Good Days, and Bad Days, What's Your Experience with Tinnitus That Keeps Changing?

Being new to this, I find that my tinnitus on some days drops considerably, but then comes back on other days. I'm not sure if it's the medications I'm taking (I'm currently tapering down on my Prednisone dosage), or if this up and down is part of living with tinnitus. Perhaps a combination of both. If you can give your feedback to the following three questions, I think it'd really help me.

-- Does your tinnitus vary throughout the day on a regular pattern (e.g., worse when you get up)?
-- When your tinnitus flares up, how long does the flare up last (hours, days, etc.)?
-- Is there something that triggers your flare ups (e.g., lack of sleep, stress, exercise, weather)?

 

This kind of thing is really hard to track. It really varies from day to day, and for me it's not related to any medication changes. Sometimes it changes from morning to late morning to afternoon, and then spikes in the evening and quiets down the next morning

Today, for example, I wore headphones (keeping it slipped off my "tinnitus ear") for about an hour. Now I'm getting some tones pulsing irregularly in my bad ear although it wasn't receiving sound directly. I work in an environment with loud air conditioning, so I had to slip into a quiet room and put in earplugs to confirm that the noise was coming from my ear, and not from an outside source.

Yesterday, however, despite the loud air conditioning, I didn't hear much of anything. I was having other issues so maybe I wasn't paying attention. And this week I've been spiking right before bed - the ear pressed into my pillow gets a consistent, cricket-level tone at low volume. Very different from the tone I'm getting today in just the one ear.

 

Sometimes it's barely a problem, sometimes it's excruciating and ruins days or weeks.

20 years in here, just about.

 

My tinnitus varies all the time. Sometimes I think I'm on the road to habituation, then the next day it will be a bad day. I have noticed the following trends:

1. When on high doses of prednisone (>60mg) my tinnitus is measurably lower and my hearing thresholds are improved. This is a physical not subjective effect but it disappears once I start tapering.
2. A good sleep makes a lower tinnitus day more likely.
3. If I am engaged with my work or by talking with people, I think about my tinnitus much less and it feels like I am habituating a bit.
4. If I think about my tinnitus or worry about it... it is of course much worse. So for example if I get exposed to loud noise at a movie (even with earplugs), the next couple of days can be bad, not because I did more damage but because I am worried about it. Or... if I say to myself, I think I am habituating more.... that positive thought can lead me to do more "monitoring" of my tinnitus and therefore make it worse.

 

Mine various through out the day. It's always bad in the morning cause I wake up to it then get mad I hear it. A few beers right before bed relaxes me and gets me to sleep.

 

I have had tinnitus for about 6 weeks now, from bad hayfever that caused an ear infection. I thought it was improving as I've had some really quiet moments with it and was feeling positive.. but today it has been quite loud and consistent.

I haven't been out to any loud environments only thing I've had is a few coffees yesterday and one this morning. Wondering if caffeine triggers it more? As I had cut it out for a bit.

This condition angers me more than upsets me! It's so frustrating.

 

My tinnitus follows a relatively predictable cycle:
- 2 days loud piercing, ear pain, fullness and head tinnitus
- 2 days medium volume, ear tinnitus. fullness only
- 1-2 days low volume, ear tinnitus, no fullness

The cycle repeats.

Only sleep can change volume. Nap can change the pattern too. Usually during the loud days, it's louder after dinner and there is nothing that would make it quieter, unless I go to bed.

 

Mine switches on and off after a sleep or a 5 minute nap.

 

I have been suffering for 7 months. Left ear only. Believed to be from build up of years of concerts and singing in bands.

I occasionally will get a couple days where the tinnitus is so low I could happily live with it, but the majority of time it is intrusive and unable to mask. I am doing TRT for 2 months now also, and due to have FESS surgery for blocked sinus, which was found on my CT scan.

No Eustachian tube issues per my ENT, so not sure surgery is going to help the tinnitus, but I do find that on most bad days I have dull pain behind my left eye, above my left ear, and left temple. Not sure if it is from sinus issues or from the stress that tinnitus causes.

I recently just had a 5 day run of tinnitus practically disappearing and then was woken in middle of the night from it and now back to misery.

Can anyone explain why this happens with no rhyme or reason? I will have a few of these days a month and this recent 5 day run was the longest I ever had. Oddly, my good days tend to follow a string of very bad days.

 

I have had tinnitus for about one year now. It has been a tough go for me. The thing is that I will have anywhere from 5 to 14 days in a row where is will decrease to a level that I do not even notice it when I have my noise generators in (I have been doing TRT since July).

I was just on vacation and it was practically gone for the entire week, and the week leading up to it. I would hear it for a hour or so and then got onto something else and it would just fade into background.

Once I returned to work this week it came back. Am I habituating or just lucky I get a break from time to time?

Note this has been the nature of my tinnitus since it started.