Is This True? Tinnitus Becomes Chronic After 3 Months?

I had T in my right ear for over 3 years until I got a stapedectomy for my otosclerosis. It worked until an unrelated complication arose some months later. Complication aside, my T was totally gone for a while. The attitude I have is that if the T can go away even just temporarily, then it's possible for some practical method to put it away permanently in the future.

 

That's why it's really important to narrow down the root cause, because sometimes it's actually fixable, as in "the T will go away for good".
I took my chances with my stapedotomy but wasn't lucky (I had T before and still had T afterwards).

 

I agree with your last sentences in bold. However, two things;

1. Recovery of hearing tresholds doesn't automatically mean your hearing has recovered
Hair cells do recover to a certain extend, but they are not thought to recover after a certain amount of months since onset of damage. As I recall correctly, I have read in studies that hair cells have not been seen to recover after 3 months since onset (but this could also be because the patients weren't properly followed up after 3 months). Furthermore, the brain is thought to be able to compensate somewhat for hair cell damage which may result in seemingly "better" tresholds. This is called the "central gain" theory, where the brain ups the "gain" for your hearing to maintain the same amount of input. This "gain" is similar to the gain on a receiver for example; turn it up and you have increased gain, yet a static noise is often also audible. This is thought to be one of the possible explanations for some kinds of Tinnitus.

2. Recovery of hearing tresholds means little to nothing for Tinnitus
There are lots of people with severe Tinnitus yet perfect hearing after performing an audiometric test. This teaches us that audiometric results do not necessarily tell much about Tinnitus. According to Liberman a possible cause for some kinds of Tinnitus is now thought to be cochlear synaptopathy, where the actual connection between hair cell and auditory nerve is lost. This type of damage cannot be measured as of yet and will not show up on audiometric tests. You might have severe cochlear synaptopathy going on and not be aware of it because your audiometric tests make you think you have the hearing of a bat.

But I agree with the rest of your piece; no one can tell you whether Tinnitus will be lifelong. I prefer to think of it as "long-term" Tinnitus rather than permanent Tinnitus. Maybe the synapses can rewire themselves and reconnect after a while like they continually do in other parts of the brain, maybe the brain plasticity thought to be a cause for Tinnitus can also "plasticise" the other way, maybe the hyperactive neurons responsible for your Tinnitus die off after a while, resulting in silence. Who knows? We are living beings and ever changing.

 

I hope so, but I don't know how to narrow down the potential root causes. Any ideas? I regularly clean my ears so it's not earwax build-up. I haven't noticed any change in my hearing, although only the hearing test I'm getting in a couple of weeks can confirm that. So what are the other possibilities?

 

Didn't you mention a "complication" as a factor that made the T resurface? Maybe there is some causation there?

 

I have pretty much given up any hope of tinnitus going away for me, 8 months in, the chirping sounds, ringing, hissing popping are all coming from the damage in my inner ear along with the hearing loss and balance issues. All caused by exposure too a crazy powerful alarm.
No way anyone could take a blast like that and not have tinnitus.

Depressing as hell.

 

I talked to a lady the other day that her and her husband worked in a noisy glass factory until retirement. She has T and her husband after 20 years of T woke up one morning and it is completely gone. Personally I have some high freq hearing loss and have high pitched T that I hear over the TV, driving, almost everywhere but the shower. I have noticed each month I go for longer periods of time that I dont hear the T and some days it still can be annoying but as long as im busy I know I can go for hours without notice it. With most of us every month you improve slightly till you get pretty much habituated. Habituation to me is you can go for long periods without noticing it and when you do hear it you just dont give a dam anymore. Im going into my 14th month and I live pretty much normal except Im more carefull with ear protection in noisy invironments...

 

You know, it's very interesting for me when someone "likes" a post I wrote a long time ago, and I go back to see what they are liking. I have to tell you, I can't believe how far I have come. I wrote on this thread in Sept. 2013, about four months into my tinnitus. I talked about how unhappy I felt, going to a party -- I can still fell the misery and the panic. Tinnitus, and figuring out how to survive it, totally consumed my life.

Today? I go wherever I want. Parties don't bother me at all. Sure, some days T really annoys me -- but it never truly factors into my life. My old posts sometimes feel like they were written by a different person. So take heart, my TT friends. It CAN get better!

 

I wonder, do you fear sudden unexpected loud noises?

 

Thanks a lot Vinnitus for your very interesting inputs. I will try to give you a feedback about them later, but in the meantime, here is an interesting study about your input #2 :

"The Auditory Sensitivity is Increased in Tinnitus Ears" (2013)

http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.francais/archief_FR/1.2549714

 

That link doesn't take me to the right place, but this one does.

 

Thanks Greg! Just a mistake, the previous link has of course nothing to see with T! Direct links to .html and .pdf article are:

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/6/2356.long
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/33/6/2356.full.pdf

The research and article seems very interesting.

 

Hi @JurgenG, have been meaning to respond
I no longer "fear" loud noises, interns of constantly worrying about encountering a loud noise. But I did somewhat in the beginning. It gradually subsided. I came to realize sudden loud noise is everywhere, you can't avoid it, but most sudden loud noise of a few seconds is not going to hurt you beyond causing a spike.

I do startle more at loud noise now, though, and immediately jam my fingers into my ears and leave the area immediately. I also carry ear plugs with me. Everywhere.

 

Me too. I gave up hope of it going away completely at 6 months. I had a lot of hope, time, and energy invested in the AM101 trials and with the failure of those I gave up hope of any sort of treatment any time soon. It's been more than a year now, and the only sliver of hope I have left is that I will be able to habituate, but I'm not sure if I can habituate to this tinnitus.

I agree with what Vinnitus said about hearing thresholds and hidden hearing loss, but I also think the etiology can affect the likelihood of it going away.

 

I gained my Tinnitus around 40 days ago, due to an idiot yelling straight into my left ear. He thought it was funny. I couldn't even get him back, due to how stunned I felt, my head immediately felt like exploding.

I'm American, but this happened here in México, so the legal system is a bitch, and most likely he will get away with it like if nothing had happened. Right now I'm triple timing my efforts to obtain some sort of legal justice, but living in one of the most corrupt countries, makes my redemption chances rather slim.

I'm soon to go back to live to the States, but I'm very crushed by the fact that one scream was all it took to cripple my existence. I never thought one shout could do this to me. I feel alone, I feel like I can't run away from this torment. No matter what I do, the painful noise haunts me down from the moment I wake up, until I close my eyes.

It has become hard to go to bed, since my Tinnitus is that acute intermittent ringing sound. The only benefit about symptom, is the fact that I seem to be more productive, due to the fact that I just can't fall asleep until I'm totally drained of energy.

I'm an architect, and I do sure miss the silence that permitted my brain to think freely.

What really gets me is the fact that I feel robbed out of my favorite hobby, being in nature, growing plants and trees, and listening to tranquility. That is all long gone. The only moments of silence for me now, are those ironically traffic filled areas and hectic urban atmospheres.

I've been to a five different "Otorrinolaringólogos" (ear and nose doctors) and every single one tries to prescribe or drug you up with different bullshit medicines, that when I research about their side effects, they seem to do more damage than anything (shrink your balls, glaucoma, obliterate your muscle structure, give you moon face, destroy your teeth enamel, osteoporosis, bone weakening, the list goes into infinity). I can't help but feel that the only good doctor is a dead doctor. Fucking scam artists! They even know what's up. Screw "Prednisone", I'm scared of what it can cause to my body.

I feel fucked over, and then fucked twice tenfold in my left ear. I feel lost, I feel like the famous Edvard Munch's "The Scream" painting, or at least like the human like character that appears in it, trying to cover his ears, but not really being able to escape that maddening sound.

 

I understand your unease and frustrations as many in this forum have experienced the same. Things will improve for you but there are certain steps I advise you to take to aid your recovering. Please click on the links below and read the articles in full. Try not to skim through them.

All the best
Michael

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/tinnitus-a-personal-view.18668/

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/hyperacusis-as-i-see-it.19174/

 

It's a very interesting question. Presumably tinnitus, at least from noise or ototoxic medicine, begins in the cochlea and eventually shifts to a central tinnitus. This must be the case since tinnitus can develop immediately following trauma. There just wouldn't be time for a neuroadaptive response. How long this may take is the question.

Another question would be that if it is initially generated peripherally, does it resolve there or remain there before shifting to the brain or going away entirely. And why?

 

Chances are that the pitch and volume of the sound that you will end up with will be less annoying than what you have now. There is even a possibility that you will spontaneously recover. https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/spontaneous-recovery-stats-over-70-recover-3-studies.21441/

 

@ChristopherD Why did this person get so close to your ear?

 

I've seen various companies, organizations, medical professionals vary on this.

Some say chronic after 3 months
Some say chronic after 6 months
Some say chronic after 1 year

The time period it takes for tinnitus to be chronic is a pretty nebulous concept. Because theres a lot of different causes for tinnitus. And that's not to say if you are in the chronic period that your tinnitus won't just go away one do or you could do something for it to go away. There are people with tinnitus for years that get rid of impacted earwax, or otoscleroscis, or eustachian tube dysfunction and then the tinnitus is gone for good!

 

@ChristopherD I've been where you are as so many of us here on TT, but it does get better. At least our reaction to it and in many cases the T itself. The stress you feel adds to the torment you mention which doesn't help the T, kind of a nasty cycle. What has helped me is to do what I can to make the sound emotionally neutral and not a torment. Not easy but it saves me. I agree with you about being more productive! I love getting lost in a project and forgetting about it. Work usually saves me too. I also agree about the doctors - I just had an appt with an ENT that I waited 2 months for - not particularly helpful, well maybe a little. At least I wasn't surprised due to the experiences of so many on the forum. I recently read an article about Michael J Fox and his Parkinson's disease, where he said that those of us who have the condition are the actual experts in many cases, not the doctors. I'm a bit pill-phobic, but when I need to, a tiny bit of Xanax really helps.

 

Well I have had T for 6 months, but not 6 straight months. Mine seems to come and go..so I think it can go away permanentlely .....but do the obviois; protect ur ears and all that.

 

Tinnitus Post #2

@Sam Bridge This asshole got so close to my ear, because I was giving him my back, since I was watching a local final soccer match over at an acquaintance's place with some other people, and the asshole crept from behind me and cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed, "Goaaal!!!!!" with all his myth right into my left ear. As I said, I was with my back turned, so I didn't even see him coming. I felt dizzy and stunned, I couldn't do anything...

This picture was taken by what was supposedly a friend of mine, but although now that I ask him to be my witness for the trial. He now claims he didn't hear anything. Although this photo was taken by him minutes before the idiot yelled into my ear. Yes, it's the guy with the cap. I kept telling him to stop bothering me and stuff, but since he's very problematic and violent, I didn't want to get involved in a fight with him. He just wouldn't understand that I was extremely fed up with his bullying, and bad taste jokes. He would stop, but minutes later he would continue to pull his pranks. I was sitting down in the same place that you can see in this photo above, but looking towards the other direction to where the screen was.

What really gets me is that I have all the evidence to prove it, but since I have no witnesses, it's like if it had not happened. The law here in México is a joke, I'm starting to believe justice doesn't exist here. Impunity is enjoyed by all evildoers left and right here. Cops are bribed all the time. Policemen here accept $5.00 US dollar bribes for things you wouldn't believe. I'm not saying that currently in my particular case, any law enforcer has sold out yet, but I already have faced a ton of negligence of just trying to file my complaint and local Public Ministry. Again I feel hopeless in this legal system. It's like a bad dream I wish I had never had. Why did I even attend that get together to watch a sport that I could give a hot less about? I wish I could go back in time, but don't we all?

Although I have both nationalities, American and Mexican, and have lived in both countries on and off, and in other countries like Germany as well. As much as I think México has a ton to offer to the world, I would still have to say that anybody who is against Trump border tightening policies, I bet has never lived in México. Or at the very least hasn't had a taste of what the real México is like. If you're cool with laws existing and seldomly being implemented, then México is your promised land. Honestly, I bet this would have not flied in the US.

I even have the "WhatsApp" conversation messages where I confront this dude about the situation, where I'm telling him that he has to man up to the responsibility of his actions. And even though I've got him to admit it, I'm still worried that the law here is really not going to do anything, forget about him getting any sort of punishment. I wish I also was a lawyer, to better defend myself and not have to worry about the lawyer selling out. They do it all the time here. What really got me, was what the lawyer I've been contacting told me, "People who lose limbs here in accidents by the fault of other people (here in México), are usually offered around $5,000 US dollars as settlement offers for their lose." That's bullshit, people just don't know how crude life is here.

So I have to say this, "Buy Mexican, when well you feel like promoting injustice. Buy Mexican, when you feel like promoting slave like labor. Buy Mexican when you feel corruption is the way to go. Buy Mexican when you would like your country to be run by criminals, that's what most politicians here are like anyway. Support Mexico when you believe journalist killings is what freedom of speech should be like." Sometimes I feel like a revolution must occur to stop this nonsense of a country, but people here are proud of being able to get off the easy way, and it's like a vicious cycle. I believe that's a reason why things don't progress here.

The idiot even told me, while he laughed, "Were not in the US, you think the law is going to do anything to me?", for which I have no more comments to say. But deep down inside me, both my Mexican and American soul, feel like I can't let him get away with it, even if what he says is indeed true, at least not without a fight, which I still owe him. I don't know where this will end. I feel overwhelmed.

I truly agree with what @Rosemerry mentions about what Michael J. Fox said about his feelings about Parkinson's disease, where he said that those of us who have the condition are the actual experts in many cases, not the doctors. There's no doubt about that. And hit exactly home, in terms of how I feel about being defended by a lawyer in court for this Tinnitus injury, especially when the lawyer doesn't even understand the condition or what living with this symptom is like. How can I expect him to stand a fight over something he doesn't even comprehend? At that rate, I kind of get the feeling that I would be better off defending myself in court, I'm already deep into this mess anyway.
Don't get me started with the doctors. One of them told me to just try to ignore it, to not think about it, to forgive the guy who did this to me. I really wonder how he would react to just half the pitch of my ringing lingering around in his head for just half a day, just to see if his opinion would change.

Not to get anybody on the down side, but another one of the doctors who I went to, also has Tinnitus, and on her website she claims to be a Tinnitus expert. So when I asked her how has that gone for her, she replied, oh I still have it, I just got used to it now. After hearing that I just felt torn apart, and wanted to leave. By the way, yep, she's the one telling me to take 60 mg of Prednisone and tapering down the intake for 12 days. I will blame it on night, and consider her to be the exception to J. Fox's rule of thumb.

After almost a week of 3 hours of sleep per day, I'm starting to consider that poison, I mean Prednisone. In actuality she said Prednisone had a 3 month window to take effect when getting Tinnitus, but that only 1 out of 4 patients showed improvement, according to the studies she was basing her findings, so she said.

I know this message maybe went down on a diverging path to what I had initially intended it to be about. At the very least it got my mind somewhat distracted and it made me blow off some heat of my shoulders. If I offended anybody in anyway with my views, I can't help it, I feel the need to question things. I do it all the time, I can't help but being dead honest about stuff. If there's something I hate, it's people not telling the facts, even if they hurt. I don't appreciate being sold fake promises, I don't think anybody does.

On the positive side, my mom called me today, and told me she read an article about this guy who was going mad due to Tinnitus, and that after years of researching on his own, he made his own concoctions that included turmeric and ginger, and claimed to have vanquished the killer "T". My mom is my heart, she gives me strength as well as a reason to have hope in humanity. I wish I had never told her how bad I'm taking this Tinnitus crap. I hate it when I see her get sad because of stupid shit I say about things that happen to me.

 

@Bill Bauer Thanks for sharing that thread. I'll comment on it later, good thing I'm getting tired, but I like that you included the references.

I wish there was a way to measure one's degree of Tinnitus, to help better understand the condition. I feel it's not just about inner ear damage, but both brain and neural as well, like the synapsis being jammed and being triggered due to them being in a sort of eternal loop. I wonder if this causes any other sort damage on the long run. I do feel a higher sensitivity to sound, not exactly as what I understand as of what I've read so far as being hyperacusis, or maybe it is? I still need find out more about it. I definitely don't feel like going out to loud places anymore.

I'm not really into religions, I'm honestly not a believer, but if my Tinnitus spontaneously fizzled away. I would make an effort to change my views, shit I'd even start listening to Justin Bieber for that matter just to pay some homage. I'm being silly here, but really if I had that one shot at being back to normal, I'd give back tenfolds helping others.

P.S.- Sorry about my previous rant like post... it's the Tinnitus getting to me.

 

That guy is nothing more than a criminal in my eyes, I hope he pays the price for his behaviour soon..
Hope you are improving as well, how is your T? Does it fluctuate? How would you rate it?
And how and what did you feel after the yell?

 

@ChristopherD Grow up. Yes every problem is solved with suing (sarcasm). Americans are so "sue happy", especially when they dont want to take responsibility for anything themselves. That still won't solve your tinnitus. And very mature for posting a picture of the person.

Your tinnitus would have probably come about anyway if you really had that weak of ears. Maybe they weren't in the best health to begin with. If it wasn't him, it could have been a future fire alarm that would be set off, or ambulance that is rushing past you, or even a kid (maybe even your own kid) screaming or crying next to you, or an action movie you see at the theater. Then you would have just as equally blamed them.

There are lots of unexpected noises in our world. Today I was at a baseball game and a 3 year old was screaming at the top of his lungs. Screaming....not cheering. And due to my ears being weaker due to noise damage, his screaming was agonizing. But thats life. Besides, how could he have known that you'd get tinnitus from the yelling? He probably doesn't even know about tinnitus....and you probably didn't either till you got it.

 

I agree that it's quite likely that he would have gotten T from something else, because yelling is normally not loud enough to do any serious damage. But hey, he ended up with T because that guy was an utter idiot, and is clearly a douchebag. He deserves a law-suit.

I've read quite a few stories of people playing with other people's ears, and getting no punishment whatsoever. So this has to end, if you would break someones arm you would get into more trouble than damaging someones hearing.

 

@JurgenG People always yell during soccer matches...it's tradition and the rush of the sport...heck, during any sport or competition. That happened to me many times with friends and cousins where they came up to my ear and shouted. Never did I get Tinnitus from that, although I'm not denying that its possible.

It's all fun and games till someone gets hurt. (And then they sue).

 

Sounds like H to me.

I had my shot - I was getting better. But by the end of month four, I pressed a loud phone to my bad ear and erased much of the progress. Can you imagine how this feels...

If he were to sue and win, then others would think twice about victimizing people around them in the future.

 

The thing is that people don't know and not a lot of them ever will, let alone a corrupt Mexico. That dude is a douche but he probably wasn't thinking "let's give this guy tinnitus". I once had someone whistle with both fingers next to my ears during a football match, my ear was ringing but it stopped after 10 seconds and did not give it a second thought at all. Not untill it gets you and doesn't go away.

In the meantime I hope you give your ears rest (no headphones etc) and try relaxation techniques to help you with your sleep.