Have You Tried Silence?

I am curious if anyone with sound induced tinnitus has been in silence (as that of a typical bedroom, with no sounds from traffic outside or anything that can mask the tinnitus sound at all)? For how long and what happened?

 

I tried that lots of times and it got a lot louder for me. Then I freaked out and got even LOUDER. Then I freaked out more

 

I used to think about it. What if person with tinnitus is completely isolated from external sounds for... let's say.. a few days?
I think it must be horrible, but when get back to normal background, it feels like hearing perception is better, more faint sounds registered. Just my opinion. I don't think I am brave enough to do such experiment.

 

I sleep in a very quiet room every night without any masking whatsoever. I also sit in a quiet room without the tv or masking on; sometimes for several hours without a problem.

Depends on my emotional state and my fatigue levels as to how much time i can spend in the quiet.

 

I never use masking simply because nothing can mask my combination of low and high beeps, hums and tones. Sometimes in a very quiet room the T can fade to very low. Usually this is a residual effect of tenazepam or phenergan. Very welcome when it happens but I know the T will be back to its super loud state in a while.

 

I generally find silence tolerable. For a long time felt like it made the T better.
When my high pitched T sounds disappear.(Leaving only others). I find silence extremely enjoyable.

 

If you like the restaurant to turn down the volume of the music in order to avoid tinnitus to spike, how can you handle that situation? Usually the staff misunderstand me, and increase the volume instead. Few people seem to ask for lower volume.

 

Thanks for this very interesting thread- I have not heard people talk about this before. I've often said that my tinnitus seems to compete with ambient sound and it demands to be heard.... it seems that the louder the sound levels around me, the louder my tinnitus becomes.
I also sleep with no masking, and sometimes wear earplugs (yes I am being careful of hyperacusis) and I sleep the best when I have blocked out all ambient sound. My tinnitus does not disturb my sleep.
I've had moments during the day when my tinnitus suddenly fades to the background when I'm not thinking about it ....almost a sensation that I nodded off into a brief sleep, but I did not. I quickly realize that my tinnitus got quiet and wonder how I did that ....and then the loudness immediately comes back.