I Can Hear Tinnitus When I Press My Ear Closed — If I Press REALLY Hard, It Goes Away?

Adding to the list of my Very Weird Symptoms:

1. My tinnitus stops while I exercise and 1-2 hours after exercising.

2. I can make it stop if I push VERY hard into my ear canal, and sometimes just below.

I'm still waiting on my night guard, but it's starting to look a lot like it's TMJ-related.

The exercise increases blood flow and diminishes muscle tension, and pushing into the ear canal is inadvertently releasing some muscles around that area.

 

Can you hear your tinnitus without exercise and without pressing your ear closed in a quiet room? How did your tinnitus start?

 

I can hear my tinnitus as if it were a faint whistle in the background without pressing my ear shut, but that's around 50% of the time. The rest of the time, I have to block my ear to hear it. On my left, I usually have to block it to hear it.

When it started in January, I would wake up in the middle of the night to extremely loud spikes but it doesn't seem to wake me up anymore. I still hear it mostly in quieter rooms, but I'm able to sleep through the night now.