4 Months Into Tinnitus That Started Out of the Blue One Morning

Hello to everyone,

Would like to introduce myself as I am almost 4 month in into right sided tinnitus (8500 Hz triangular wave), which started out of the blue one morning and is almost constant for the whole time. With better and worse days at trying to cope with it.

Not sure exactly how to get rid of the tinnitus, but it's a discovery process and I have hope and faith.

I am a 40-year-old male and healthy. Have had lots of stress at work, much higher than usual for the past year. Have started to experience right side headaches 8 months ago, as it was atypical, MRI was requested before the tinnitus started. Lymph nodes are also enlarged behind ear on right side and on right side of the neck. Ultrasound was done on lymph nodes and was uneventful. Blood tests too, all good. Hearing test shows no loss of hearing. MRI was also uneventful. There is muscular tension on the right side of the neck and right shoulder, mobility is not affected. Moving the jaw does change the tinnitus pitch and intensity. Right sided headaches remain. According to the doctor no known problems are found and I have to learn to live with it, no meds are prescribed.

Meditation, yoga, stretching exercise helps alot to be able to cope with the situation, avoiding the vicious cycle as much as I can. No more coffee, alcohol, try to reduce stress at work as much as possible, monitor my sleep with the tracker. Observations: After a WHOLE day of skiing the tinnitus volume was getting less. After a stressful day at work it's louder.

My goal is to learn relaxation, habituation techniques and to eventually either to habituate completely or be lucky enough to experience silence again. Along the road would like to help other to recover, by providing my experience and what I learned from it. Interesting observation that the more the tinnitus symptoms and anxiety, the easier it is to meditate.

Thank you to the community and let's get healthy and happy again !

 

Welcome to the forum. Looks like you are in a good place with your tinnitus. Your tinnitus may be stress related but can also be from the neck/jaw muscle problem or both. If by moving your jaw you can change the pitch or volume of your T, then it is most likely somatic in nature. Relaxing techniques will help reduce stress and also loosen those muscle problems that might have contributed to your T. So you are on the right track. I admire your positive stance and your willingness to share experience and to help out others. We are more than happy to have you staying around to help others. When you feel well enough, make sure to post a success story for all others to learn from your experiences. Good luck. Take care. God bless.

 

Thank you Billie48 for the comment
"Your tinnitus may be stress related but can also be from the neck/jaw muscle problem or both": most likely it is.
Past couple of days is a better coping cycle.
Thanks again

 

My tinnitus also started suddenly with no apparent reason. End of April it will be 5 months. Mine is now high-pass filtered white noise (kind of electric sound) fighting with standard "eee" (sine line). Loudness varies with days. Some days are very good, which means very faint "eee" with even fainter high pitch electric sound, then on the other hand some days the battle between "eee" and "electricity" is impossible to ignore. The switch between good/bad always happens when I sleep. I have never experienced it while being awake.

And if I do intense physical exercise for at least a hour it usually lowers the volume or makes my tinnitus sound kind of damaged. So kind of similar to your whole day of skiing

Activities that help me are: Swimming, Cycling and Running.
Swimming had the greatest effect (unfortunately pools are closed now), followed by cycling and then running.
If I submerse my head I never heard tinnitus. Also my cycling includes hill climbs. There was a post on this forum saying that someone who tried HBOT therapy never heard tinnitus while in the HBOT chamber. So pressure changes seem to affect Tinnitus.

 

Wow, I think you'll do pretty good. If you can kick coffee and alcohol and get into relaxation therapy that's a darn good way to go about the business of tinnitus. Certainly wish you the best of luck.

I don't know what a sleep tracker is, sounds neat. No prescriptions is ideal. I think you said your T is on one side only, which I don't have.

Besides the things you mentioned, for me personally, I would say I have to get my mind off of it. Do something. Think about something, fix something else, even doing dishes. Shoot, I'm lucky the first thing I do in the morning is make my wife's breakfast. I'm pretty speedy, so the sooner I'm at it the quicker I can put it behind me.

Finally, I hope you find your quietness sometime down the road. That would be swell. Take what you can get now and survive.

Good to meet you, Tim aka trft2

 

I'm curious- were you tested for Lyme disease or Mononucleosis at any point after your T started?