Hey, just came across these posts. Wanted to say my T was also getting worse, but after I’m wearing a splint for over a week, all of a sudden it dropped in volume overnight.
Also, noticed that apparently my jaw was misaligned as well! Got the splint for grinding my teeth, but since wearing it, it’s coming more and more forwards. In other words, the splint could very well give you relief as well!
@Bob den Hartog Hey ! Thank you for sharing your experience. I really do hope that I'll get at least partial relief in my tinnitus after I start wearing the split. My T is so somatic, I can stop some of the tones by pressing my TMJ and they come right back when I release it. There is something really wrong going on in that area I am sure.
I am so happy for your improvement! You are doing a great job starting your jaw treatment this early into your onset. @Bob den Hartog Let me know please how it goes from now on.
Then I’m pretty convinced it will give you relieve, my T has those same somatic qualities! Don’t be upset when it doesn’t come right away, and consider wearing your splint 24/7 (I’m doing the same), not just at night. At first it might seem it’s not doing anything - until it does :).
@Bob den Hartog Oh, I really do hope so. I'll be extremely patient. But I maybe disappointed if it does nothing at all tho. I was wondering what kind of splint you are wearing. My teeth are not in line and straight so some specialists said that I needed to go through orthodontics treatment first. Does yours require a straight line of teeth?
Actually, mine is pretty simple and only meant to prevent me from grinding my teeth at night. They made an imprint of my upper teeth, from which they created a simple plastic/sillicony thing that I can click on to my upper teeth. My teeth are pretty crooked as well - massive overbite, not straight at all.
The only thing it needs to do, is prevent you to be able to close your teeth onto each other. As long as you’re not able to do that, your jaw automatically finds its natural state of being. I was amazed how, after just a few nights, hoe unnatural my regular closing of my mouth started to feel.
actually as far as I understand, the treatment for misaligned jaws is the same for bruxism. They give you a splint to stop bruxism / relax jaw muscles / stop over retraction and your jaw fixes itself. @Bob den Hartog
yeah I know what you mean exactly. I felt that too when I was trying to keep my mouth and teeth in the position they are actually supposed to be. But it is of course harder when you don2t have the splint, thus the control. You can easily go back to your old habit of grinding and retracting without the splint. Splint is a must. @Bob den Hartog
All of the specialists I have seen was like yeah your jaw is misaligned, but there is no way it can lead to tinnitus, go home. So I had to slowly watch it getting worse. Now I have fluid build up on my jaw joints which is not nice. @Bob den Hartog The TMJ specalist still does not think my T is from my jaw issues.
Yes, it’s near impossible without the splint. Before T, I’d been keeping the splint off, because I didn’t like the idea of sleeping with it. But 1) you often don’t realize you have your teeth in the old position, and 2) by doing that, you’re constantly undoing the effects of it. They need to be kept out of the position for a longer period of time to work :).
And on what grounds doesn’t he thing so? For me, my T started with an acoustic trauma, so nobody thought this would benefit! But just by fixing this, it does seem to be giving me relief (I think the built up inflammation was aggravated by the syringing). Let’s just say, if your T has somatic qualities, and your jaw is misaligned, fixing this WILL positively impact your T.
The ETD, most likely! The morning I woke up with no T, also, the crackling in my ears was gone. These seem to be very much connected. I believe both were relieved by the splint. Now, both came back again, but I also noticed that once I take out the splint and reposition my jaw to the old position, this aggravates the T. So improvement is not a straight line, but that never is! And they’re clearly connected.
Oh did you get your T from syringing? I sometimes think that there are some underlying conditions which makes us vulnerable to getting damage from sounds that would not damage another person's hearing and TMJ inflammation is one of them. How long have you been wearing the splint? @Bob den Hartog
I don't know where he bases his argument but I too do think there is a connection. My T came very suddenly in dead silence but the day before I was listening music through headphones and it was loud. First I had crazy ear fullness and then crackling-clicking started, then morse code T that can be stopped 100% by somatic movements came.
I'm very comparable to that! Mine started with headphones. I then got my ears syringed, as they appeared full of wax. That night I had silence, but it returned gradually over the weekend, and that Sunday night it got very bad. It had also changed completely. Previous to syringing, it was mainly my left ear, but that's when my right also started. That's also when the ear crackling started, and the somatic stuff.
I started wearing my splint march 31st, so two weeks ago now. Last week was the first time when I started to notice a meaningful drop of my baseline. Wednesday was my best day, and I'm already annoyed that couldn't last, and I want another Wednesday :P.
For example, when I swallow, that can change the sound of my T. And drinking water can change the crackling and feeling in my ears. When I press a spot below my ear, can sometimes reduce the volume of T, to immediately return when I release it. A shower (steam?) used to give longer lasting relief. That doesn't seem to be just an acoustic trauma thing...
Hey, well, I got a bit too confident there - I figured I saw those improvements after noise exposure, so I should work on getting used to more noise (we're talking everyday traffic here, or taking a shower). That was a bit much, so it threw me back a while. When I woke up tomorrow, I was a bit better than the last days, though, so hopefully I'm recovering again :).
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