analogue meters is bad enough and it really should not be happening.

It isn't entirely helpful that this Institution told the government that 100% of the evidence on health effects presented to the parliamentary committee responsible for the roll-out of smart meters, some 74% of the total amount of the evidence contributed, was nothing to worry about prior to the roll-out starting in the UK in earnest. (See my 21 Jun 2025 post here for details:  RE: Reasons why I suffered tinnitus, insomnia, chronic fatigue, and other health problems after having digital electricity meters installed) It isn't helpful either when I ask for this advice to be reviewed having suffered just as some people had forewarned and yet no one will even speak to me. The last person within the Institution who corresponded with me for a short time time told me that the best way forward was to start this new discussion so that my evidence of what is wrong could be seen and discussed by my peers. After the acrimonious end to the original discussion, I wasn't too sure if it was the right thing to do, but so far so good in comparison. I hope there's a conciliatory tone rather than an opposite undertone in Chris's first post in this discussion - Chris, I hope that we can have an open and honest debate about the science and evidence without a similar curtailment to this discussion.

It would be helpful to know if people in the IET leadership are reading this, one of the most viewed discussion threads in the EngX forum. If they are, are they taking any notice of the evidence I'm presenting? This is a huge matter of concern over electrical health and safety for which the IET are the leading organisation in the UK and who will influence many other national authorities elsewhere. What happens when news reaches the public that the alarm bell was rung many years ago and the Institution simply maintained that health hazards from low-level EMFs were nothing to worry about? The jungle drums that are booming in the 'EHS secret garden' are telling me the time is getting close to the walls coming down under the ever increasing weight of scientific evidence. Reclassifying EMFs as a Class 1 carcinogen will raise the alarm bell with the public. The sooner the better as the longer the complacent attitude towards the harm being caused continues, the more difficult and costlier it will be to put right, and more people will become affected with the result that they become more sensitive and even stricter limits will be required for them.

It isn't entirely helpful that I'm told no one is interested in EHS, nor how I suffered and what I've discovered as a consequence. My original EngX discussion is soon to surpass 100,000 views and the figure for this discussion has grown by more than six fold since May last year. Not big in social media terms, members subscribers are very few, but these discussions will be mainly be viewed by people who are interested, possibly suffering themselves or know others who are suffering, looking for reasons and solutions for how electricity meters and other electrical devices can badly effect health. I met a lady on holiday last year who blamed her tinnitus on LED lightbulbs. I'd only mentioned I had tinnitus and was having difficulty sleeping in the hotel, I'd said nothing about my ordeal with electricity meters. She gets the same ridicule as I do, even telling me that she struggles to get her partner to believe her. Getting people to understand something they can't see, touch, taste, smell or hear is extremely difficult, but if someone says they can hear a device, it is eminently blind testable and should not be the subject of ridicule by anyone. A lady who suffered tinnitus after a bad experience at the dentist with an ultrasonic descaler has recently thanked me for publicising the fact that a proportion of the population can hear a high-pitched tone from these devices due to the ultrasound hearing phenomenon. When I told my dentist I could hear a tone, he looked extremely puzzled, but he had to believe me when his dental assistant told us that she too heard a tone whenever she had her teeth ultrasonically descaled. Just how much testing was done on these things before they became popular dental tools? Should garden pest repellers be allowed that can use the same sort of frequencies at a loud volume. I think not and nor should broadband routers be emitting ultrasound because they too are being made 'on the cheap'.

It isn't entirely helpful when I write to organisations researching or supporting people with the medical conditions I suffered and more often than not never receive a reply. Of the few replies I've had, most have not been followed-up as had been promised. EHS is certainly a taboo subject and hardly accepted by the medical profession. It certainly doesn't help if as one GP told me, at medical school they were trained to believe that EHS does not exist, completely in contradiction to those low frequency guidelines by the ICNIRP (who don't have any fans within the EHS community). If the human body is immune to interference, that would be a scientific miracle and biological shielding would be exploited in technology that requires strict standards of EMC (electromagnetic compatibility). This lack of interest does not make any sense when we have a growing and concerning proportion of the population suffering the symptoms I've listed at the top of this post and many others that have been linked to EHS. I've searched for data showing the growth of such symptoms and what I've found so far (it's not been easy to find genuine figures), are increases in the mid 2010s that tally with the growth of various forms of 'green technology', particularly of course the roll-out of smart meters, as well as LED lightbulbs and solar panel installations with their extremely noisy inverters. It would be very very interesting if the data could be analysed deeper. Delving into the statistics could lead to finding answers that could revolutionise health care, not only from electrical causation. Instead, symptoms are often declared MUS and causations are countered by other claims of causation.

I'm not entirely sure how helpful my post nominals are: "BEng (Hons) MSc (d) CEng MIET". I think sometimes I think putting "25m breaststroke" instead would achieve greater credence with those I reach out to for help, or in some cases, try to help. At least non-technical people are more likely to understand swimming qualifications rather than "CEng MIET". (I can swim much better than 25m by the way, but those in the UK over a certain age will understand my choice.) There's been chartered engineers complaining in the E&T Magazine and elsewhere that "CEng" doesn't receive the recognition that this status deserves. I once worked with someone who made it quite clear in the IT department that we worked in that I had no business working in IT. Horrific ignorance and she even tried to find out how much I was being paid, as she believed her diploma making her an IT professional required much greater recompense than someone who as far as she was concerned, was only qualified to put plugs on things. Sadly, according to what she told everybody about her pay when vocalising her complaints about my presence, she was being actually being paid more than myself, but I opted not to go round telling people how much I was being paid, it was more professional and in any case, it would have been cause for embarrassment. No matter, I went on to pioneer a technological achievement for the department that many of her similarly qualified colleagues told me was impossible and ahead of most other departments within the UK's Civil Service. I think I more than earned my money in the short time I worked there.

Throughout these discussions and when discussing the problems with others, I have tried to be diligent and apply professionalism to the subject, which I still find fascinating despite being one of the minority who can suffer horrendously. I have found testimonies from many hundreds of other people affected by having new electricity meters installed in their homes, evidence of others suffering from other electrical devices, scientific evidence of harm being caused by frequencies of non-ionising radiation across the whole spectrum. I've ignored conspiracy theories like the plague and I wouldn't support requests for people to have their modern meters changed for no reason other than they prefer to have an analogue meter. At the moment though, analogue meters are the best meters for those who continue to suffer health issues from digital meters due to dirty electricity. (Sufferers of microwave frequencies can currently request the communications hub to be turned off or removed, but you may face opposition at first.) The real solution is to stop making electricity meters on the cheap. It is such an expensive mistake, not only for those affected but also to the health service and the economy as a whole for everybody. (See my 21 Jun 2025 post:  RE: Reasons why I suffered tinnitus, insomnia, chronic fatigue, and other health problems after having digital electricity meters installed ) 

Just in case there are any IET branches who are interested, I have a ready made tried and tested presentation about my ordeal. The story of how I was treated goes well beyond what's contained in the approximate 75,000 words contained in my two discussions. The organiser of the science and technology group meeting I gave the first presentation to gave me this feedback:

"Thanks for today's talk Andrew. It generated a great deal of interest within the group and we will certainly discuss some aspects of it in our next meeting. We were impressed with your documentation and analysis, and sympathise with your problems.. We hope that in the future things continue to improve. "

The meeting extended into the car park for Q&A for some time afterwards. The audience made their interest quite clear at the end of the presentation too.

While the IET may not be interested in what I write here, I know that there are people outside of the IET who are suffering and are very much interested:

"Some very interesting information and discussion here and refreshing to see interest and support from other engineers and technicians about smart meter health effects - not disbelief."

"I've had a read through the recent discussion on the IET forum. It's good that, so far as I can see, the comments are sensible and sympathetic."

My offer also extends to medical professionals and political groups, who need to hear about my ordeal just as much as engineers and technologists. In fact it would be good to have representatives from all these groups at the same meeting. We all need to talk to each other if this massive and potentially catastrophic problem is ever going to be properly resolved.

I think another 4300 words is enough for now, particularly if no one in the IET is one bit interested in what this chartered engineer of almost 28 years has to say and been through. Try listening to a 14 kHz tone using a free tone generator app or website at a volume you wouldn't want to listen to for longer than 1 second. You'd then be interested in every word I and other sufferers have reported if you were to suffer that buzzing around your head 24/7 as a consequence of a piece of utility equipment in your home that you can't turn off nor replace. Tinnitus was only the first of the debilitating problems I suffered.

Andrew

AR Brearley said:

It would be helpful to know if people in the IET leadership are reading this,

Probably not (and I write that as probably one of the longest serving posters on these forums across their various incarnations). And, to be honest, there's no reason why they should: this forum has the technical authority of a coffee room or pub chat. 

Getting it published as an IET journal article might attract attention (although I wouldn't hold your breath), but probably the only way to get "the IET" to take an interest would be to approach a relevant IET technical committee to get them interested in it.

Hi Andy,

My experience and concerns have been sent twice to the E&T Magazine editor with nil response both times. I had a promise of an article in another journal after approaching the most appropriate committee with details of my ordeal and findings at the time, but that fell through and they made the second approach to E&T, not me. I was then told EngX was the best place to continue publishing my concerns, so there's no excuse why they are not taking any notice.

If those in the IET leadership team don't bother to use EngX, then no wonder there is only a small fraction of the IET membership signed up to use the Forum and even fewer like yourself who regularly respond to posts. I'd like to do more, but I'm a bit busy with this all this at the moment. Although my posts here are somewhat intermittent, not a day goes by without thinking about what happened to me, searching for science that explains it, what can I do to stop it happening again to others not just myself, can I contact someone who can do something to change things so people affected by EHS aren't ridiculed and treated like lepers as I mentioned in my opening post etc etc.

I contacted the person in the IET who told me to start this EngX discussion, after there was no response to my post about the 'there's nothing to worry about here' type response given by the Institution's representative and the representative from Public Health England (PHE) to the parliamentary committee for Energy and Climate Change when questioned about possible health effects of smart meters. Unfortunately, the person didn't want to resume corresponding with me and the person who told me that on her behalf, told me he would find someone else, but it might take up to 2 months and even then he couldn't promise that he would be successful. That was many months ago now, with nil response, an all too common result with this hot potato of a subject.

That parliamentary advice will come back to haunt this Institution if they don't revisit the evidence in light of what has happened to me and many others before the balloon goes up on what will be a scandal like no other. It was a major opportunity missed to stop the harm being caused in the UK based on what had already happened to people in the USA and Australia. (See chart in the opening post, produced from surveys carried out in Australia and the USA before 2013.) Parliament didn't make smart meters mandatory in fear of health effects happening and cost of the compensation claims that could ensue. Those claims may still come, as some energy companies are treating the govenment's edicts on smart meters as if they are mandatory and refuse to change meters back even when presented with medical requests to support the change back "in the interests of the consumer", as Ofgem term it.

If 10% of the population are suffering from EHS, this isn't such a small minority that can be scattered into what's left of the wilderness in the UK and the compensation for almost 7 million people would be massive. Such money will be needed to retrofit the badly made electricity meters and everything else that has been made without taking into account the mass of scientific evidence on the issue. Currently, few sufferers actually appear to realise what is happening to them, but countries cannot afford to have so many people being very ill for no reason other than engineers got the wrong message about EHS. Other countries who have recognised the danger and imposed lower limits for exposure to EFs and EMFs. Sweden has recognised EHS as a functional disability for many years, yet it still forces badly made harmful smart meters into the homes of sensitive people quite bizarrely. However, here's a quote from a UK government document produced by the Health Protection Agency (HPA), before it was assimulated into PHE and then merged into the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA):

Ref: HPA Definition Epidemiology and Management of electrical sensitivity (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/.../HpaRpd010.pdf)

"Electrical sensitivity symptoms can be broadly grouped into facial skin symptoms attributed to exposure of visual display units (VDUs) and more general, non-specific symptoms across a range of body systems. Neurological symptoms such as headache and fatigue predominate in this latter group. There may be progression from skin-only symptoms to more generalised symptoms, although this may be relevant only to Sweden."

What is so different about electrical equipment like VDUs in Sweden? Good riddance to CRTs if those are what caused some people to suffer skin rashes and other problems, but were such VDUs any different in Sweden compared to anywhere else? Note it says "Sweden" not "Swedish", so Sweden might not be such a safe place to visit if their equipment creates more health issues than anywhere else. (My wife is hoping we'll go for a holiday there soon.)

It's an interesting document, but I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the contents. I mean, can CBT stop skin rashes happening?! It seems obsessed with Sweden and VDUs and that may be because Sweden took the complaints from sufferers from VDUs users a bit more seriously than elsewhere. Rashes on people's skin are visible and cannot be ignored like tinnitus which is hidden and can't be heard by others. At least the document concluded that CBT was of limited success. Here's the list of subjective efficiency ratings for the mitigation of symptoms associated with EMFs where the scale is 1 for ineffective and 6 for very useful:

1. Disconnecting electricity - 4.5
2. Removing indoor source - 4.3
3. Avoiding exposure - 4.2
4. Reconstruction - 3.4  [Whatever that means, it is not explained.]
5. Information - 3.2
6. Meditation/body work - 3.2
7. Drugs - 3.2
8. Shielding devices- 3.2
9. Alternative medicine - 3.1
10. Shielding the dwelling - 3.0
11. Changing lifestyle - 2.3
12. Law complaint - 1.1

A few interesting conclusions, but the top 3 are practised by me and people I know who suffer from EHS and if only smart meters could be removed. (Note indoor or outside on the house wall makes little if any difference, the harmful EMFs emitted due to the dirty electricity they produce come from the household cabling becoming an effective transmission aerial for those frequencies.) "Information" is good, hope my two discussions are helpful on that account. Strange that shielding features quite low down on the list, it is something that people with EHS also do find useful. "Changing lifestyle" is interesting at almost the bottom of the list and could mean all sorts of things. Some people with EHS move out into the wilderness, but it's not what most of us want to do. An off-grid lifestyle is not something I desire, no matter how idyllic some of the locations and lifestyles are of people featured in television programmes like "Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild". Even then, most of the people featured have some sort of electrical power for their alternative lifestyles, so important is electricity in our modern lives - so why was I offered several times to have the electricity cut off as a solution if I couldn't stand the supplier's choice of meter? Should anyone have to change their lifestyle for the sake of having a meter refitted costing less than £20?

Even if there's plenty of room for improvement and another 20 years of scientific knowledge to add to the document, the HPA knew quite a bit of information in 2005, pre-smart meters, about ES/EHS, so why did the UKHSA treat me like an idiot for suffering from something they claimed couldn't be happening? This problem isn't going to go away by shunting my protestations into something akin to a coffee room or pub, but I know people are viewing this outside of the IET who are finding the information far more helpful than those approached in organisations who ought to be helping them. Being told the problem doesn't exist so they can't be suffering from it and seek help from doctors will know best how to treat them, when their doctors have already said they can't offer any effective treatment, is an horrendous situation to be in.

My presentation is offered not as some sort of ego trip, I make no claims of being a great orator nor do I want fame (or more likely infamy) over my troubles. I just want to get the information I've found shared with more IET members and also with members of the medical profession and those who make policy decisions in order to stop pollution from fossil fuels being replaced with another form of harmful pollution, a more insidious one that is difficult for the average person to detect and understand. This pollution is avoidable by well engineered equipment, not by trying to cut corners to save a few pennies. This will bite us back very expensively in terms of money and health as I've previously mentioned more than once. Stories about the NHS being overloaded are in the media almost every day and it feels so frustrating to know a reason why some of this overload is happening, with doctors being confounded by the symptoms people are suffering yet they are well known to those who have studied EHS, not to mention the frustration of the almost complete blackout in the media that EHS exists, it just ridicules those who claim to suffer from it. There's been a couple of stories in the news media recently where people are suffering most of the symptoms I suffered, plus some other symptoms of EHS I fortunately haven't suffered and yet nothing is ever mentioned about the possibility that the causation of interference by EMFs with the bio-electrical systems with our bodies. It's always the invisible elephant in the room.

Finally, I believe attaining over 97,300 views is quite an achievement for an EngX discussion, particularly one that became locked when there were less than 5000 views IIRC. (Losing one regular respondent to EngX discussions and questions in the process.) I hope a flag is raised whenever an EngX discussion reaches 100,000 views, but then I'm probably being over optimistic again in believing that those in charge of the IET are reading our posts. I haven't seen any others that come anywhere near that figure, is this a first for EngX? If so, it ought to be a really big flag. If not, I can assure all, it still deserves a really big flag.

Andrew

AR Brearley said:

doctors will often pass these symptoms off as medically unrecognised symptoms (MUS)

"Medically unexplained symptoms" is the usual phrase. They account for approximately a third of hospital outpatient consultations across a wide range of specialities.

AR Brearley said:

Try listening to a 14 kHz tone using a free tone generator app or website at a volume you wouldn't want to listen to for longer than 1 second.

It would be very unusual for a middle-aged person to hear anything at 14 kHz.

Thanks Chris,

Indeed, I should have written "unexplained". Sorry for the muddle-up.

The older you are, the less likely you are to hear 14 kHz. For those you can't hear 14 kHz, then reduce the frequency until you can hear a tone, you should still get a good idea of what is buzzing around my head if it is above 10 kHz.

Around 50% of my friends and family who have tried this, middle-aged or younger, can hear 14 kHz. They all hated it and wondered how I endured it as long as I did. I still have it, it's just at a lower intensity and without many of the other horrid symptoms that drove me out of my own home to seek respite elsewhere at various times back in 2022.

Cheers,

Andrew

 It would be very unusual for a middle-aged person to hear anything at 14 kHz.

I'm not so sure about the 'very' in that. Certainly hearing degrades with age, and the HF end goes first,  But a lot of the research data on adult deafness, and the expectation of adult hearing loss  dates back to a time when as a society we looked after our ears a lot less than than we do today and a lot of the data was gathered from tests  on servicemen and those who had worked in heavy industries both of which groups were exposed to very high noise levels, presumably more folk get their ears tested when something is wrong, rather than when it is all working well,

It is quite amusing to note how much of the definition for what levels define normal hearing and deafness comes from  early work by the GPO and the development of the land-line telephone, and such gives slightly unfair weight to narrow-band  speech rather than the full spectrum response.. 

There is the problem of headphones and loud music of course, damaging hearing in the next generation for the modern era,

Personally I'm probably a bit more than middle aged,  (59 next birthday) and while the volume has to be turned quite a bit relative to say 4000Hz I can reliably detect the presence or absence of 14k still, I've just tried it here. https://onlinetonegenerator.com/ Mind you as a child  I was always one of those who could hear the old CRT TV whistle when my grandparents could not. (10KHz on VHF and 15kHz on UHF )

Anyway, I agree with the general principle but I suspect more than just a few can hear up to and beyond  14K

Mike

AFAIK, the seminal work on hearing in adults is still Adrian Davis's work from 1995. I was delighted to see that a .pdf is now freely available.

You may notice that thresholds are measured only to 8 kHz, which is the limit of a normal clinical audiometer. So, I have to admit that there are unlikely to be any reliable data at 14 kHz (or at 12 kHz and 16 kHz).

Chris - Thanks. (Note though - you need to tweak the URL for the pdf - everything after and including the "?" needs to be removed to access the PDF document directly.)

Mike - Thanks for confirming you too can hear 14 kHz, but let's go with saying we are middle aged, at least for a few years yet!

Everyone:

According to 3 tone generators I used 4 years ago to establish what frequency I was perceiving, I found my acoustic hearing stopped at 15 kHz. My wife is a few years younger than me and her range stopped at 13 kHz. My ultrasound hearing ability ranges up 30 kHz at least, I can't give you an absolute start and finish range, nor do I know what frequencies result in the ear pressure sensation I suffered I suffered. What I do know is that this is all blind testable - ie can be substantiated under scientific test conditions.

My dentist can confirm I can hear his ultrasonic descalers (25 kHz and 30 kHz) whenever he has them in my mouth. The 21.75 kHz the broadband router I was sent exacerbated my 14 kHz tinnitus tone after booting up. The garden pest repeller that I can also hear at 14 kHz does not state what the 3 frequencies are that it uses for scaring away dogs, cats and squirrels, but the general range stated for the brand is 20 kHz to 65 kHz. A retailer makes this claim for an updated version of the product:

"Deters pests like cats, dogs, and squirrels without affecting humans."

I wonder if I can claim? How can they even make their claim? After all, the instruction sheet for the product states:

"Keep the repeller away from young children. Young children can be especially sensitive to ultrasonic soundwaves"

Aren't children humans?

What the dickens are we playing at by making such things? The repeller that I can hear caused very intense ear pain. That is not acceptable. These things are put in in people's gardens, some of whom will have children who play in them and the sound when triggered may carry over into neighbouring gardens where other children may be playing. The science on their efficacy of scaring pets away is not very good either. Please do not buy them.

Then there's the Mosquito device deliberately made to scare teenagers away thanks to the horrible tone it emits at 17 kHz. I'm not a fan as you can imagine despite being under 25 was a long time ago now (yes, not just teenagers) and even though I've never heard one. I do not like sound being used to cause anyone deliberate distress.

I'll take the opportunity to mention that I was once in a major store and in the toilets there was a warning sign above the hand driers saying something along the lines of: "Some people may find the noise of these driers distressing." No alternative given, no warning before you go in, no sign saying please use the disabled loo if you have hyperacousis etc etc. How can we as a profession be proud of being behind the design and manufacture of hand driers that are so noisy they can cause distress? How a store thinks a sign you only see at the final stage of your visit to a smallish echo-chamber takes care of their responsibilities is another matter.

No wonder hearing problems of all types are rise. (see https://rnid.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Hearing-Matters-Report.pdf + plenty other reports.) Wasn't hearing damage supposed to get less in this health and safety conscious technological age, compared to the awful clatter and banging of the mechanical equipment used in the industrial age that Mike and I can just about remember?

Andrew

AR Brearley said:

you need to tweak the URL for the pdf

All done

AR Brearley said:

No wonder hearing problems of all types are rise.

Yes, but the commonest cause of hearing loss is being old, and the population is getting older.

AR Brearley said:

"Some people may find the noise of these driers distressing."

Typically autistic people. I think that it is one of those noises which is less comfortable if somebody else is using the machine.

Andrew, one thing is puzzling me slightly. Is there a stimulus when you experience the tinnitus please?

Hi Chris,

Hearing problems are increasing at all ages. With the younger generation, listening to music on headphones or earbuds too loud is more the problem. Yes, of course our hearing gets worse with age, hence the Mosquito device works with the youth and not the middle-aged and older. There are plenty of things that I could say about EMFs and tinnitus, but we'll come back to that below and on another day. Whatever, we need to do more as a profession to stop people being blasted with sound that is unnecessary, and that includes hand driers (I really cannot believe that they are being made with the need for warning signs), pest repellers and electronics such as broadband routers. Totally no need for the latter. ( Why are some broadband routers emitting ultrasound? ) One of the problems with the high frequency devices is that most people can't hear them and therefore think they are not a problem. They are for some people and they are polluting the environment with sounds that wildlife use for communicating and navigation. It's bad on so many levels. Those who can't perceive a sound, you are still hearing it, it can still damage your ears if it's too loud for too long, it's just your brain filters out the frequency produced by the cochlea, which is basically the same design for all mammals.

Yes, autistic, those with hyperacusis and other groups with diverse needs will find loud driers distressing. If it's not you using the machine then loud noises from elsewhere are more distressing than when you use them as you often don't know when they'll start or end, which is one of the reasons why if there's a warning sign needed, it needs to be on the door before you enter the room, not just above the driers themselves. A quick search has told me 2% of people are known to have hyperacusis, but it could be as many as 9% due to the lack of awareness and diagnosis. Autism affects 1%, possibly 1.7%. There will be an overlap, but you are talking about potentially upsetting almost 7 million people in the UK. Store managers: There are plenty of driers exist that work at far more acceptable noise levels without driving your customers away.

As regards the stimulus for my tinnitus, I think we know I blame the digital smart or not smart electricity meters for the nasty symptoms I developed from 15 hours after the first was fitted. I don't have one of those meters now of course, but that hasn't been the end of my problems with ultrasonic frequencies of dirty electricity. My tinnitus will very slowly wane either away from my house or with the electricity turned off with the double pole master switch. Obviously when I'm at home I want the electricity to be on. Overnight, I can switch the bedroom circuits off, but that is not as effective as turning off all the electricity. I can sense a difference outside of the substation supply area, sometimes quite sharply when returning into that area. The supply cable is older than me and degrading similarly. Other people are installing electrically noisy equipment in the area, so the dirty electricity builds up and as I've said before, it doesn't have to be your meter or solar panels that are affecting you if you are one of the unlucky people affected. Other houses and some hotels can be really bad, particularly those with the same 2 types of smart meter and hotels will lots of solar panels and close to wind farms. All fixable before the greens complain, but those in charge have got to listen to the scientists working on EHS.

Ultrasonic dental descaling has not caused tinnitus, nor even those nasty pest repellers, but I believe that is due to the short term exposure, despite being much more intense than the EMFs from the dirty electricity. Some people have reported tinnitus resulting from dental descaling. What I don't know is, has exposure to these devices and others emitting ultrasound either purposefully or as a byproduct of their design and operation, made my ears more prone to suffering tinnitus? I guess I'll never know. The tone from the descaling was happened long before 2022 and I thought everybody did, although womewhat puzzling if it really was ultrasound as no one should hear anything of course. I wish I'd told the dentist earlier, not that it would have made any difference regarding what happened in 2022 as I had no idea that electricity meters could cause tinnitus and all the other horrible symptoms I endured. If I had done lots and lots of homework, I would have known, the information was out there, particularly in that 2013 Parliamentary committee evidence. ( RE: Reasons why I suffered tinnitus, insomnia, chronic fatigue, and other health problems after having digital electricity meters installed )

Regards,

Andrew

Hi Chris,

Hearing problems are increasing at all ages. With the younger generation, listening to music on headphones or earbuds too loud is more the problem. Yes, of course our hearing gets worse with age, hence the Mosquito device works with the youth and not the middle-aged and older. There are plenty of things that I could say about EMFs and tinnitus, but we'll come back to that below and on another day. Whatever, we need to do more as a profession to stop people being blasted with sound that is unnecessary, and that includes hand driers (I really cannot believe that they are being made with the need for warning signs), pest repellers and electronics such as broadband routers. Totally no need for the latter. ( Why are some broadband routers emitting ultrasound? ) One of the problems with the high frequency devices is that most people can't hear them and therefore think they are not a problem. They are for some people and they are polluting the environment with sounds that wildlife use for communicating and navigation. It's bad on so many levels. Those who can't perceive a sound, you are still hearing it, it can still damage your ears if it's too loud for too long, it's just your brain filters out the frequency produced by the cochlea, which is basically the same design for all mammals.

Yes, autistic, those with hyperacusis and other groups with diverse needs will find loud driers distressing. If it's not you using the machine then loud noises from elsewhere are more distressing than when you use them as you often don't know when they'll start or end, which is one of the reasons why if there's a warning sign needed, it needs to be on the door before you enter the room, not just above the driers themselves. A quick search has told me 2% of people are known to have hyperacusis, but it could be as many as 9% due to the lack of awareness and diagnosis. Autism affects 1%, possibly 1.7%. There will be an overlap, but you are talking about potentially upsetting almost 7 million people in the UK. Store managers: There are plenty of driers exist that work at far more acceptable noise levels without driving your customers away.

As regards the stimulus for my tinnitus, I think we know I blame the digital smart or not smart electricity meters for the nasty symptoms I developed from 15 hours after the first was fitted. I don't have one of those meters now of course, but that hasn't been the end of my problems with ultrasonic frequencies of dirty electricity. My tinnitus will very slowly wane either away from my house or with the electricity turned off with the double pole master switch. Obviously when I'm at home I want the electricity to be on. Overnight, I can switch the bedroom circuits off, but that is not as effective as turning off all the electricity. I can sense a difference outside of the substation supply area, sometimes quite sharply when returning into that area. The supply cable is older than me and degrading similarly. Other people are installing electrically noisy equipment in the area, so the dirty electricity builds up and as I've said before, it doesn't have to be your meter or solar panels that are affecting you if you are one of the unlucky people affected. Other houses and some hotels can be really bad, particularly those with the same 2 types of smart meter and hotels will lots of solar panels and close to wind farms. All fixable before the greens complain, but those in charge have got to listen to the scientists working on EHS.

Ultrasonic dental descaling has not caused tinnitus, nor even those nasty pest repellers, but I believe that is due to the short term exposure, despite being much more intense than the EMFs from the dirty electricity. Some people have reported tinnitus resulting from dental descaling. What I don't know is, has exposure to these devices and others emitting ultrasound either purposefully or as a byproduct of their design and operation, made my ears more prone to suffering tinnitus? I guess I'll never know. The tone from the descaling was happened long before 2022 and I thought everybody did, although womewhat puzzling if it really was ultrasound as no one should hear anything of course. I wish I'd told the dentist earlier, not that it would have made any difference regarding what happened in 2022 as I had no idea that electricity meters could cause tinnitus and all the other horrible symptoms I endured. If I had done lots and lots of homework, I would have known, the information was out there, particularly in that 2013 Parliamentary committee evidence. ( RE: Reasons why I suffered tinnitus, insomnia, chronic fatigue, and other health problems after having digital electricity meters installed )

Regards,

Andrew

AR Brearley said:

As regards the stimulus for my tinnitus

The OED's entry for "tinnitus" is brief: "A sensation of ringing in the ears."

However, what if you are standing in a churchyard and the bells are ringing? Or in school at the end of a lesson? That isn't really tinnitus.

What of buzzing or hissing; continuous or pulsating? Are some of these sensations not tinnitus?

So really and truly, tinnitus is a sensation of hearing something in the absence of an appropriate stimulus. The reason that I asked the question is that if there is a stimulus, arguably, it cannot be tinnitus.

Note that I am not talking about a trigger such as an explosion, which has left persistent ringing due to damage to the inner ear.

Hi Chris,

I was expecting you to try claiming that the ringing in my ears is not tinnitus once again. (Post of 13 April 2022 -RE: Severe Tinnitus Following the Installation of New Electricity Meters ) So, once again; the NHS defines tinnitus as: "The name for hearing noises that are not caused by sounds coming from the outside world."

EF/EMFs are inaudible, they do not [edit - missed word "not"] create sound pressure waves, but I will agree that under their initial stimulus, what I heard as a result was not tinnitus. Moving away from their stimulus, the tone I heard carried on and on. That is tinnitus and it has rarely dropped below the threshold of perception since. Under their stimulus now, the tone is boosted, resulting in the duration the tone continues being extended, many days, not hours as it was at the beginning. Some people will hear a tone when under the stimulus of EMFs that fades immediately when they move away or turn off the stimulus - if they can. Fortunately for them, this is not tinnitus.

Using your bells scenario: Once the bells stop, if you keep hearing the ringing going on and on, then this is tinnitus, even if it only lasts for a few minutes (hopefully, in this sort of case). In the last 4 years and nearly 2 months, there have been very few occasions when I haven't been bothered by the 14 kHz tone. During my ordeal with the meters in 2022, any reduction in the intensity of my tinnitus I achieved by seeking respite in rental accommodation, was gone in a few minutes, sometimes in a few seconds after walking through the front door. That can now be half an hour to a few hours, but it always returns.

I've discussed my tinnitus with plenty of GPs, audiologists, an ENT specialist and even with the CEO of Tinnitus UK. They all agree I have tinnitus; high-pitched monotone non-pulsatile for the record. I gave the CEO all the scientific information I had found on ultrasound hearing and the effects of EMFs on the cochlea. He's thanked me on behalf of his researchers, who hadn't been aware of most of it. I hope they have been looking at it since, as in there, I am certain there are clues on how my type of tinnitus and others can be stopped, but it is no good stopping it, if every time you walk into your house or even down the street outside above where the mains supply cable is buried, if the resonant tone starts all over again, simply because the electrical power industry doesn't have a clue what it is feeding into people's homes and won't listen to people who are affected like myself, electrically qualified or not.

It's difficult, really really difficult, to cope with this tone almost 24/7 Chris. Impossible at times in 2022 along with the other symptoms, hence the reason I kept leaving home for respite. I haven't had to seek respite for the sole purpose of reducing the tone's intensity or any other symptoms since since the meter was changed back to analogue. A lot of the other symptoms have never come back, but the tone I perceive continues to resonate on and on, insomnia is the other main remaining problem, thanks to the tone and a busy mind.

Over 4 years 53 days and counting. I've much better things to be doing than keep pushing for people to believe how bad my ordeal was at the mercy of these meters, being made against good engineering practices, put into everybody's homes, while the diseases that have been associated with dirty electricity are going up and up, adding to the strain on the NHS and the benefits system. Yet nobody wants to know. It's all getting worse and one day it will blow up, there isn't an alternative, not while I and all the others affected are being made to look like fools instead of being heeded.

Regards,

Andrew

AR Brearley said:

I was expecting you to try claiming that the ringing in my ears is not tinnitus once again.

Andrew, my apologies - you obviously have a much better memory than I do.

I don't know exactly what you experience.

AR Brearley said:

Using your bells scenario: Once the bells stop, if you keep hearing the ringing going on and on, then this is tinnitus, even if it only lasts for a few minutes (hopefully, in this sort of case).

Agreed, and probably with a temporary threshold shift. However, one day, if you keep doing it, the ringing does not stop because the ears have been permanently damaged.

Thanks Chris. How can I forget your posts in my original discussion?!

Further regarding the bells scenario, agreed; the more you are exposed the more prolonged the tinnitus and temporary threshold shifts become and as you say, can lead to permanent damage. So, if the sound is ultrasonic, unless you are a sufferer of the ultrasound hearing phenomenon, you won't hear anything, but threshold shifts in hearing can still occur, as they are a known symptom of exposure to ultrasound.

Deafness related problems are something I've considered before, as when I had my hearing tested, it was declared normal for 'someone of my age'. Often tinnitus can be associated with an actual problem hearing problem, but not necessarily with the type of tinnitus I have. So the question is; are people having their hearing put at risk by having devices in their home that generate ultrasound and/or EMFs in the ultrasonic range, particularly those that are switched on 24/7? This could be even worse than I thought previously.

A quick follow-up on my own previous post: Ultrasound as well as normal acoustic sound can be emitted from electronic devices as some electronic components will physically vibrate at the frequency of the electricity applied. See replies to my question about broadband routers emitting ultrasound for further information:  Why are some broadband routers emitting ultrasound?  Of course, this applies to switched-mode power supplies as well.  (RE: Severe Tinnitus Following the Installation of New Electricity Meters )

Andrew