Can Tinnitus Fade Spontaneously?

The question may sound a bit silly, but I wanted to know if there are cases where the buzzing has decreased without apparent explanation.

I am open to miracles.

 

Last sentence was irony
but the question is for real.

 

It is my understanding that it fades for most people.

According to the studies listed on multiple pages of
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/spontaneous-recovery-stats-over-70-recover-3-studies.21441/
T disappears for between 20 and 70% of the patients.

 

thanks for the statistics! unfortunately in my case it was several years since I started
Sometimes I wonder if this has a limit

 

Hopefully in your case it might at least fade.

Have you tried staying away from even moderate noises (like that of a vacuum cleaner)? If not, you could try it for half a year and see whether it does anything. You have nothing to lose.

 

I always carry my plugs with me. It is rare that I find noises that really bother me after spending several months with hyperacusis. Anyway I try not to go out at night to clubs or other places with high levels of sound intensity (only very occasionally). I study cinema, but in the projects that I have participated I never made sound (never take sound or edit either). I think I take all the precautions and even then that does not mean it can not get worse. Anyway, I think I'm doing pretty well, although I have my days. the other day I even proposed to sleep with the plugs on, just listening to the buzzing in my head and I had no major difficulty falling asleep

 

I clarify that I had hearing loss in both ears (in the right ear more than in the left ear). the strange thing is that it was many months after I stopped working in the weapons lab where my situation worsened since 2012 (my problem was so minimal that sometimes I forgot it. I even went several times to the ENT and they told that there would be no problem of hearing lossif I protect myself ). the point is that my hearing is strange, sometimes I think I hear something from the left side but it comes from my right since the left ear captures the reflections better.
in short, a series of bad decisions and worse luck

 

My baseline has remained the same. It can increase because of stress, poor eating habits, but in general once your baseline is established... for a period of 12 to 18 months, then the chances of it staying the same is kinda up there(never 100% but most likely). I could be wrong, but for me I have had the same level of noise for those timelines... This type of situation could apply more to those, with chronic tinnitus.

When I first got tinnitus, it would fluctuate..quite a bit. As it became chronic and my baseline established itself, then it remained the same unless, there was something that caused a new baseline

 

Thanks for sharing your experience. I read your comments with special attention because you are in this much longer and that entails wisdom

 

I'm interested in the science of what causes Tinnitus to go away when it does in a lot of cases.
I mean we know the hearing damage is still present.

Does the hyperacusis (noise amplification) caused by central gain in the brain also go down?

If that is true hearing will become worse due to the fact tinnitus is the brain amplifying damaged frequencies and neuronal noise

 

There is no reason (100%) as to why tinnitus comes, stays, fades or totally goes away. Tinnitus is not always due to ear/hearing damage either. Hearing can become worse with or without tinnitus. So many factors can annoy our brains/ears etc. Loud noise,stress, meds, aging, physical issues....TONS.

We can control our tinnitus to some degree, but we never have (100%) control of it. Safe practices should be applied, but obsession of applying those practices, should be avoided....

One thing, that I have noticed that makes a huge difference for me is sleep and napping. Just resting the body and mind can be quite refreshing to the hell these ringing can bring. It sounds very simple, but it really can go far. How rested or not rested we are make a huge difference. I also struggled to sleep for quite a few decades but still I manage to get a power nap here and there and its very helpful...

Also, I have eliminated negative people and situations from my life. I'll give an example, I know this lady that wants to sing karaoke all the time, at first I was ok with it, just to socialize more. Now, after a few times doing it, the stress and annoyance of the whole thing. I don't do it anymore...

Now I'll just substitute that time for time at a coffee house and reading my many books. try to replace negativity as much as you can, it goes a long way...

 

that is precisely the problem of tinnitus, which not only affects the inner ear but also different parts of the brain that we still do not know very well how they work based on stimuli. personally sometimes I find that I have trouble concentrating or I am more easily distracted than before, it will be that the brain does not stop working a second and we always have activity even if we are not active participants of that (also, as I read in this forum, that would explain why that we are tired all the time, although it also has to do with depression and other factors)
in this sense ENTs can never give us a complete answer. I mean... if they could

 

Correct, no one understands why tinnitus stays in some individuals and not in others but it has to do with some gateway in the brain that is unrecognized, the reason I say hearing should worsen if tinnitus and hyperacusis was to disappear is because the leading hypothesis is that tinnitus is the result the brain acting as a "internal hearing aid" amplifying the neuronal noise to pick up on damaged frequencies and if the brain were to stop amplifying to listen harder to damaged frequencies hearing would decline.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4208401/

Loud noise, aging and ototoxic drugs all cause hearing loss so they are all in one group

Physical causes for tinnitus are neck jaw injuries, TMJ, neck and jaw musculo-skeletal misallignment
this is because the neurons from the neck and jaw are shared with the neurons in the auditory nerve

The positive news would be if if future scientific advancements would regenerate cochlear hair cells and auditory nerve fibers the central gain would decrease and so would the tinnitus and hyperacusis, For tinnitus sufferers with hearing loss.

 

I can speak for myself, I don't read too much into science and research papers. Since my hearing is so so bad, I feel that my brain is replacing that normal hearing/ranges/sounds with it's own sounds. So the tinnitus for noise induced/hearing loss is trying to make up for that sound. Since it cannot match it, it can create it's own version. I read this somewhere over 15+ years ago and I kinda agree with it. If folks got tinnitus from other situations, then I cannot give a better answer, as to why the brain fully acting the way it is.

I don't read nor care much about science, unless there is 100% proof... that there is a cure. For a guy, it's like trying to get with a hot gal and then you get a date and then you think that she likes you. I know it's a weird analogy, but if the guy has his hopes up and she won't go on a 2nd date, then he can be crushed. He will keep trying and trying and then keep getting crushed. Tinnitus is such a serious ordeal, that people will give anything for this menace to go away (INCLUDING ME).

In my early days I was like you and some other people here. I fought for the cure and each day I read papers, bought supplements... I did it all.

Then eventually I saw that NO, the cure is not here and Damn it start living your life. All the anger, obsession is not getting you anywhere in life.

Like I said, I respect science and those that work hard on finding a cure, but I will not obsess over it and I will pay more attention, when one day proof is evident... that something has cured tinnitus. Do understand this though, tinnitus happens because of many many different reasons. So If maybe one day a cure is found, for sound induced tinnitus, will be effective for someone that got it from TMJ? Stress? Meds?

Always have hope, that something will come out and help us, but never stop living, doing and being productive because it's not here yet (cure).

I take this menace (tinnitus) very seriously, because it has lived in my head (has not paid rent) for over 3 decades

My views are just like yours and many other folks here. I hate tinnitus, but my views also differ in not being held back, by this menace and living my life....

 

Back in the 1980's there wasn't any talk serious talk in the medical world about hearing restoration
that really didn't begin until 10-15 years ago when they first started regenerating cochlear hair cells in rodents, only notable discover 30 years ago was that birds and reptiles could naturally regenerate their cochlear hair cells for hearing so scientist were excited that this feature is hard wired into nature.

Also all the supplements for tinnitus are for the most part useless both then and now.

We'll you should since they are the only ones trying to make our lives truly better. It's already confirmed 100% that central gain causes one type of hyperacusis and the other kind of hyperacusis is caused by outer hair cell nerve fiber damage, these are facts, hyperacusis has been explained thanks to the awesome research of Charles Liberman. What I am saying is that there is a better hypothesis that the same mechanism is linked to tinnitus and that scientist 15 years ago may have been wrong.

Either way it's up to the scientist not us, and its rational to believe that restoring hearing loss will reduce tinnitus if either hypothesis is true thankfully.

I admire your positivity and monumental optimism to make the best out of life, I honestly do.