Cyclic Tinnitus — On and Off

It was when I experienced a loss of a loved one in my life when my tinnitus started. The tone appeared to come from my left ear. It varied proportionally with my stress level. For a few days it was gone, then back on again.
Then I started to keep a daily journal of the following items in order to try to find a correlation between the tinnitus and my daily lifestyle:

Tinnitus level (low, medium, loud)
# of hours of night sleep
General stress level: (low, medium, high)
Food items consumed during day
Medicine pills taken during day

After keeping a daily log of the above items for the period of 2 months, and after anlayzing the log, I noticed a rather strange finding which is that my tinnitus comes for 7 days straight, then is off for 5 straight days - and the cycle repeats .....

and i did NOT find any clear correlation between my tinnitus and the other variables that I kept track of.

Thought to share my story... and I am thinking of creating computer or mobile app that can enable me to monitor more variables.

 

There are "experts" who believe stress can cause tinnitus.

My take on it is that stress cannot cause tinnitus, but stress can make existing tinnitus worse.

 

I believe that you are correct - even though when analyzing the results of my log, I did not find any correlation between the level of tinnitus and the stress level. I believe it might depend on the the cause and type of tinnitus.

 

@George --Many of us do have a T cycle. I know I do. Trying to find a correlation is difficult and most never find any consistent ones. I tried myself for months. Now I just accept that I have some loud days and some quiet ones.
An app might be useful to some people for tracking purposes. However, I am in the camp that the less things you can to to pay attention to the T the better. That includes monitoring it as little as possible.

 

I thought that most cases of T deminished with time, now i´m not so sure?

 

T doesn't always diminish with time but usually you cope better through natural habitation.

 

How do you achieve that? all i´m doing right now is crying and praying for my old life back, i´m a mess.

 

Carol,
even if T doesn't always diminish with time, @erik is right: habituation is a natural process, thanks to which hopefully in few time you'll cope much better. Last summer I had the same difficult days you're having now, then the things went better. And people here on the forum helped me a lot. I am sure you'll have your life back!

 

Thank you Carlo for your support, it does help.

 

When I got the onset I was through a really stressful period. I believe that stress can be a cuncurrent cause of T. It's well know that over production of hormons like adrenaline and cortisol can be very dangerous.

 

I will certainly not disagree that (long-term) stress can lead to physiological problems (besides the mental ones). However, one of my strengths - at least, that's what I think - is that I "question the logic". And in doing so, I ask myself, why should stress along with all the hormones released only impact the auditory system? Why not the "visual system"? Why not the nerves in in our spine? Have you heard some one go to the doctor with blurry vision, and then hear the doctor say "oh, it must be stress!". I haven't... And yet when it comes to tinnitus, then stress is automatically assumed to be the cause if the hearing test comes back normal. That's just poor, poor judgement.

 

Actually, I think stress can manifest itself in weird ways, like blurry vision or even blindness. Once called "hysterical blindness" (which I believe my aunt experienced), this is now one of various so-called "conversion disorders," which are manifestations of physical symptoms arising from psychiatric causes. Tinnitus, however, would almost certainly fall outside this scope.

-Golly

 

I think stress would impact the auditory system because the auditory system is part of the brain and regulated by the brain. Stress not only effects can affect our physiology but also our neurology. Stress impacts the brain, the control center of our body. This can lead to an impact on every major system on our body. When they say "Stress Kills", there actually might be something true to that statement. Left unchecked, stress can affect your mental, physical and emotional responses. Stress can contribute to heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, depression, anxiety, headaches and more. Tinnitus can be tied to some, more or all of these in most people. Getting your stress under as much control as you can will improve all aspects of your life.

I am not stay stress alone is the cause of T or all your health problems, but it can contribute to them.

 

attheedgeofscience as everybody is eventually stressed it's easy for doctors to draw parallels to that right away. One of the reasons as to parallels being drawn is how clear somatic reactions from stress can be measured.
I don't see your reasoning as to why short term stress couldn't set it off. With my awareness of the specialists lack of awareness, logic tells me not to* too quickly to pass judgment. Most of the mechanism behind is to furtherly be investigated aye.
6 days before the onset of my t, I went to a concert from where I had absolutely no ringing. 6 days after, being the onset of my t, was the exact day after rat traps had been put up in my bedroom, in a box with a hole down into my floor - I had to sleep in here, while having the hopes of catching two rats meanwhile (2 years ago two rats got caught right beneath my floor, slowly died, started to rot under my bed). It was semmi stressful :I
As a sidenote, my vision started blurring more than the usual after the onset
Keeping our muscle's effect on vision in mind and personally that I've heard about stressed people whose vision declined/blurred, it makes sense

 

I don´t understand why T spikes when you wake up, well that´s what is happening to me, so much so that i´m dreading falling asleep tonight...

 

George you should definitely try to make a detailed log if possible. I don't find mine to be aggrevated by stress either yet thinking about it certainly doesnt put it in the bagground. As yours is capable of going, try if possible, for some time to not think about it, just to test it out. Consistantly thinking about it definitely won't make it go in the bagground

 

Many people experience this phenomenon. It is discussed here:

Change in character and localisation of tinnitus | Tinnitus Talk Support Forum

-Golly

 

Thank you Golly. x

 

Thank you @Tenna - I agree with you that consistently thinking about T won't help, but I have to say that it is rather difficult to not think about my T - especially during the loud days -

I have always had the problem of motion sickness when I am given a ride in a car or bus - so I know that I have a overly-sensitive sensory system. Deep inside, I suspect that my T is somehow related to how my body reacts to external stimuli - but I could be totally wrong as I read many research that relates T to many diseases- especially high blood pressure. and possibly heart disease in which not enough blood is reaching the inner ear components. When I mentioned this to my ENT, he prescribed to me a medicine that thins blood and thus increases flow and improves circulation. He also recommended Ginko Beloba... However, both did not help in any way.

By the way, I have been suffering from T for a couple of years now - and I have not notice any decrease or increase in the pitch. However, I did notice something rather strange: during the first few months, the T seemed to come from my left ear - but now - after a couple of years - it feels that it is not localized to my left ear , but seems to come from the back of my head!

 

That's interesting, mine started exactly like that (on 1½ month now). First left then slowly to both, yet the special pitch in the left remains in addition to the normal back of the head pitch. Goddamn annoying and very interesting.
Have you been exposing yourself to concerts, loud noise exposure etc? curious as to whether the t remained despite such

 

@Tenna I am unable to pin-point the exact cause (or causes) of my T - but I have to admit that I did spend countless hours playing playstation games - and many times - with setting the speakers volume on loud.
2 years have now passed and still the T is going on a perfectly-timed cycle: 7 days on then followed by 5 off days - which I found to be very interesting - but I guess that's why they called it cyclic T.

 

If good playstation games, all worth it! You're lucky though an interesting case indeed

 

I don't know if it's been discussed here but drugs can cause short term tinitus. Aspirin in large doses is one culprit.

 

@Bill Brunskill i have heard and read Apsirin causes T. It would be interesting to learn how aspirin induces T - consequently this could shed some light on possible medical chemical treatments.

 

Hi, I've had cyclical T for almost a year with no more than two days on and no more than two days off except for two times when I had three days off and once this week I had four days off in a row. As some on here have said, I think it might be easier to habituate if I had it all the time but the days off are great. I have at least gotten to where it doesn't scare me like in the first few months. Now, it only makes me feel frustrated. I'll have a good week or two followed by a bad week or two. I did start trying magnesium about a week ago and that may be what set up the four days off this week and I only took it for two days prior. I'll try it again starting tomorrow. I would like to know how someone with cyclical T starts to habituate and any pointers to help speed up the process.

 

I have cyclical T over a 3 or 4 day interval. My T gets suppressed by having a shower and it stays quiet for the whole day. Next day however, it is there when I wake up and gets worse during the day. Then each successive day it diminishes a bit each day until the next shower day. If I skip the shower, the same pattern still seems to be there but perhaps not quite as strong.

 

Since the sounds of a shower have such a positive impact on your T, have you tried taking a shower multiple times each day?