How Would I Know if My Tinnitus is "Temporary"

My tinnitus came right around before I had a rather nasty cold. My ENT say _maybe_ that could be the cause of it and it may be temporary.

Since then, my tinnitus has gone from a low, metallic grinding sound to a higher pitched hiss/buzz and at times it sounds like dry rice falling on a pane of glass. There are times when I don't hear it hardly at all. Then the last three days it came on full blast. Now it is like the rice grains again.

Are these signs it could be temporary? The doc said it could take up to a month. I'm on week 3.

Any hope?

 

I think there is always hope it can go away. There are people who have had it go away after years even. I don't know any signs that it may ne temporary but I wouldn't wait around for it to go away. In my case waiting delayed my habituation but I think in the begining it's something we all go through. Fingers crossed yours goes away friend.

 

Since you haven't had any significant event like ridiculous noise exposure or severe head injury/whiplash, there is a good chance it might go away on its own. It really has it's own mind.

If it goes away, great. If it doesn't, you will have eventually reached to a point where you are least bothered about it and something which seems life threatening now will be a minor annoyance. Learn to ignore it/manage it and don't wait for it to go away like the above post said. Hang in there.peace.

 

Thanks everyone. When I went to the ENT 3 weeks ago, he sent me to an audiologist who checked my hearing. It was "lower" at one frequency. However, that was the frequency of the tone that my tinnitus was making which was louder than the sound test up to a certain decibel. I would say then that I probably don't have hearing loss. So, I am hoping it is temporary.

 

Hello cullenbohannon, when I was reading this thread I noticed that you said 'waiting delayed your habituation' is that because you were hoping in the first days and months like us all that it would go away ? how did you eventually get to where you are.? I have had mine just over 6 months now and I am about to start a course of TRT, did you do that to habituate?

Can you define for me habituation does it mean you literally now cannot hear anything only if you really go hard looking for it, I am intrigued to know as I just cannot imagine being able to do that with the soft jangling noise that I have and a constant midtone hum in the background as well over that, can you let me know please, how long did it take you.?


Appreciate your thoughts.

 

Since you had a cold, it will go. It could take a long time, but not too long. My dad had a bad cold and had Tinnitus for nearly two months before it fully went. I expect yours to be the same.
Floyd "Money" Mayweather

 

Hey TokyoTony, Hope your T IS temporary and you get some relief soon!! In the meantime, do your best to not let it get you down and don't let T take charge of your life!! It's a drag for sure, but you can rule over it instead of the other way around!!

And BTW - how cool that you have Championship Boxer "Floyd Mayweather" posting on your thread!!!

Jeff

 

Hope this answers your questions @Freddie

I noticed that you said 'waiting delayed your habituation' is that because you were hoping in the first days and months like us all that it would go away?

Hey Freddie, what i mean that waiting delayed my habituation is that in the beginning i looked for every cure, and any reason why my T might have come to be. I tried a lot if different vitamins, diets, etc. Then everyday i would hope tomorrow or next week it will go away. I kept putting of trying to habituate, i refused to live with it for the rest of my life. Im not 100% but a million times better,

how did you eventually get to where you are.?
Personally Ive had a few experiences in my life where I developed certain traits, and learned lessons that have helped me to deal with difficult situations. For me i think this was a major reason why im doing better. Also xanax was a huge help to me.

how did you eventually get to where you are.?
A lot of people use TRT, @Dr. Nagler Nagler is the go to guy about TRT. Check out the doctors corner and look at what he wrote about it, The TRT and neuromnics question is very informative.

Can you define for me habituation does it mean you literally now cannot hear anything only if you really go hard looking for it ?Habituation means that you no longer react to your T. So in the beginning what most people do is they think they have good days when T is low, and bad days when t is loud. The point of habituation is so that no matter what is happening with your T you dont react. You can live your life the way you did with out T. The anxiety and depression is gone. So as you react to it less and less, you notice it less and less, if you have any appliances running in your home a refrigerator or air conditioner you know its there but you don't really pay attention to it. My fridge is loud but i can concentrate on everything i need to and only hear it when i think about it, it becomes background noise. Your brain has the ability to put it in the back of your mind and focus on whatever you need. I can go hours with out hearing it because it does not bother me, when i hear it i can go back to what im doing because it really does not bother me. Do you ever do anything, where you cannot hear yout t for moments, when your reading something or when you're typing or whatever your doing. You will be able to do what you want when you want for how ever long you want. IT IS NOT A CURE so your t will be there but think about why T is a problem , its the anxiety your t causes you if it doesn't make you feel that way its a good place to be. Now i am not 100% habituated but im doing very well i have some bad days but mostly good.

I am intrigued to know as I just cannot imagine being able to do that with the soft jangling noise that I have and a constant midtone hum in the background as well over that, can you let me know please, how long did it take you.?

I have a high pitched tone in both ears, i have a weird electrical voltage sound in my head, i have sound distortions, and pain in my ears. Also my T cannot be masked most of the time And i am doing great, As far as TRT @Dr. Nagler is sure that it does not matter loudness, pitch, number of tones, his is extremely loud and took a long time using TRT and he doing quite well it seems.
It seems that way in the beginning but its not true. Im close to 5 months but listen it does not matter how long it takes but once you start doing things the correct way and follow the TRT protocols im confident in a year from now you will be a different person .The length of time is different for everyone, . You will get better freddie, let me know if you have any questions PM me anytime.

 

Thanks so much cullenbohannon I shall stay in touch and let you know how I get on.

 

I woke up at 3:30am this morning and thought something was strange. No T noise. In fact, Is started to worry...is something wrong. I even tried to imagine what it sounded like to see if I wasn't missing it somehow. (Weird how the mind works.) I had this "break" for about 3 hours and didn't want to sleep. I was enjoying the silence and worried that if I went back to sleep, it would come back.

Well, I did eventually drift back to sleep and when I woke up, the T noise was back, but it _seems_ lighter today.

Nice to have one of "false alarms" every so often!

 

tokyotony
I did that same thing for quite some time during my first couple months (wake up, no T, didn't want to go back to sleep -- silence was precious). It's a good sign that your T shuts off during sleep and a good sign that T was very low the next day. The bad thing is that you (like me) are searching for your T; I'd say don't do that but I was guilty too (it's impossible tell yourself not to focus on something without focusing on that something -- a true conundrum).

To get out of the focus-conundrum you have to break all emotional ties with your T; in other words, you won't focus on what you don't care about (turn it into a non-topic, emotionally speaking). This is not easy to do; for no other reason than T freaks you out and is the cause of much angst. Since your limbic system is integrated with your auditory system, you have unwittingly made emotional ties to your T; you need to break them. Therefore, the more you can turn your T into 'persona non grata' the better off you are. But this takes a while; there are issues to work through -- but most definitely doable.

Either way, if your T turns out to be temporary -- awesome! If not, then you will be well on your way to the 'who cares, I have T' status and your life will be back to normal -- or whatever normal means to you (no offense, just kidding around).

Mark

 

Sounds to me like you're on the mend.

 

I hope I am getting close. I had a few days earlier this week when I barely could hear any of the tinnitus--and a few moments when I heard nothing. Today, there is a high pitched tone but faint.

In other words, the intensity seems to be decreasing over time.

 

T started in 2007. Habituated within 6 months. In my case, T was always there but I NEVER listened to it in 6 years. My brain really put the sound in the background and the loudness of the T "faded". Even with my head on the pillow in the morning, I never thought about the T!! T was really at the bottom of the list of what describes me!! It was almost excluded from my life...

Probably that if I had listened to my T, I would have found it. But I never did. I may have had spikes but I never noticed. I was stressed out several times (pregnancies, miscarriage, divorce, financial insecurity) but I never noticed my T increasing.

Hope this helps!

 

That does help thank you, i think you did well to habituate so quickly, I have had mine just over 6 months now and have just started TRT so fingers crossed it all works out so I can get to where you are and it just becomes insignificant , did you do anything in particular as I try so hard just to get on and live life as before but my mind wanders so quickly onto my seemingly loud hiss it becomes hard not to keep listening .?

 

Freddie, what helped me back then is just living a normal life. Work, my then husband, my daughter, doing community work, going on vacation... my T started in December 2007, in March & April 2008, I was slowly starting to habituate... at the end of April, life was pretty much back to normal. At the beginning of May 2008, I got pregnant with my 2nd daughter and my mind was elsewhere...

The months in between December 2007 and when I started to habituate were hell. I almost commited suicide. So I perfectly know what you're going throught. I was doing the same things you are doing, reading online about T, looking for something to comfort me...

Then one day, I read some testimony... some people that were living happy lives even with T. Some happy stories with good endings... I started crying... and that day, my outlook on life changed. I decided that T was not going to rule my life!! I was gonna get over it, no matter what.

That change of attitude was a turning point in my habituation.

Now recently. I'm having a spike. Same thing. Some very difficult days and then a change of attitude. I have to overcome this. It's not gonna kill me, I'm strong, I can do this.

You are not alone dear. We're all in the same boat. It is possible to have a happy life even with T.

hugs xx

 

A couple of things: If t changes and/or stops sometimes, this is known as a good sign in the early stages, that plasticity may not be setting in. There may be a chance that it will go. But if you did find hearing loss in your audiogram around the same frequency as your t, this may denote t due to hearing loss, and this may often be a less temporary sort of t.

 

A short update on my tinnitus…. For the past week or so, the sound has been relatively low. In fact, just now, all I seem to hear is a few "dry rice" sounds. I still hear it, but only if I really think about it. There was one day where it was louder but no where near the level in the beginning. Hopefully, I am on the mend.

One thing I have recognized very recently is that I seem to have even more clarity around the lyrics in songs. Before, I couldn’t distinguish many of the words in the lyrics. In other words, I would hear the words of a song kind of mash together—that was happening since I can remember. Now, the words sound very distinct—like I can hear each enunciation. Interesting.

 

@tokyotony, that's a good sign that your T is changing. Most likely it will vanish completely in your case or settle down to a small hiss on most days. I am sure things will be positively different for you in a month or two. Just protect your ears and don't expose them to loud noises. Even I have that dry rice falling sound behind my head

 

Well, I'm a bit disappointed to report that my T has come back stronger. Not as loud as it was in the very beginning but the low level I experienced a week or so ago, to the point that I didn't really hear it, has been rare for the past week. Seems to be rather constant except I do seem to get a break in the morning.

I was hoping this was going to be temporary, but I guess not. The only difference I can think of is I stopped taking silica, which my wife recommended after he started taking it for a different reason.

This is a bit frustrating, but I hope it will recede like it did when I was taking silica..I've started taking again.

 

I can only say that my T has been constant now. Somewhat quiet in the morning but louder during the rest of the day and especially while I am sleeping (although I am used to it enough that I can sleep).

I started acupuncture. Interesting that my T gets very quite right when I lay down on the treatment bed before the acupuncture starts! I also find it gives me some relief for a few days but it doesn't seem to be sustainable.

I start TRT next week.

So, I guess my T is not temporary after all. Oh well. I'll keep trying!

 

Has it been constant for awhile?

 

Your T sounds mild...I'm sure you will habituate quicky if it doesn't go away.

 

Jay,

Yes, constant for a while but manageable.

Tony

 

I only notice mine at night when the volume decides to go up, Dunno why

 

Tony
did u T go away?
Anusha

 

Yours sounds exactly the way mine sounded and mine went away completely in a little over a year.

 

Mine is still here tho possibly mild. Still very irritating when trying to sleep.

 

No one can give you an answer to this. Tinnitus is unpredictable and nothing is guaranteed with it. I can tell you this much, stress/anxiety can make it worst and make it possibly last longer. Wether your tinnitus is temporary or not, you need to not focus on it and just carry on with your life. It's never easy, but that's life in general.

Good luck