How I Got Rid of Acute Tinnitus by Reclaiming Its Frequency

Hey,

I am new to this community. I got tinnitus 7 weeks ago.

I have this chirping crickets sound in my left ear. I think it was noise-induced after listening to music on a bike for 4 hours. Tinnitus started 3 days after this bike trip and listening to music.

What do you mean by "those type of sounds my be a symptom of something that an ENT could help treat"? I went to 3 different ENTs and they did all the tests - hearing test with audiogram, ear inspection, tympanometry and everything was fine. Do you think they could give me some drugs that would help to treat my tinnitus maybe? Or is there any other reason behind it?

ENT from Vienna, Austria who specializes in treating tinnitus said that in 50 % of times, tinnitus goes away within 6 months, but you have to disturb yourself, meaning not thinking about it, forgetting about it as much as possible and not listening to it - either be in a noisy environment where you don't hear it or mask it with the sound in a quiet environment. I try to do that as much as possible and it keeps me less anxious as well.

I still cannot sit or sleep in a quiet environment without some video or music on. Because this sound of crickets is nerving me.

But I noticed as well that when I listen to a sweeping sound and I turn it off after a while, my tinnitus is gone for around 30 seconds and then it slowly comes back in to its original volume. I practice this before going to bed usually, because listening to sweeping sound masks and calms tinnitus down and I can fall asleep within 30 minutes while listening to a podcast.

Hoping to help each other with some advice and information,
Aurora

 

Sounds like you're doing the right things and your symptoms should settle in time if you are careful and protect your ears when in an environment where sounds could trigger a spike. Try not to worry too much. I find deep breathing and mindfulness meditations have helped me. The audio book "The Present Moment" by Elkrief helped me, and there are lots of apps like Headspace. All the best to you!

 

Sorry to say, but all that "if you don't think about it, it will go away" advice is bullshit. With time you will just become better at not caring about it or not getting anxious, but that's it. It's just like if you had epilepsy and they would say to you that "if you don't care about the seizures, they will go away". No, tinnitus doesn't care about your thoughts about it. It's just there due to pathological reasons. But it's good that you can reduce it with external sound (that's called "residual inhibition" - you can Google that).

I don't know a lot about how you got it or how you think you got it, but don't be too fast to conclude that it was noise, especially now that it came a few days after that headphone use. It can also come about due to idiopathic reasons, aging, inner ear disease, labyrinth issues and ANY cochlea abnormality. A lot of us here can't find the actual reasons after years and many many ENT visits and tests.

Unfortunately there isn't anything that's proven to be effective as a treatment. But you can (and need to) take basic measures not to make it worse. Be careful not to be exposed to very loud noise and for too long, learn a bit about ototoxic medication etc.

Remember things will get better in time, even if your tinnitus stays. Hope I helped!

 

Thank you for your kind and encouraging words, helps a lot.

I'll check the audio book and try some meditation as well.

All the best to you as well!

 

Yeah, you're right, it was strange it started 3 days later. However, I first got pulsatile tinnitus which went away after 2 days when I did the Valsalva maneuver. And then 1 day after pulsatile went away, subjective tinnitus started.

I know it sounds stupid "not to think about it when it's there all the time", I have difficulties accepting and dealing with it as well. But I noticed that when I'm really busy or doing something interesting which takes my focus away from tinnitus, I tend not to notice the sound for a short period of time. But it still bothers me for the whole day basically, because at work I sit in the office and draw models and have to be really concentrated and precise, which I liked before. But now I'd rather have a more dynamic job where a lot of things would happen, so that I could forget about tinnitus.

However, at work I turn on some music, the news or sweeping sound so that I don't hear tinnitus, but I still think about it so many times during the day. Does it ever get easier? So that you don't think about it for most of the day, if you don't hear it?

Yeah, it's probably something pathological in my left ear and maybe the music just helped to trigger this malfunction.

Sometimes I have good days and sometimes I have bad days, especially if I can't get a good sleep during the night.

Did your tinnitus get better with time or does it not bother you that much anymore?

Thank you for all the kind words and encouragement.

 

Interesting. Instinctively (i.e. without ever having read these instructions), I tried basically the same method, just not with piano sounds but with frequency-matched sine tones.

It didn't help but made my symptoms considerably worse: My wife's voice sounded screeching and distorted, other music as well. Thankfully, the distortions receded a couple weeks after I stopped playing those tones, but the noises in my head never went away.

Caveat Emptor. I can't help wondering how I'd be today if I had not made that attempt to cure myself.

 

In my experience, tinnitus is a complicated thing, but all in all it's still a sound (although for some people it comes as a physical sensation, vibration etc too). Like the air condition or street noise etc, you can get it out of your focus when you are busy doing things and it "disappears" from your perception, so it's best to keep doing things that you like or keep you productive (easier said than done I know).

Since 1.5 years ago that mine started - mild (heard only in quiet rooms) but multi-tonal with 3-4 sounds, I've used plenty of sound masking (nature sounds, music, TV shows etc) and I still do, especially when going to bed. There are still times that I get to hear it (for example, if I close my ears or put an ear on the pillow at night), so I kind of got used to it. It also has good and bad days and my sounds fluctuate like yours. Unfortunately, it got sort of worse over time (still mild and very rarely moderate).

Even with a lot of masking, at around 10 months since onset it kinda stopped scaring me so much, so things got easier for me and I got almost "habituated". There are a few times it bothers me a bit when I'm in quiet rooms or silence, but noticeably less than the first few months. Sometimes I still need to "take a breath" using some good masking.

I can't speak for more severe cases of tinnitus, but if you are in the mild-moderate category, you'll be just fine in some months from now. Maybe it will even disappear for you. But habituation is the next best thing, but it needs time.