Is Hissing Tinnitus a Good Sign?

Past 3 days I've had a hissing sound instead of the high pitched ringing. I have to say these days have been much easier. It's way less intrusive and easily maskable. Whereas a week ago it was bothering most of the time. Not it bothers me when I put my head on pillow or when it turns a high pitched ringing again that's only masked by a few thing but that usually doesn't last long. Couple minutes.
Still bummed I have T and it bothers me when I hear it but I feel better now. So is hissing a sign in healing?

 

It's not indicative of anything.

 

I'm just like you. The past week has been much better for me. Hopefully it's a sign of something positive, or at least the high pitched ringing doesn't come back anymore.

 

Thats not very helpful.
In my past experience a change down to hissing was progress and I know others for whom going down to hissing was a step forward. In my mind it feels like the nerve is less stressed when it goes down to hissing.

 

Yes hissing means your nerves are healing. Keep doing what u are doing.

 

Hissing definitely is a sign that a step forward was made towards healing.
If the process that used to lead to an intrusive high pitch sound, so neural impulse of high intensity changed into a phenomenon that leads to only a hissing sound, so less intense neural signal, that means that the variables that contribute to the appearnce of tinnitus changed, and they got closer to normal values.
So congratulations and I hope the improvement remains stable or even makes another step forward.
Think about what you'very been doing the past 4 days, maybe you identify "something" that lead to improvement. Maybe you did something or maybe you didn't and there was no exterior factor and the body just healed (went towards normal) inside.
"Some" healing definitely took place, but there in so guarantee that the healing will continue, nor that things can't slip back to where they were.

The same thing happened to me, my T in left went away and the high pitch T in my right ear that is killing me right now had been transformed into a totally manageable slight hiss, but that result went away with the first major stress I encountered after this, so my almost complete healing went back to catastrophic T in a matter of ....hours (minutes, actually)
Say away from stress and stimulants, eat and rest well, exercise, thse are the only things that depend on you with which you can try to "lock" this improvement..

 

I agree 100% with you. Your words are gold. Some people are so negative that they can't accept other's success.

 

CarloZ

Have you been doing anything or taking any steps that might have caused this?

If so, what?

 

I would say it's a good sign.
When I had a super spike a few years ago, the frequency came down from hissing and squealing to a lower and louder horn-like sound, for 2 years !!!!
My goal was to get it back up to the hiss sound. So I would say yes, a good sign.

 

Up until this recent spike, my T was mostly a key-jangling or cricket-chirping noise, just in my right ear. Now it's back as a dog whistle/fluorescent light hum, as in my first days, plus I now have it in my left ear sporadically. My head feels clogged, too. So I'm not sure if my T was going away or if I was in an early stage of habituation, now with a setback. But I guess the point is, if we're not noticing it or it seems less intrusive, it's all good.

 

Does anyone have the hissing in their head (central T)? I have never had it in my ears. When it started 10 months ago it was a loud tonal sound and predominently on the right side. Now it is bilateral. When I have the hissing it is very loud and not easily masked. I actually prefer the tonal sound. My T varies from day to day. It almost sounds like air being let out of a tire. People often talk about their T but don't always specify where it is localized. Can someone educate me. What it means when it is just central?

 

Yes, you can feel the sounds deep in your head. I experience that. The good news is it will fade away with time. Mine started a constant roaring sound to hissing.

I am 9 months into T but I am in full recovery mode.

Patience guys!

 

I've had hissing for 18mths+. It's not central though. More to my left ear now. It's bloody loud and unmask able at night.

 

Does anyone have hissing that causes musical sounds to distort or which increases in volume in response to sounds like water splashing?

 

I used to get that to loud voices, is that a type of h or is it reactive t or both ?

 

I am doubtful if it is the hissing that causes the sounds I hear to distort. I think it is because of the actual damage in the inner ear. At the moment I use a CRneuromodulator. When I use this Neuromodulator this hissing in my ears/brain starts soon after. The distortion I hear is in my opinion not worse because of the hissing. My tinnitus goes up when I use the water tap or other sounds in the same frequency band. (4-8kHz). This has always been the case after the noise damage.

 

My hiss reacts to certain sounds, yes. It can get louder when I try to fight it with sound therapy at times, that previously had a positive effect, so you could be experiencing something similar. I think it's probably a sign it is settling down, but also becoming permanent. To answer the OP, I think it's obviously less annoying than the ring, so it's not just a good sign, it is good.

However, when I still had the ring, I could use sound therapy to more easily identify the pitch/frequency and it would give me complete and total silence temporarily, even if it was only seconds at a time. Unfortunately, nothing seems to have a positive effect on the hiss. I have yet to find any type of sound that can give it pause even for a second. But I am finding sounds that can cause it to increase.

What I found out out is that what worked yesterday in terms of sound therapy, might not work the next day, and something different would. If your CR neuromodulator was set to work on static frequencies, it may no longer have a positive effect, if your T changed or, or perhaps regenerated part of your hearing. You might need to get it recalibrated. This ACRN based sound generator/treatment app worked great for me when I had the ring, and since the hiss became more permanent, and ringing diminished, it can actually make the hiss more apparent.

Hope that helps. As far as distortion, I have not experienced that up to this point.

 

Thanks for the info!
I do have an appointment in two weeks time. Re evaluate and perhaps re adjust. I have only used it for two days and the hissing is a new experience for me. I find the hissing less intrusive than the tonal tinnitus. But that is probably because the hissing is not so loud as the tonal tinnitus sometimes is.

 

Yes it's less intrusive, but also way more stubborn. If you notice it gets louder when using it, I say stop. Listen to your ears and brain. For a day or two after I reached that period I found only masking helped to give my brain a temporary break from the hiss. This in particular:

12 Hours - Heavy Rain on a Tin Porch Roof with...

Then yesterday it was as if my brain were telling me, I had enough of that too, I'd rather just listen to my little hiss over here. Today the above is soothing again.

My T is apparently very dynamic it seems when it comes to sound treatment. It can build tolerance. It can change. It can react. That's why I'm not 100% sold that those static sound devices could work long term without constant monitoring, and re-calibrating, unless your T is really, really constant. And then if the sound therapy starts working over time, obviously it would change your T volume level, or shift the tone, remove the ringing, thus it would probably require some re-calibrating. Hard to believe it would be as simple as set it and forget it, long term.

I will keep looking for anything that might have a more positive impact on the hiss. I just believe the hiss is probably a combination of a lot of frequencies, across multiple gaps of lost hearing ranges, very low in volume, therefore harder to pinpoint and affect with beeps.

Keep us posted on how it's working for you and what they have to say about the hiss when you go in.

 

I started a post in: Acoustic CR® Neuromodulation: a New Treatment for Tinnitus
I will use the neuromodulator a while longer before posting something meaningful.

But yes hissing is definitely more frequencies than one. My hissing sounds like violet noise. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise#Blue_noise

By the way: at the moment it reverted back to a low level, one tone (roughly 9.5 kHz) again. I stopped using the neuromodulator approximately one hour ago.

 

Yep very similar to what I have going on in my left ear, though now I also have a soft clicking type sound going on in my right. And a little electric fluttering moving from right to left, stereo. That last part really feels as if its related to my circulation, because I can almost feel it pulsating into the hiss. Good thing it's all very low in volume.

Good to hear yours settled. Sometimes the best treatment is to listen to your body, ears, brains and what it's trying to tell you.

Here's something else that just worked for me when nothing else seemed to do any gooed. Laying down in bed in total and complete silence, motionless, listening to it, listening to the intensity growing, just trying to relax with it, and taking about 20-30 deep breaths. Very de-stressing. Feel much relieved. It seems it can cause severe tensing up without really realizing it. It took a few breaths to the point of dizziness, but I feel a lot better.

 

When I go to sleep I am not reluctant to listen to my tinnitus. When I do that I simply fall asleep. I am not kidding. I am often aware when I go from conscious to unconscious (sleep).
At that moment I hear my tinnitus abating. I know, because sometimes I go back from almost sleeping to awake again and my tinnitus goes up like turning op the volume on an amplifier. Weird sensation.

 

Very interesting, because I was talking about that a couple of days ago. You hear your brain turn it off for a split second in that moment of drifting to sleep?

And yes yesterday morning I experienced the volume adjustment too when waking up. I could hear my brain turning it up....down....up, down. As I have been documenting, sleep has reset mine every single night except one. 3 days I went to sleep in either total silence or near silence, and sleep brought it back in the morning. Two days ago I had 16 hours non stop silence in my right ear, and barely audible T in my left. Then 3 hours of sleep was all it took for it to come back full blast. The way this treatment was working for me, I may have kicked it all together, if I could have just never gone to sleep. It never got louder throughout the day. It either went down, or stayed constant. Just while sleeping.

There is something there. The brain has the ability to shut it off for good. I noticed it do it. More than once. You seem to notice it. How do we tap into that though? We are still such primitive creatures, that we can't just seem to be able to have our brain control the thing that harms us, and have it shut that switch. Even though you can certainly see it has that ability! How disappointing!

 

I hear when I go from wake to sleep mode. In sleep mode there is no tinnitus. tinnitus is only present in your consious part of the brain. I noticed this and this was confirmed by my doctor.

When your tinnitus starts after sleep, perhaps something happens with your neck. A pillow issue??

I believe our subconscious is very sophisticated. Perhaps more sophisticated than our concious brain. I started watching a program on the BBC that talks about the brain. Our subconscious brain has amazing potential.

Hearing damage is not repaired like in birds and fish. Something in evolution opted for a less constructive path (that is the way I see it now. Left with the burdens of hearing damage).
Apparently evolution not always chooses the most beneficial path, although this is what supposed to be the mechanism of evolution. Perhaps science knows why mammals don't have the ability to regenerate damage in the cochlea.

 

Hi. It's really hard to accept that the hissing, which intensifies with certain musical sounds, paper rustling, water splashing etc. is due to hearing damage, though I suppose it is. Lately it's been more or less constant. I went througha period of fairly frequent relief from this and these occasions were wonderful because I could listen to music without the intensity of hissing that I'm now getting. The problem is I can listen to music on a small system, say a Bose dock, and it's ok, but monitor speakers and p;lenty of amplification, ie "realistic" listening levels tend to bring on increased hissing. I'm really sad that my periods of relief are decreasing. Any thoughts, anyone?

 

Another thought I'd welcome some comment on. In common with many sufferers I went down the ENT route and a hearing device was recommended. The thing is I don't have any hearing problems regarding conversation etc. But would a hearing aid serve to lower the passive volume setting (as it were) of my hearing?