Kind of a Success Story — My Tinnitus in Right Ear Stopped, and Decreased in Left Ear

Dear all

First of all apologies for not coming back earlier to share my story. I have been reading over and over again the success stories in here and they really helped during my 1.5 years of anxiety and depression because of tinnitus.

Long story short, 1st or 2nd of October 2016, I was 28 years old, I woke up hearing a massive noise such as a grocery store or car alarm, no joke, I woke up my wife and asked her what is happening. She does not notice anything and I was just thinking she is too disoriented because I woke her up and I fell asleep again thinking it's just a fucking alarm.

Next day I woke up forgetting what happened previous night but somehow was very anxious full day.

Then 2nd night back to sleep waking up again in a massive noise, but this time I finally realize that it's in my ears only. Full panic attack, start reading, sleepless night and to shorten it, for the next year I slept maximum 2-5 hours a night. Going to work was horrible, but I missed only 3 days of work in this period. I could not distract myself. From the moment I was arriving home, 4-5 hours just googling about what can I do. At night I was crying for some hours as neither my ORL doctor nor other doctors could find any solution. I was having full white nights or 1-2 hours of sleep. I was losing hope and it got worse and worse.

After 3-4 months a change happened. I just booked a massage to a physiotherapist with no link to the tinnitus. She saw me extremely upset and depressed and asked me why. I told her and she immediately told me that we can try some procedures to neck, jaw, back, shoulders and see how it works.

Fast forward 5-6 months of 2 times a week appointments, tinnitus in my right ear stopped. It was amazing, however in my left ear it was still as loud as fuck.

Fast forward another year with very little progress on the second ear. I was again disappointed as I was really hoping that the left ear will stop as well but it did not.

I stopped physiotherapy, by this time habituation started to kick in. I was sleeping 5-6 hours, amazing, however still a lot of daily anxiety and depression but I was sleeping.

At the same time, after 1.5 years in total, I was doing a dental check-up, professional cleaning and I started to tell the doctor that I have tinnitus. At that time I was telling everybody I have tinnitus and how bad it was because I could finally say it without crying. Maybe I was not strong enough by that time and it does not sound too manly, but in the beginning when I was explaining to someone why do I look so bad and lack of sleep and depressed, I could not explain without bursting into tears.

My dentist sent me to a colleague who was an orthodontist and he saw my teeth are teared because of bruxism and also bite misalignment plus very tensed ocular muscles. He decided to tailor me a splint that could start a realignment process and relax my muscles.

Fast forward 4-5 months of wearing the splint, my tinnitus reduced by 50% in the left ear.

Now after 3 years I still have tinnitus. If I am not stressed I don't clench my teeth at night and tinnitus is low. If I have stressful days and I think something, I have bruxism and I wake up in the morning with loud tinnitus. However after 15 minutes of jaw muscle stretching it slows down a bit and by next day it's again 50% lower. Now I will put the braces and hope that after bite misalignment is corrected my tinnitus will decrease more.

My success story consists of more than that. I became stronger, I lost 32 pounds, I am fit, I turned vegetarian and am looking after my health very carefully which makes me feel good. I now realize how important health is. I would also like to mention that I did not want to take pills except for 2-3 days. I felt very bad and decided to stop them.

Overall it was a huge journey with ups and downs. I guess it's not the success story you expected. I remember my disappointment when I was clicking through a success story hoping it was about tinnitus going away but in 80% of the cases it was only diminished or they learned to live with it.

Cheers. I am 100% sure that with patience it will get better. I'm usually very negative and I did not adapt because I had positive thoughts. It just happened because I guess that at some point your brain gets tired of it and you just start to fall asleep more.

 

Thank you for sharing your story! It is tough for me at times too. I have tinnitus since 2017.

 

While many people probably live by a ''it's not cured until it's gone'' mentality, I'd happily sign for a big reduction in volume. If my tones could just quieten by half I'd be so happy, honestly, because that would bring me to a ''quiet room only'' stage which, until we get some real cures, would be perfectly liveable.

Again, that's just my view. I'm happy for the OP and hope to get there too.

 

Do you have a before/ after of your teeth pic? And how much did that cost? I saw a TMJ specialist that said they could help with my T, that I have bad bruxism and misaligned bite. Then they asked for 8k, and I decided to look elsewhere. I also feel visual symptoms as if my ocular muscles are also very tight!