Etiology of Various Presentations of Tinnitus?

I’ve had tinnitus on and off since 2015. I’ve had tinnitus related to acoustic trauma (resolved) and then a few years later unilateral hearing loss related tinnitus. Those presentations were always a steady tone that did not change no matter what I did. Diet didn’t affect it. Movement didn’t affect it. The pitch, the quality of the sound, and the volume stayed completely stable. Once I recovered from my acoustic trauma and then later on my hearing loss, the tinnitus I was experiencing completely resolved.

Fast forward to 2021. My hearing is completely fine. Checked yet again a few months ago. All within normal limits. I now have bilateral excruciatingly high pitched fluctuating tinnitus that changes within the hour. It can be a 10/10 for several minutes and then calm down and be a 3/10 for a while and then right back up to a 10/10. Ears take turns screaming. I can have two months of relative quiet and then a month and a half of pure Hell.

Does anyone have any insights into the differences in how tinnitus is experienced in relation to its cause? Theories re: the cause of my current tinnitus are neck, jaw, and God only knows what.

I will never be able to habituate to this. I thought when I first got tinnitus in 2015 my life was over. I could at least mask that.

There is no masking this.

Forever hopeless now instead of forever hopeful.

 

@Forever hopeful, my tinnitus sounds similar to yours. In my case, I think that the root cause is very high frequency hearing loss. It is difficult to habituate, but you will get there slowly. There is no alternative.

 

Thank you for your response.

Have you had a hearing test that showed hearing loss? I know the standard audiograms in the US don’t test for the highest frequencies unless you request one. My ENT told me it’s because they have no standard benchmarks in the higher frequencies, therefore they have no reference points against which to compare one’s performance.

Does your tinnitus fluctuate? Mine can vary wildly within an hour. When I had to do audiograms due to hearing loss in the past, which has been recovered, it was completely steady and never changed. I can go through periods of a few months where it’s barely audible and then all of a sudden I’ll go through a long period where it’s just awful. I have no idea how I’ll ever get used to this. It’s maddening.

I see that yours is potentially related to head trauma. Have you assesses whether or not you could have neck issues that may be impacting your tinnitus as a result of the trauma? Neck and jaw issues are certainly something that they are considering in relation to my current presentation. I am in physical therapy for it.

By the way, I have family near you. Lovely part of California.

 

@Forever hopeful, it is a very complicated story. I had an ear infection in my left ear when I was a teenager and I lost high frequency hearing.

Passing years made the difference negligible, but I never really quantify it because I did not have any hearing issues. It only became a problem after my tinnitus onset. A number of things happened at that time:

1) I was listening to music all the time, and often with headphones (but not loud).
2) I took a ride in a convertible car that was very noisy.
3) I hit my head on the floor practicing a yoga hand stand.
4) I was at a concert in a restaurant near the band.
5) I had a diet very rich in sugar and carbohydrates.
6) There was a mold outbreak in the bedroom behind a bookshelf.

One day after the yoga accident (very mild), the tinnitus started. Initially, it was a very minor sound, and it became very complex and fluctuating within a few days. To tell you the truth, nothing in the list seemed enough to produce the tinnitus, but after reading in the internet the causes of tinnitus, it looked like I might be out of luck.

My audiology test came back normal with a slight dip at 8 kHz (25 dB) in my left ear. I got a high frequency audiogram and the asymmetry between my left and right ear was obvious. Was the asymmetry before or was new? In any case, my tinnitus was getting worse and worse, and went through the common down spiral. However, there was always something about my tinnitus that felt like the ebbs and flows of organic matter.

The rest of the story is in this link:

I Heard of Someone Being Cured After Taking Anti-Fungal Drug?

The multiyear effort ended up in the failure, and that it is why I said in the profile that is hearing loss from head trauma (?). Sometimes I still believe that the cause is a biofilm that is in my middle ear and causing all the fluctuations.

 

I got tinnitus from SARS-COV-2 alpha variant. It's a high pitched loud pure tone at around 12.5 kHz but it can be masked in restaurants, malls, and the shower. It also never changes no matter what I eat, drink, or do.

After Omicron variant it has gotten lower in volume but I'm fearing it can come back with a vengeance any minute now because the first time I got the virus it took me 2 months to develop tinnitus.

 

Sorry your treatments did not work. You invested a lot in it. Your hearing at 25 dB still considered normal. My ENT will not do an extended audiogram because he said that they have no reference points or benchmarks so therefore they really don’t know what is normal and expected for someone’s hearing.

It seems like yours has improved some so I’m happy to hear that.

 

My hearing has deteriorated since my tinnitus onset 8 years ago. It is likely a mix of aging and fate. Especially my left ear is now even more asymmetric compared to the right ear. However, the tinnitus is about the same as early on, even after the hearing worsening. The story in my previous message should be a cautionary tale about looking for root cause. One should investigate to a reasonable extent, but after that it might get against you and be counter productive. If I have to start my tinnitus journey over, I would just try to go to the acceptance route because the fighting path has made life even harder.

The large majority of people with tinnitus have some form of hearing loss, but it is very difficult to accept it, and sometimes we become delusional about the root cause, expecting that our case will be different and could be fixed.