Greetings Comrades

Howdy:

August 17': Tinnitus in the left ear induced by shooting a gun without protection. Initially a low volume high frequency (12K) tone with minor reactivity to noise above certain volumes (now understand this to be a subset of Hyperacusis, no pain associated).

March 18': Saw improvement from August to March. Attempted the "reddit cure"- fingers in ears and drumming on the back of neck. This was a bad idea, and made my reactivity worse and spiked my T a bit. Introduced a non constant tone with a more gravelly response to my T.

April 18': Saw an ENT/Audiologist that deemed my hearing to be intact (gave a binaural test despite having T and reactivity only in the left ear...), and assured me the T would go away with time. I think the doctors were completely unfamiliar with hyperacusis/reactive tinnitus, literally no mention or questions on that. Recommended Gingko and pushed me out the door in 15 minutes, pretty frustrating.

June 18': Saw improvement from April to May. Then, a spike in T (movie without earplugs) prompted me to slap my left ear in frustration (really stupid! really very dumb) which has now affected my T and significantly increased the range of my H. Constant tone at 12K with reactivity in the 2K-4K range. "H" Reacts to water running, plates clanking, consonants in conversation, driving with windows down, etc. Reaction is sort of a metallic din that competes with the noise (again, only left ear).

I think in general my symptoms are mild and so far I have a decently good attitude about them. Have a history of depression that predates the tinnitus, so the initial onset was rough. Ironically my symptoms are worse right now but I dont seem to mind as much, I think they'll probably get better. Reading through some posts here has helped me a lot already.

Trying to do some basic treatment with pink noise, avoiding earphones, I might order some gingko from germany (as that is apparently much more effective than US supplements), excercising more. If anyone has any advice beyond that let me know. been on a vegetarian diet for a year now as well.

I work as an Engineer and enjoy hiking, backpacking, biking, DnD, board games, music (taken a backseat recently), baking, cooking. Might start grad school in the fall, but worried about my T and H reacting to stress. Thanks for reading

 

Welcome to TT, @kraleb!

Funny avatar you got there, I sometimes feel like that too. T can be a real bitch, but seems you got tabs on it to a large extent already. That's great to hear.

Controlling the emotional response to it is the first step to recovery (however that comes about)

What do you mean with 'reactivity' though? Do you get spikes around noise or does the tinnitus set itself above those sounds you mention and lower again when they're gone?

Doing the activities you mention are a great way to put your mind off the tinnitus. Keep doing what you're doing! Keeping stress low is vital, of course. I'm currently in university (last semester before graduation) and it's not always an easy combination. But I'm managing somehow. Can't say if my grades will suffer under this, but time will tell. I cannot be as 'perfectionistic' as I once was, is what I have noticed so far. That takes its toll on the mind, as well as on the T.

Hope you find what you're lookin for on here and Good Luck!

 

Why? Why? Why would you watch a movie without earplugs. But then again I dont blame you I did ear syringing which made my T worse. I am worse right now then I was in December. You didnt get high T and severe H because of the ear hit, you got it from the movie. Me and you have the same H and T. My H behaves the same way. When I urinate it hurts my ears or when I talk or other people talk it hurts my ears. Mind you this began in January and I have not seen improvement. I dont have T in my right ear anymore but Severe H there.

 

in Oct-Dec I was able to sleep normally 8 hours per night. My sound oasis machine would cover the tone of buzzing wires, since Jan I am not able to do that anymore. Sometimes it can get so bad that I need to sit next to a busy road to drown the noise out.

 

Welcome to tinnitus talk, hope you are one of the lucky ones whos tinnitus fades.

Reactive tinnitus and non painful hyperacusis are not always the same thing, tinnitus can be reactive due to the neurons in the brain associated with tinnitus reacting to noise.

Because your tinnitus came from a gunshot it is 100% certain you have some degree of hearing loss (even if super mild) regardless of the 1940's audio gram your local audiologist administered. They only test for hearing in the human voice 0-8000hz range using tonal noises in complete silence. If you notice trouble hearing in background noise or hearing distortion that is a form of hearing loss that their test usually cannot pick up.

Gingko baloba may help with T caused by ear infections but not sensori neural hearing loss

Don't give up music it will make you more depressed. hope for your recovery once again

Don't use headphones for a while if you have tinnitus

also nice profile pic and thread name lol

 

Thats a good question. From what I understand the term 'reactive tinnitus' is a little underdefined. I get an additional noise coincident with certain sounds. So for example the sound of a beep: percieving the beep along with an additional sensorineural tone at the same time. Im calling that reactive, though I understand some peoples reactivity causes their T to increase for a period after a noise. I dont really think my T reacts, it returns to a baseline once the noise is removed. In that sense it is probably more accurate to say it hyperacusis, just without pain (all respect to those with pain). Sorry if i misdefined any terms.

Ha, yeah pretty dumb! earplugs didnt even cross my mind.

I'm not certain it was the movie vs. the ear hit. Following the hit (again dumb, seems like a theme), i got a pretty big spike in the T and the H, hasnt died down since. The movie definitiely caused a spike, but it was relatively minor. Still trying to understand a diminished noise tolerance and what that implicates. Good luck

 

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...eone-else-who-has-tinnitus.26850/#post-307822