Has Anyone Who's Had Cycling Tinnitus Gone More Than Two Days Quiet(er)?

I've had this cycle that has varied but, has never awarded me more than two days where my T settles down to at or below baseline. What's the deal with the 48hr. time limit?? Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly thankful for the two days of peace when God gives it to me and I'm fairly hopeful that, eventually, I'll get longer stints. But what biological clock causes this?

 

I wish I knew too....some consistency would go a long way to coping better. Years ago when my t was pretty much consistent in volume and tone etc I habituated pretty well. Now days it seems to be all over the place. Earlier this month I had 10 days straight of t that was only a 2-3 out of 5....it was amazing I am now on about day 10 or 4-5 out of 5. I have started keeping a diary since January and noting how loud my t is each day and noting anything that may have effected it. As of yet there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the ups and downs and also no pattern :|

The only good thing about all this I guess, is at least during the really bad times, you can remain cautiously optimistic that better days may follow at some point....but when you are waiting for them I start to panic they well never come.

After ten years with t, my own conclusion is that it has, and is, progressively getting louder on the whole for reasons unknown, and also that some days are louder/quieter than others but there is absolutely no fathomable reason.......sigh

Rhea x

 

I too have these damn cycles.. Ive never experienced more than 48 hours of reduced volume.. It's like my brain is programmed.. Trouble is after the 48 hours has elapsed it goes through the roof and becomes debilitating for several days.. I feel like it's punishing me for the quiet ish few days ive had .. Tinnitus is crap and i hate it with a vengeance..

 

My T also cycles, I also haven't figured out a reason or rhyme, except one thing, after I use my Electric toothbrush, my T is lower for A while, go figure
also eating potato chips or Doritos, I think the munching makes the T go away for a while, can't keep doing that though, They're both fattening
just waiting for a cure...

 

Mine cycles too - usually a couple or few days quiet followed by a couple of noisier days. When I first got it, my t was a very loud, consistent tone. It eventually morphed into cycling t with a more bearable noises and less volume overall. I haven't been able to identify anything at all that impacts the t. My opinion? I agree with Rhea; if you must have tinnitus, the cycling variety is 'best' ( never thought I'd use 'best' and 'tinnitus' in the same sentence) because at least you get a few days here and there, of peace.

 

Guess I gotta count my blessings...Hopefully, AT LEAST 2 days at a time

 

Mine is cyclic too (normally 2 days off / 1 day on); however, last Christmas day was a 4th day off (and I've had several 3 day runs). Nonetheless, during times of high anxiety it will turn on for days in a row.
This cycle is, unfortunately, a roller coaster ride (emotionally). Since your emotional state is intrinsically linked with your T, this is actually debilitating the habituation process. Don't get me wrong, I love my days off and I'm sure those that don't get days off feel cheated. However, in the long run you have to habituate (take your medicine) and the cycle tends to frustrate that process (I would find myself anticipating -- on pins and needles thinking about the next day on).
I do know for sure that high anxiety can kill my days off and that I can moderately improve my days off with a lack of anxiety; but it seems to bias more toward turning on (rats!). In other words, the amount I can positively affect it is less then the opposite. Nonetheless, my T has dramatically improved over the last (it's now a hiss vs. a dental tool and it's not as loud).
In the long run, I've learned to just drop it (that was hard to do, easier said than done). I find I'm better off simply not thinking about it or even really caring about it (in that I don't have a reaction to it anymore). In fact, during the times it turned on for days (my worst fear) I actually counted it as 'good practice' in that I got stronger in my ability to not react to it. Not reacting is critical.

I agree T STINKS! But it is livable...

Mark

 

I agree that keeping a diary seems to be useless as my T is so variable. It seems almost impossible to duplicate a good day despite keeping your "constants" the same.

 

This is very helpful, as my T follows a similar pattern to yours. I find myself thinking on the good days that maybe I'm finally being "cured" only to have my hopes dashed on the bad days that follow. The most good days I've had in a row was 3, and that was also at Christmas. Weird! I will try to control my reaction as you suggest. Thanks.

 

Yeah, days off are great. For me, on the "Days off" it is still there hissing or whistling away but at a much lower volume and I find I can go for hours without noticing it or thinking about it. Ahh great times. It is very good training in "How not to notice it". too. When it is reset during my sleep and I wake up and its loud, I go "Oh well, that's a bummer", and just get on with life. Its harder to just "not notice" the t when its loud but you gotta press on. All the best and I promise I wont use any more quotation marks to emphasise my words. R

 

Mine's the same Eric. Rog

 

I am going through the same thing. I love quite days and it kinda sucks when its loud. My T is louder from last two days. I am t work..AC is on and even with all computers and printer noise I could hear it. White noise is a life saver.

 

This is the part I can't figure out. I've tried to narrow it down to see what triggers it. I have no clue. Just when I think it might be gone I wake up the next day with it. It is dictating my life

 

I'm just getting off a two day stint of blissful quiet. It's amazing how my mood and concentration are several times better during these quieter stints. So much so, that I quickly forget about my T. Unfortunately, my body doesn't forget and, on the third day, I'll wake up back in hell. It can be truly torturous.

 

I have a few quiet days and then it comes back. I only wish it would go away forever.

 

getting slammed today after to baseline days. It amazes me how it can spike from out of nowhere. Seems like my head is filled with cement when it flares up. I get an awful headache, concentration goes out the window....Ugh!

 

What is it with this 48 hour.. Nonsense.. What the hells going on inside our heads .. I think the brain actually begins to miss hearing the tinnitus signal and goes hunting for it ..then when it finds it... Turns up the gain .. Thanks a bunch brain ..

 

I have a 48 hour or 24 hour on, followed by a 48 hour or 24 hour off. I've had 72 hours on maybe 3 times this past year and 72 hours off only once in 5 years (I was on a cruise with no cell phone on my hip!). Anyway, I think that something builds up in our heads over one or two days and then releases, giving us the tinnitus. Then whatever this is is used up over the next one or two days after which the tinnitus goes away. And then the cycle just keeps repeating itself. Sleep or waking up after a nap on the second day is the major catalyst that always turns mine on. There's something about sleep from 4 am to 6 am that most frequently turns tinnitus on.

 

Where are we stuck in life. Can't imagine thinking about these cycles everyday for the rest of my life. The variety of responses and experiences on this board gives an impression that T never fully goes away and is more or less permanent at some level even if it's very slight and soft

 

When did your T start to cycle?

 

Mine seems to cycle too. I used to have a low T day every once in awhile. Now I have the cycle more often. Some weeks I have 2 days in a row of low T--then it gets loud again for a few days. I had 3 quiet days (second time for 3) before my family emergency and then loud for almost a week. I've had two low days this week but woke up to it being very loud in the middle of last night. I've learned not to let it bother me. When it first started happening, I was disappointed and thought it was a setback when it went back to being loud.

 

I totally feel your pain my friend, mine sounds exactly like yours, mine started late March 2014 and has not let up.

 

Erik, couldn't agree with you more.

The OP, I'd take a close look at your routine and see if there's any signs as to why your T might be quiet for 2 days and then loud again. An example of mine is when I'm in between exercise days or I've become slightly dehydrated. It usually takes me another day to become hydrated again and then my T is quiet again. I also find when I expose my ears to loud noise like traffic it gets worse quite fast and then takes another nights rest to recover so I keep my ears plugged most of the time now and it seems to work.

 

Basically, it was that way from the beginning; however, it has always come on every single night (while asleep). And, yes, the only way I know it comes on during my sleep hours is because I wake up and hear it and when i wake in the morning. On days off, it will turn off during (or shortly after) my shower. Now, however, I sleep straight thru the night (like it isn't even there) so if it does turn off at night I have no idea.

But all that goes out the window during times of distress and anxiety -- it's on for days (and louder)

 

I experience this strange phenomenon too. It's been 11 weeks and it started doing that about after a week. It took a while to realize that's what it's doing. Bad day is a high frequency electronic buzzing sound that I can hear over everything. The better day is as if I can hear it lurking at a low level and I can focus on activities and not think about it.

How did yours start?

 

@Jay M Yeah, that's what happened with mine (after about a week); in one sense it's a blessing to have days off but it really made 'true habituation' extremely difficult (total emotional and mental havoc). Now that I'm habituated I can view the whole topic (and my life) with substantial objectivity. But man that took a while; in that sense it would have been better to be permanently on all the time.

Mine started very slowly. In fact, for months I had no idea what was going on and I actually thought it both humorous and relaxing (weird, I know). During the fall and winter months I would be awakened by the sound of crickets (the precise 'ebb and flow', pitch and tone of crickets). Well, I thought it kind of funny and the sound of crickets actually put me to sleep; so I would go back into the world of slumber never even thinking about it. Then one night I lifted my head up to really 'hear' the crickets and the sound disappeared (in other words I moved my neck to a different position). I didn't think anything of it; just odd. After weeks/months of this (through the fall and into the winter) I finally realized there are NO crickets in Nebraska during the winter months! Yes, I'm very slow @ 3 in the morning (DUH!) Even then, I thought nothing of it because it really didn't bother me -- in fact, it put me back to sleep (I like the sound of crickets). Furthermore, I had no idea about T nor had I read/heard all the horror stories.

However, in the first week of February (2013) I woke up one Sunday morning with a constant, high-pitched (dental tool) ringing in my left ear -- three/four weeks later I was a wreck (total wreck). I had no idea what was going on (didn't even know about T) and I got 'scroogled' (found all the horrifying stories and scams on the internet) -- that's what really sent me over the top.

At first I blamed an antibiotic (terbinafine) I had been taking to get rid of a toe fungus; now I'm thinking it was more likely a combination of too much Ibuprofen, enormous stress (not detected much less dealt with properly), and the natural hearing loss suffered by a 51 year old (kind of a three-legged chair thing).

Thank God for habituation. Even though it takes us 'cyclics' longer to habituate, once we do then we get to actually enjoy days off and the days 'on' just aren't really anything.

 

Stress, allergies and a exhausted immune system I think triggered my T-Day. I had a low grade upper respiratory sinus infection for about two weeks. No Rx meds just occasional bendryl and claritan. Cleared up but still sounded congested. Two days later woke up with loud ringing. In 2012 at the same time (early Spring), I had a 6 week run with T but soon forgot about it after it stopped. It's better than the first week but I hope...

I'd like to know people who have had cycling T, if they eventually recovered or resolved to very low.

Do you have Somatic T? I do and one phenomenon I'm experiencing with ST is if I'm running or something I can hear it change up and down. It makes me think it's something inflamed in my middle or inner ear.

 

@Jay M I can tell you that mine is down to about 42db from almost 70db (it was a screamer at the beginning). It may be even lower now; but to be honest I simply forget I have T for most of the day.

I firmly believe I have somataform T (because of neck issues) but I think everyone's T has an idiopathic component (within the limbic and central nervous system). I know I do a lot better when the 'cracktopractor' straightens me up; it relieves a lot of tension off all those back and neck muscles. Also, the better I deal with stress the less tension builds up. So, I know I score high in the somatoform T but everything is so tightly integrated.

I believe it does go way down (eventually); I feel like mine is somewhat negligible now -- thank God

 

Given that I've had my 3-day cycling tinnitus for 5 years now, I can tell you I never expect anyone's to go away absent a miracle. I can't believe that yours actually stopped. It's interesting that people on this board have their theories as to what is causing their tinnitus but no one has attempted to explain an exact 3-day cycle, no one.

Can you imagine medical science not being able to explain why a person with any other disease would have it every Monday and Tuesday but not on Wednesday? Can you imagine medical science not figuring out why a person has Parkinson's disease on Mondays and Tuesdays but not on Wednesdays? Or why you can't move your legs on Friday's and Saturday's but everything is fine on Sundays? Not hardly. But because medical science can't actually see one's tinnitus, they don't care enough to figure it out.