Can 'Spikes' Get Better or Is It Trying to Habituate to a New High?

Hi,

I've had tinnitus since Jun 2016 - unknown reasons, just woke up with it one morning. For the first 6 months it bothered me a lot but over time although it was of course still there, it bothered me less and less to the point that most days I barely noticed it.

10 days ago the same thing happened again, I woke up that morning and the tinnitus was loud, probably 3x as loud as it had ever been before... and it's stayed that way since then. It used to be masked by certain noises (i.e. being in the shower) but now I can hear it all the time.

Is it possible for it to go back down in volume after having increased for 10 days, or is this the new normal? There wasn't even a reason for this spike, wasn't stressed/anxious, no loud noises, I have "clinical depression" (diagnosed long before tinnitus started) but was doing ok until this happened... not so ok now.

Anyone had a spike that lasted weeks/months and then dropped back to the original level, or is it just trying to habituate to the new high?

 

Sorry you are not so ok now. You wont always feel like this...

Spikes are different for ever body. Yes, some last a few days others have reported they last months to a year at times.

Sadly, I dont think tinnitus needs a reason to spike.
With that said, sometimes a diet high on salt/sugar can also spike your tinnitus.

Feel better,
Once

 

As someone that has lived with this beast for 31 years, i'll tell you this. Tinnitus will not (Most of the time) just get louder on it's own. There is an underlying reason why it's happening. Whether it's med, illness, trauma(sound/physical), stress, poor diet....something is going on.

I'll give a few definitions:

Spike - a raise in the sound/intensity of the tinnitus. It happens all the time. Is it permanent? most of the time the ears/brain/mind can go back to previous baseline.

Baseline - This is the norm. This is how loud/intense our ringing/tinnitus is on a daily/hourly/secondly basis.

Some kind of trauma or some element(s) will need to happen(most of the time) for a new baseline to appear. I recall how meds gave me a new baseline. How the heavy metal concerts gave me a new baseline.

Keep a journal and see why you are experiencing louder sounds/ringing/tinnitus.

Habituation is all based on the inner will to stand up to the tinnitus and telling it that "WE WILL LIVE OUR LIVES" no matter how loud or annoying the tinnitus is. It's living and doing what you need to do on a daily basis without the stimulus (tinnitus ) trying to stop you

Good luck!

 

If it doesn't improve for a month or two, it will be a bad sign. Temporary spikes can last for longer than three months, but normally people observe some fading during the first two months.

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/head-movement-spikes-tinnitus.25179/#post-290614
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/poll-how-long-do-your-tinnitus-spikes-usually-last.23110/
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/poll-how-long-was-your-longest-spike.22099/

 

thanks for the replies, unfortunately since posting this it's got even worse. For the first time since getting T it's in my dreams, even sleep isn't an escape. Wednesday night I had a dream, a dark creature in a glass box, the glass starts to crack and it lets out of shriek... then I woke clutching my ears with a new separate even louder tone. I had a similar dream thursday night, and last night I just wasn't able to sleep at all.

I will keep a diary and see if anything has changed, but I can't think of anything. I hope it starts to settle down sometime in the next few months because I don't think I can cope with this on top of everything else.

 

Well, 6 weeks on and it's still spiked so I guess this is the new 'normal'. Awesome, was struggling to go find reasons to go on before this extra thing, life really knows how to repeatedly kick you when you're already down.

 

Some spikes take months to calm down, so it could still get better for you. As you probably know, the best thing you can do is to avoid loud environments, try do reduce stress, perhaps take some supplements like magnesium and NAC and some would also recommend not to use headphones even at low volumes.

 

Spikes can definitely last longer than 6 weeks. Key is to avoid further injury. It took me 3 months back in the Fall until my noise induced spike was getting appreciably better.