“You Should Try Yoga”

How do you think it works? Is it that your brain stops "seeing it?" Or that it stops bothering you?

As newbie, it's hard to imagine how this would ever stop bothering me, but it would be nice if my brain were able to simply look away, to block it out on some primitive level.

2 to 3 years is a long time.

 

I have wonderful friends, they tried to help me pull myself together. Called me, visited me and so on. Can't be grateful enough for them. I feel so guilty, because since this ordeal started, I have been a really shitty friend compared to them. And tbh a really shitty sister and daughter too.

 

Many people experience fading 2-4 months after the onset. If yours is relentlessly at the same level during the first four months, then it is unlikely that you will experience this fading. When tinnitus isn't too intrusive, one naturally gets used to it and stops being bothered by it after 2.5-3 years. Even when it's loud, one often begins being less bothered by it at around the 3 year mark.

Tinnitus is not just the result of those hair cells dying. People get tinnitus when the hair cells die suddenly, and are less likely to get it when they die gradually. So tinnitus must have something to do with the neurons in one's brain. Sometimes brain plasticity allows the brain to rewire itself and perhaps that is what is behind that fading.

 

@Bill Bauer

How would you say this applies to causes not (only) caused by noise? In my case it's caused by ETD/blockages and quite possibly neck/spine injury. Mine has lowered some but this varies a little as on a day I'm not as conscious about my posture (or keeping my emotions under control) it's much more likely to get worse for a couple of hours.

On most accounts of these causes I've read that once the problems were taken care of, the tinnitus disappeared gradually too.

 

Hi @Jack V -- For perspective, keep in mind that many experience improvement far sooner than that, from a few days, to a few weeks or months. The good news is that even if it doesn't happen in the first year, there's still a chance it will improve over the years. One guy wrote that his tinnitus faded about 5% every 18 months, and combined with new coping strategies and habituation, it soon became much less of a problem. After a few years, he had a spike, and wasn't overly concerned, because he was confident things would improve again.

I started out with what I consider an "extreme" case of tinnitus, and really didn't start noticing much in improvement for the first year. It took about 8-9 months just for it to quit wildly fluctuating and reach some semblence of a "baseline". It was encouraging at the time however, after which I then proceeded to go in cycles over the next 1.5 years, often alternating between optimism and despair.

I recently discovered my better cycles have become more stable, and ones I can count on. So in the past 2+ years, the tinnitus volume has decreased by about 50%+, and the intensity has decreased by about 75%. My ability to cope with it has increased immeasurably, by about 90%+. I was just out on a walk earlier reflecting on all this, and found myself saying to myself., "I got this!" Not that it won't ever bother me anymore, but I'm confident that in addition to the strategies (and therapies) I've already found to be helpful, I'll be adding to them going forward.

The odds are things will improve for you as well. Please don't put any undue limits on that happening, or how long it may take. And also, please don't get (overly) discouraged...

 

The fading is always volatile. If you plot the volume vs. time, it will probably not resemble a curve that gradually falls. Normally it resembles a stock price chart with many ups and downs. What matters is the monthly trend and the global lows. You can ignore what happens on the scale of hours and days. So if you had experienced some fading, it ought to continue to fade and eventually it ought to get to a level that is a lot easier to ignore/handle.

I've read that too. You have even more reason to be optimistic about your long run outlook than the people whose tinnitus is a result of an acoustic trauma.