Looking for Some Feedback Regarding a Spike

[Polar-Bear]

I came home from hanging out with some friends at a local coffee shop and everything was fine. I did notice that the noise was roughly 75db at the coffee shop, which is still acceptable. Once I got home my right ear T started to pulse to my heart beat and it got really loud. Lasted about 30min and then slowly tapered off. Really freaked me out big time. Can a noise situation induce that? I looked up the symptoms online and people call it pulsatile tinnitus. Here I thought things were bad enough. I have noticed that sometimes after a warm shower that my T would be louder in my right ear, but then come down once I cooled down, but that 30mins was mega loud. Any thoughts on this would be great. I'm 35, so I'm not sure if this is an age related thing.

 

[Karen]

Hi, Polar Bear,

I'm no expert, but I do know about pulsatile tinnitus, from my own experience with it. I've had pulsatile T for about 2 1/2 years; it started suddenly, and has been with me ever since.

To answer your question, yes, my pulsatile tinnitus often gets worse in a high-noise situation. Then, when I get away from the noise for awhile, it calms down a bit. My pulsating never goes away, but some things definitely set it off. I have a very hard time watching television because of the sound level. It makes my ear feel as if it is vibrating; in fact, it feels like my whole head is vibrating sometimes. For awhile, I avoided movie theatres because of the sound volume. Recently, I've tried seeing a movie again, but I wore earplugs the entire time.

I've learned to keep earplugs handy when I'm going to be exposed to loud noise for any length of time! I don't think pulsatile tinnitus is age-related, but don't know if anyone has done a study on it to see what pulsatile tinnitus sufferers have in common. I'm 66 years old, but I don't think it has to do with my age. Mine started along with the trauma of getting on and getting off blood pressure medicine.

 

[Alexa]

I can't provide any feedback about pulsatile tinnitus, but my T also seems to temporarily increase in volume after taking a shower. I wonder why that happens. I stepped out of the shower just a short while ago and I'm experiencing it again right now, it's back to the original loudness of when my tinnitus first returned earlier this month.

 

[Karen]

Some people say they wear earplugs while in the shower, and that helps to reduce the tinnitus spike. For me, a shower is calming, and temporarily reduces my tinnitus. What a mystery!

 

[click]

I used to wear earplus when washing my hair because the T always spiked afterwards. I don't need to anymore thank goodness!

Things like this just show that we may all have tinnitus but we're not all suffering from the same illness...?

 

[Don H]

Polar Bear, where in Canada r u?