Going Through a Spike — Work Stress? No Loud Noise Exposures

Hello everyone

I have been off the forums for a bit but I am having a spike recently after a few months of very low to zero tinnitus (at least the remaining low tone did not bother me the slightest). My left ear which is normally silent is hissing again and also my right ear feels a bit louder. Luckily no other symptoms.

I have not really had any noise exposure outside of the ordinary, the only thing that changed is that I recently got a promotion at work and I am pretty stressed. I am also back on a diet for the few last months and have lost weight. Furthermore I wake up constantly at night which is pretty unusual for me, but I often wake up after every few hours and have a hard time getting back to sleep (not because of the tinnitus).

Today I had a bad night but luckily a good day, just now in the evening it is bothering me.

I know there is nothing anyone can do, just looking for a bit of moral support and maybe some ideas what I could do

 

A couple days day I went to into the city. I took a bus which was about a 1.5 hour ride each way and on the bus for about half the ride I wore musicians earplugs and put on earmuffs when it got louder the bus. While in the city I probably spent about only 40 minutes walking the streets because most of my time was spent at a quiet event. when walking I wore musician earplugs with earmuffs over them most of the time though I didn't wear the earmuffs the whole time while I was walking. On the bus ride on the way back I wore earmuffs over earplugs.

The thing that confuses my is when I got home I experienced a loud spike that lasted a few hours.

I'm not sure where I went wrong since I was trying to be as careful as possible. I was worried about my tinnitus spiking so maybe the anxiety of that caused a spike.

I have to continue going into the city and want to know how I could prevent this from happening again.

Thanks for your help everyone.

 

@MikeO123

How reactive is your T in general? In other words, does it spike from other exposures? Did you measure the db of the bus ride? Walking in the city is also intermittent noise exposure and difficult to quantitate.

While buses can be loud, plugs and muffs should have been plenty of protection, although you only had the muffs on half the time. Also, my musician plugs tend to move over time, so the protection can be variable if not pushing them back in every several minutes.

On the other hand, musician earplugs can vary in their protection from roughly 12 to 25 db's of NRR. Foam earplugs are generally more protective. However, overprotection can also cause T to increase when you keep your ears too silent for too long.

From your description, it is not clear if you needed more or less protection. This is just a guess, but if you need to do this again, I would try it with just foam earplugs both on the bus, and walking in the city, and see what the spike is.