It Gets Better and Better but Very Slowly

It was around 02:30 of June 24, I noticed my ear ringing while I was about to sleep I freaked out and was going mad, there was nobody home, I tried to sleep hoping it will go away in the morning, guess what It didnt!

After 4 days It was finally gone, I was happy, though only for a day , because it came back, this time even louder! This is what's so annoying about tinnitus sometimes it drastically reduces in volume and makes you think it's over.

The first 3 months was hell, I was going mad, thinking all the horrible possibilities and pessimistic thoughts that you could ever imagine like "My life is over"," Life will never be the same", "I cant live like this" etc

If you are new to this thing you are not gonna believe me, but it does fade away. The only annoying thing is that the fading is not linear, sometimes there are spikes that makes you think "it is going worse" but it doesnt, in the long run tinnitus becomes weaker and weaker.

In my case the first three months were the worst and I noticed strong improvements in the 4th and 5th month, now it has been six and a half months and it is quiet enough for me to work in a quiet room and I think less and less about tinnitus and life is going back to normal, call it habituation or call it decreasing in volume I dont care much about tinnitus now my brain worked its way out somehow.

If you stress about tinnitus it is gonna hunt you so bad, if you ease up on it it will start to lose its grip on you but again very slowly. I know its extremely hard sometimes not doable but you should ease up on it

My opinion is, dont bother with doctors they are of little to no help and they dont know much about this stuff, they say "it will go" or "live with it" you will waste your money on them.

The battle with tinnitus is hard, but the cure is in your brain, dont search it elsewhere, I will come back with an update after some months and keep you guys informed

 

Very encouraging. Thanks, and glad to hear that it's better!

 

Thanks for writing this.

Please keep us updated on progress in the months to come!

 

How is your tinnitus nowadays, any updates?

 

Yeah, the doctors really don't have a clue. Ha ha..

Eat well, exercise, and mask but not all the time. -- Don't bother with all the supplements and snake oil remedies (I spent hundreds on that stuff).

At 2.5 years since a loud concert, I still struggle with it but stay busy and remind myself that there are much worse health ailments out there that people are dealing with..

Take care and good luck,
John

 

Actually now it is even much better, even when Im in dead silence in the night I dont notice it unless I somehow start to think about it, I have noticed that even in total silence I dont hear unless I start looking out for it, it is still there but at a much lower volume, usually low enough to be ignored the volume sometimes increases a bit but not much to be concerned about like the old days, I am happy and 90% over it. I can say that since my first post things continued to improve and now the volume is even lower compared to my post in january, tinnitus is not even in the top 5 concerns in my life now, I'm over it. Wish you all healthy days ahead!

 

Do you sleep in total silence every night? Do you have normal life, going to pubs, drinking?

 

Gabri, yes I sleep in total silence, like zero voice, maybe one or two cars passing from street every minute at around 1 AM that's like the only sound but I sleep almost exactly in the same comfort/peace as I used to before having T, some nights I just recall I am supposed to have Tinnitus and shouldnt be sleeping in this comfort , then I start looking out for the sound and start to hear a quiet high pitched noise and forget about it in minutes again. I have a normal life, I go to pubs and loud places like cinema, also my sensitivity to high voices has went way down, no problems present

 

Any tips you can give? Like were you avoiding noise? Wearing ear plugs? Stopped listening to music watching tv? Have certain loud days brought u back to square one or did they just slow down the process. Thanks jn advance bro

 

Dja I was irritated by sounds in the first 4months then my sensitivity to loud sounds diminished and I am not much irritated by them, I did not try to avoid loud environments much, I kept on watching TV and went to cinema in the 5th month, I was forced to attend a loud wedding in the 2nd month, and my sister's very loud graduation ceremony in the 2nd week of my tinnitus both of which I believe badly affected my Tinnitus and caused spikes so I advise people to stay away from very loud events during the first months of tinnitus, I stopped listening to music with headphones (reduced it 95% and when I listen, I do in low volume). I dont wear ear plugs, never did. There were days/weeks I had depressing spikes none of them remained, the healing process is noticed in long term, not day to day, not week to week, instead you can notice improvement from month to month, sometimes it remains the same for 2 consecutive months, though there are certain/noticeable improvements in intervals/steps of 3months, I hope this helps.

 

That gives hope. I am 4 months in and did not see any progress and was loosing hope. I manage to totally avoid negative reaction to it so I dont startle or have negative feelings when I hear it, but nothing changed. Hope, in time, I will get to same place. I think if I go to wedding or loud event, ears will ring more because that normal disco tinnitus will add to the existing one, but never knew how long I should avoid, I can't wear ear plugs to a wedding as I would not be able to talk to anyone, is just not normal life.

I know the cure is for sure in our brain, at least in my case, I made it louder because I got scared of it. I know that for sure, but was not sure wether brain can be trained to forget about it. So much hard the other way around.

 

Gabri , I had severe ringing too, but I talked to people who have experienced tinnitus and got rid of it, that diminished the concern about tinnitus in my brain and helped me to ignore it, I am sure if I hadnt talked to those people I would have kept getting depressed about it and it would stay constant or would improve at a slower pace, but I assure you, the moment you start to TRULY IGNORE it (though I know its extremely hard unless you are assured by many sufferers that it will decay ), it will start fading, I also read in many articles that the tinnitus has something to do with your stress/cortisol levels, so I think your reaction to it has a massive effect.

 

Love u bro. Thanks for answering.

 

I got mine after huge stress period and definetly is related to stress and cortisol, maybe adrenaline, had also panick attacks. After reading that is for life, I got really scared of it and monitored it so I trained my brain to listen for it. Such a huge mistake, if I knew it will go away, probably would've ignored it and would have diminished instead of raising the volume.

Very fast, the brain learns to listen for it, when in places a bit more silent, even though you could ignore it when some other noises are around, you find yourself searching for sound to check if its there. This is so bad and so hard to get rid of. During nightime is hardest, as for all of us, impossible to sleep in silence and ignore, even with backgroud noise, I hear it loud when having ear on pillow.

Did you drink alcohol or coffeine? I like an ocassional glass of wine and green tea.

Thank you for sticking out on this forum and giving hope!

 

I rarely drink alcohol, but I consume excessive amounts of caffeine both tea & coffee

 

6 weeks in my tinnitus is loud at night and soft during sleep or when I wake up.
But I see no progress.

 

Same here, ever since I did ear syringe it stayed the same. When i first got Tinnitus Sep 23, there was severe tinnitus for about three days, then moderate for a few days, in three-four weeks it dropped to mild and then very mild. Its been since January 17 and I am noticing any improvement whatsoever. I think I have caused more cochlea cells damage and of course with the loud sounds combined.

 

Yes please do. I have seen the spikes as well the lessening. I am in partial agreement as to letting go where as to not let it get to me etc.
I have to say the length of time I have delt with this has become at times overwhelmingly difficult to get to that state. I have stated in my profile, that my cause may be due to issues in my neck, jaw, and possibly brain stem. I am in agreement towards the Doctor(s) not having any luck.
So cheers and Gods speed to it completely dissipating for you.
It's been for me since the early 90's.

 

Ok it has been like 13 months and 10 days right now, and I am in a better position than my previous post, I experience gradual improvement because I made peace with the sound and convinced myself that I can happily live with tinnitus, there has been minor spikes but nothing like the first months as I said there is gradual improvement.

From may 8 to July 6 there was negligible ringing for the first time, meaning below the noticeable level in a silent room and I didnt even hear it in extremely silent places unless I focused on it , sure at some points in this interval there were tiny little spikes but I didnt care about them and they faded somehow, but I was over the tinnitus issue completely, but thenI developed other health anxiety problems, then on july 6 there was a minor/low volume ringing all of a sudden, I could have ignored it and it would have gone away but I obsessed on it, and for the last 26 days tinnitus is still giving me a little anxiety, though the spikes and the volume is much lower compared to the initial phase, and when I stress about it, it's volume goes a bit up, again when I ignore it , it diminishes. Overall, generally I am doing good, and the noise is barely noticeable for 2 days and noticeable but low volume for 1day, but as of now it is not completely gone due to my recent obsession about it.

Guys really, stop obsessing about it, this is the only way out, I believe our major problem is anxiety, once you beat your anxiety, you can gradually eliminate tinnitus, that is my experience , I saw a guy's post here in Turkish forums saying he has it for 8 years but didnt care about it after a year and since then he only recalls of tinnitus once in each month/year it means nothing to him, you know why, cuz he doesnt care about tinnitus and volume gradually goes to a negligible level, I believe everyone has tinnitus if they read about it somewhere and obsess about it, I read about an experiment involving healthy medical students in an ultrasilent room, it was discovered that 94% has tinnitus, it is normal. The guys on the forum who says that they have it for 10 years or so are just anxiety patients who didnt seek help and constantly obsessed about tinnitus, just ignore them , there are funded and reliable experiments which states that your constant anxiety creates increased electrical activity in your auditory cortex that gives you the sense of tinnitus, in the end hearing occurs in the brain. Fix your anxiety first!

 

"Actually now it is even much better, even when Im in dead silence in the night I dont notice it unless I somehow start to think about it, I have noticed that even in total silence I dont hear unless I start looking out for it"

This is the stage im at now...I have to really search for it to find it, otherwise I sit in silence quite happy and comfortably thank you. Even if somehow T starts buzzing about...my brain instantly swats it away...this usually only happens after too much caffeine or too much running on the treadmill lol.

 

It has been 15 months, I can safely say mine is gone, I hear a tiny bit, barely noticeable sound in the background but only when I recall about my tinnitus and start searching for the noise, two things helped me, acceptance & moving on stay healthy, God Bless!

 

What was the cause of your tinnitus and did you take any supplement, exercise? Also, is it fine or habituated? Thank you

 

Thank you all that have posted. I too am suffering from tinnitus that started 4 months ago in May 2018 after being exposed to loud music for several weeks in health club classes that I joined. But my actual experience with tinnitus started 2 years ago when I thoughtlessly went into a enclosed gun range without ear protection and suffered a lot of hearing loss. At that time my big issues were the hearing loss, pressure in my right ear, dizziness and only slight amount of tinnitus. I suffered for 10 months in agony but slow and sure began to feel more normal and suddenly unexpectedly my tinnitus stopped just like that after 10 months. I felt so good that I joined the health club and was enjoying being normal except for the hearing loss and hearing aids helped that. Then one day , the noise got to me and now my tinnitus is back again only stronger in volume . I am hoping that with time I again will heal as before but I know it is going to take a long time. I have begun to notice some improvement and have decided not to go to any more doctors because they just raise my anxiety level which makes the tinnitus worse. Anxiety is my biggest enemy and I am working hard not to focus on the tinnitus . So your stories are very inspiring and are keeping my spirits up knowing that eventually my body will heal itself.

 

Anxiety is my biggest enemy and I am working hard not to focus on the tinnitus .

THIS!

 

it's such a mental mindf&ck. I wake up to nothing and as soon as I think about it, there it is.

 

Hey, I don't blame you if you're not active anymore haha but I have a few questions. I have T for literally the exact same reasons you have it, and it seems as though I'm going on the same path as you which makes this post the most relieving and comforting thing I have read in my entire experience with T.

Now that it's at a minimal, if not gone, volume, have you tried to drink caffeine or alcohol? Or even smoke weed? If so, do any of those things spike your T to a noticeable level?

Also, did you ever use headphones for music listening up until this point? If so, how often?

Thank you so much if you do get the time to answer!!!! And thank you anyway for this wonderful post!!! Hope you're still doing well!