Ear "Resets" with a Microsecond of NO Tinnitus... What Is It? Avenue for Research?

Does anyone else have this? Every now and then, I get a "reset".

In pre-tinnitus days, it used to be a momentary sudden ring that slowly went away in seconds with a linear drop in volume. Had it once a month or two for my whole life.

Now, the same sensation, except reversed. For a hundredth of a second, the tinnitus is gone, but then it linearly crescendos right back in. Get this randomly about once a day or two.

Does anyone know why this happens? Is this some kind of electrochemical repolarization of the hearing cells or some such? Is there any research into applying an electric field to the hearing cells to make something like this sustain? Anyone familiar with the phenomenon I am describing and maybe can give some context to it?

Thanks...

 

Yes, this strange sensation happens to me as well. At first I thought it was my imagination. Your post verifies it.

 

I occasionally have a similar experience, mainly noticed when lying in bed. My T will suddenly mute for half a second (all sounds), then it immediately returns to its previous state. Does not happen often, but it is clearly noticable when it does.

 

I have this as well. Happens randomly about twice a week or something like that.

 

This is called fleeting tinnitus. It is a well-known, normal, and very common phenomenon, even people without chronic tinnitus get it. It's not known to have any special significance (e.g. it doesn't indicate healing, or damage, or anything).

 

Not what we mean here (at least not for me). With fleeting tinnitus, a tone suddenly pops up and slowly dies out, and only in one ear. Had plenty of those in my life, way before tinnitus onset as well.

The situation discussed in this topic is when your tinnitus suddenly vanishes, like *pop* and it's gone. In my case, I'm talking about all my sounds at once: left ear, right ear, middle of head, does not matter, it's all gone. Half a second later the sounds *pop* in again, and they'll continue like nothing happened.

I assume it's just some brain function disabling/resetting something for whatever reason.

 

I think that's just a special case of fleeting tinnitus when the subsequent noise is inaudible. But the same thing.

 

Yeah I had that a couple of times. So short that it was only long enough to notice it stopped and before I could even fully grasp what went on it was back already. It's like a brain lapse in my opinion. What does that mean for research?
That without a brain, we would be free of tinnitus

 

I think this is the opposite (in terms of symptoms) from fleeting tinnitus (this is about silence, not about hearing a phantom noise).

I also experience this "micro silence". What I have been unable to determine is whether all of my hearing also goes away during this small period of time, or only T. Also it happens rarely to me (perhaps once a quarter).

In my case I do not experience fleeting tinnitus prior to hearing this silence, so no, it is not subsequent noise that is inaudible.

 

Same question for me: it's usually already quiet when I notice it, and there is no way to activate an external source of audio in the small timeframe available.

 

I experienced both "phenomenons":

1. The "reset" when for a second or so tinnitus completely went away. At that time real sounds did not vanish.
2. Fleeting tinnitus, which actually turns off my "normal" tinnitus. My fleeting tinnitus is always lower in frequency than my "normal" tinnitus and always pure tone. It does not affect normal sounds, but it turns off my high pitch electric buzzing and hissing.

The "reset" did not happen often, when it happened it completely turned off tinnitus. Fleeting tinnitus happens more often and it takes over just one ear (electric sounds otherwise move from ear to ear. Usually the switch happens while I sleep.

 

I have something similar... I don't hear anything for a second (zero sound), a very loud tinnitus, and then I feel better, less hyperacusis, less tinnitus and hearing more balanced... so I am always waiting for this to happen. No idea what causes it.

 

Sometimes, but not always, when I'm dealing with a bad spike in one ear and I get fleeting tinnitus in it, it takes the spike way down by like 50% after it's over and usually stays better. It does feel like some kind of 'reset'

 

I also get that! It's why I learned to love fleeting tinnitus after a while.

Well, I dunno if fleeting tinnitus and this "reset" event are the same or two distinct events, they do feel very similar to me - a moment of sudden deafness, either followed by loud temporary tonal tinnitus, or by silence, then a return to normalcy. Or maybe the silent "reset" event other people describe is just something I don't get.

 

I've experienced the 'silent' fleeting tinnitus, but not often. It's weird and I can feel it in either ear for like a second and the feeling is gone. Usually if it's very loud fleeting tinnitus and kind of hurts actually, it's the one that will lower tinnitus. If it's a quieter one it lasts for 5-10 minutes for me. So weird. Before I had tinnitus I only got fleeting tinnitus that was kind of loud but lasted for just 5 seconds.

 

The closest I have come to this is, as my tinnitus is only in the left ear - is my left ear would go completely deaf for several seconds, like someone covered my ear... and when my hearing would resume it was slightly distorted for a few minutes.

I still get the mute/distortion occasionally...sometimes I do get dizzy when the ear goes deaf, but I was told by my ENT I do not have Meniere's. I have had some strange inner ear issues throughout my life tho for decades as I got extreme morning sickness when pregnant with my children, I get car sick to this day, and have had boat sickness lasted for days. I would feel like I was on a boat for 2 days AFTER getting off a boat just for a 2 hour boat ride. NOT worth it..so I have thought something is wrong with my inner ears..what, I have no idea. ENT said they look fine... but tinnitus started 5 1/2 months ago and I can't help but think it has something to do with my inner ear, fluid, something..with a controlled diet I can have quiet days, no salt, no sugar, no to low very low carbs...it has been EXTREMELY difficult - but I had low sugar jelly the other day and my ear started meep meeping for 2 days...so sugar is out. I have NO idea why... I really don't..

But, NO FOOD tastes as good as relatively low tinnitus sounds... my baseline tinnitus sounds like a refrigerator running, which I CAN live with, when it spikes, the under tone is the refrigerator, with added high pitch kettle whistling for several days, 24/7 then morphs into intermittent morse code, MEEEP MEEEP MEEEP, into a fade down to baseline refrigerator.

My tinnitus was not caused by acoustic trauma - I have never been near fireworks, a motorcycle, never wore headphones, am female - no heavy metal concerts, never hit in the ear... so maybe it is fluid and food related...

My 2 cents, I think tinnitus is a whole host of little things going haywire for those of us without acoustic trauma... I had anemia, dental issues, cervical spine issues, eating too much carbs, many ear infections as a child...

 

That's a possible reason. Yet, I've been perfectly healthy for pretty much all my life, no sound trauma or continuous exposure... then I fall from the stairs, and tinnitus is on.

If there is one thing we do know, then that is that tinnitus is extremely widespread when it comes to possible causes. We need some objective way of measuring what a patient hears: not an audiogram, but some kind of brain scan that can be translated in a digital audio file which is perfectly translated into the sounds that the (brain of the) patient registers. Once that has been found, solid and clean research can be done instead all of the current poking in the dark with a stick to see what works.

This measuring process would probably be complicated, and I'm not surprised that it isn't there yet. What does astonish me though is how it seems like not a single researcher bothers with even trying. I'm probably wrong about this though (at least I hope), research attempts are usually not heard of before they succeed.

 

Yes, I was in active daily 24/7 Tinnitus spike when it first came on in September; in November after 9 weeks of 24/7 T; I went to the ENT..I actually asked him, can you hear it when he had the stethoscope to my ear...he said, uhm, no...

I don't know what has gone haywire, but I had dental issues fixed, anemia is slowly being resolved, cervical spine and forward head posture, working on it daily, cutting out the salt and sugar were huge for lowering the high pitch spikes..

I know talking on the phone can cause me to spike, even while on speaker, I would N.E.V.E.R put a phone to my left ear ever again (solely used my left ear for speaking on the telephone for DECADES at work..so maybe there is some noise damage from that?) - so I have an ear plug for my left ear...I honestly have no idea what this is...but all I can do is control what I know will cause a spike. Of which, anyone knows here, are terrifying b/c you don't know when or how long it will last or if it will be permanent. I have moments of silence now and some silent nights which I thank God for, literally...was it cutting the salt/sugar/carbs, did I sleep a certain way, what cause the silent night, I don't know = but I am grateful for each one.

 

When I get the fleeting tinnitus thing, my actual tinnitus is gone in the meantime.

 

So it's not just me. This condition is so fucking confusing.

 

Mine too, but I think that's pretty common, even with the total silence a few seconds before the fleeting tinnitus, but I guess, OP is talking about total silence without the regular tinnitus, or the additional fleeting tinnitus.

 

Correct. It's the absence of the tinnitus for that microsecond.

I wonder if whatever physiological phenomenon causes that second of absence can be replicated... perhaps some sort of electrical impulse in the inner ear? Has there been any current research in this area?

 

I can pause/mute my tinnitus at will every time i open my jaw wide. While my jaw is extended open, the tinnitus spikes (as is the case for most). As soon as I close my jaw, my tinnitus disappears. The longest I've managed to make it disappear for is nearly 5 seconds. Normally it's gone for about a second or two.

 

I had the same experience, my right ear went silent for couple seconds while I was wearing ear plugs and my tinnitus was gone then it came back quickly but I heard the silence for couple seconds in the right ear, it's insane.