3 Months In, God Only Knows What Caused My Tinnitus

Hello, Tinnitus Talk. Until now, I've just been lurking here, but about a week ago I hit that magic "3 month" mark that doctors and people in the tinnitus community refer to as the deadline for acute tinnitus. So, I figured I should introduce myself. I apologize if this ends up being long winded, I had a bad day and I'm hoping writing everything down can be cathartic.

I got my most recent and worst episode of tinnitus in early April. I've had episodes of tinnitus lasting a few hours in the recent past before "the big one" happened, but all of my episodes including this seemingly indefinite one don't really seem to have any explanation. I went to the ENT the second day of having it and they tested my hearing and it came back perfect, above average for my age even (early 20s). The biggest culprit I had before hearing loss was ruled out was that I was listening to music with my AirPods like a day prior to it showing up, but the loudest it ever got was 96dB according to the Health app on my phone and it only reached that volume for about 30 seconds. No significant congestion or tension in my ears, nose, or throat aside from seasonal allergies, so they didn't entertain prescribing steroids or injecting my ear with anything. I suspect it might be TMJ because I can click the left side of my jaw if I move my mouth a certain way, or perhaps high blood pressure because I have stage 1 hypertension, maybe stress because I hate my job, but who knows?

If I could describe my tinnitus, I'd say it sounds like the whine of an old CRT, I'm not really sure how to measure it in Hz like I've seen people do on here. Throughout the day I'll also get episodes of fleeting tinnitus much louder but only lasting a few seconds, and every now and then I even hear what I think is CSF moving behind my neck briefly. I even had a few days where I'd get a sharp pain in my ear lasting a fraction of a second every 30-60 minutes, but I haven't had that happen in over a month. It seems to be constant and I can only modulate it by opening my mouth wide, where it becomes 2x louder. It's also unilateral, I suspect. I perceive it mostly on the left side, but if I'm laying my right ear on a pillow I can hear the buzzing, and very early on in my tinnitus experience I can swear I remember it switching sides some days.

My tinnitus is fortunately not as loud as it could be, I've never been good at rating things on a scale of 1-10 but I'd be confident in saying its mild. At its worst, I can still mask it completely with violet noise or those fantastical sounding "1 HOUR MOST POWERFUL TINNITUS THERAPY RELIEF & CURE" videos at about 10-15% volume. It's noticeably quiet in the mornings, to the point where sometimes I feel like it's gone for about the first half hour of the day if I'm lucky, and it's probably the worst at night. I'll usually need to have violet noise playing on my phone on the nightstand or through my AirPods, but some nights lately I've been in a good mood (or just too tired to care) and can fall asleep without any maskers. On bad days I'll use the violet noise or videos throughout the day, to the point of just playing them in a separate web browser and lowering them in the volume mixer on my desktop while I do everything else like listen to music, watch videos, or play video games, with the maskers always in the background at very low volume. Most days, I don't really need them until nighttime, even when I use my closed-back headphones.

As for now, I don't really know what to do other than learn to cope with it. I'm definitely a lot less anxious about it then I was in my first month, where I was looking practically everywhere on the internet for information and anecdotes for hours a day. I was desperate for help. I bought like half a dozen things at the vitamin shop, I massaged every part of my head, I even read the entire David Case thread! Granted, I still check in here maybe every other day for a few minutes just to monitor any news, but I try not to obsessively read about it as much (unless I'm having the occasional bad day, which is why I'm writing here now). I've gotten to the point where I can ignore my tinnitus or not notice it if I'm somewhat concentrated on anything else, and I can barely hear it over things like air conditioners, running water, or just being outdoors. It might have even got a little quieter, but that might just be me getting used to it.

I'm hoping that habituation might happen sometime this year, I'm still young and my life could really start any day now and I don't want to be held back by being anxious about a little buzzing in my head. I feel bad getting so worked up about it sometimes knowing there are lots of people worse off than me, but going from nothing to something mild is still a big change considering I'm used to nothing. Here's hoping for a cure or for it to randomly go away one day, for me and for everyone on this website. Thanks for reading.

 

Your story is very similar to mine, though I'm coming up to the 2-month mark (I'm many years your senior). My tinnitus is similar to what you describe, and I also have hypertension, though I've been under treatment for it for years and it's been under control. I aso have a clicking in my jaw, along with a history of bruxism (which I'm finally going to address by getting a splint).

I'm acquainted with 2 individuals who have had tinnitus for decades, both of whom claim they stopped noticing it a long time ago. A member of this forum replied to one of my posts with the words, "give it time," and that's the most enlightened bit of advice I've come across.

 

@SlyTendencies, welcome to the forum. Thank you for sharing your story. Good to hear that you are already progressing in the anxiety department.

 

Can you believe it? 1.5 million veterans are currently on disability because of tinnitus.

If habituation is so achievable, then why does the Federal Government readily agree that this massive number is so mentally undermined by this condition that subsidization is granted since it's sheer intrusiveness makes the ability to work frankly impossible?

I truly wish that this was not the case, but this statistic alone seems to indicate the very limited applicability of habituation.

 

I would think the PTSD can’t help.

 

To Wrfortiscue:

You are so entirely correct; flashback memories, grisly nightmares, and chronic pain can be so burdensome for even the strongest egos that there is no room left to implement habituation to tinnitus.

 

Military classification of tinnitus disability does not mean they cannot work and are on full disability, it means they can no longer continue to work in a loud military environment. I have family in the military who explained this to me several years ago. They have annual hearing exams and loss at a particular amount - often accompanied by tinnitus — means they can no longer safely participate in firing drills without risking further hearing loss. Thus they’re discharged under a disability.

My family members know individuals who this happened to, and they’re still working in the private sector.

That said, my inner ear specialist volunteers one day a week at a veteran’s hospital and treats patients with loss from explosives. He said many of them have tinnitus and it’s hard for even the toughest soldiers especially on top of everything else they’re facing post injury.

 

@SlyTendencies, give away your AirPods!

Use a speaker for masking.

6 months is the acute phase.

I suggest physiotherapy, exercise, eat healthy and avoid the mouth clicking as much as possible.

Don’t clench!