My (Low Rumbling) Tinnitus Stays Away After a Full Night of Low Rumbling White Noise

How I got my tinnitus

Two events (in chronological order):

1) Very stupidly (please don't judge - I already hate myself for it) used in ear headphones to be able to sleep while living in a busy city with loud neighbours. The sound I used was a low fan noise > that is exactly the sound of my tinnitus that I currently suffer from, isn't that flippin 'hilarious'/tragic.

2) I had a very short but very loud headphone accident (put volume up way too loud to listen to a video that had low volume - after the video music started to play which was insanely loud)

1 month after 2) happened I woke up one morning with a loud rumbling noise in my right ear.
The weeks following that were dramatic, I had to get on anxiety and sleeping pills, you guys know the drill...

Also I had/have the right ear popping/'itching'/fullness thing and some hyperacusis and some high electrical buzz. Also I have had muscle spasms in my right neck/ear - I guess it's just another way for tinnitus to manifest itself.

I went to two University Hospitals and had an MRI scan and 3 audiometry tests > result: nothing (nothing on MRI, no hearing loss > but I guess my hearing loss/damage is at a lower frequency than they are actually testing for > the low fan noise from my headphones in point 1) above.

Then a couple weeks later I couldn't sleep in my bedroom anymore, the tinnitus even came over white noise I had playing on my stereo and so I decided to change the scenery and sleep in the kitchen.
Kitchen has a Google Home where I played low rumbling at exactly the frequency of my tinnitus...
Also - I stopped sleeping on my bad ear (!)

What "stopped"/"stops" my tinnitus (temporarily)
1) Low rumbling white noise on Google Home while I m sleeping
2) Making sure I don't sleep on my right ear (hence covering it up from the masking noise)!

I explain it like this (unsure if this is a legit explanation): Since I caused my tinnitus by using fan noise in-ear to fall asleep (see point 1) ) for a considerable amount of time, my brain is "expecting" that noise and I'm pretty much giving the brain what it needs during the night.

After I've done that I can go an entire day without my tinnitus (and remember - it was LOUD rumbling, not minor tinnitus).

Last week I did an experiment where I slept on my right side for 2 nights (hadn't done this for many months now, for many months I had not heard my tinnitus) and lo and behold, my tinnitus was back on the second day, not as loud yet as at the highpoint in March, but pretty sure it was going there if I would have let it "flourish".

Obviously it scared the living daylights out of me since the T in my PTSD was back, so we immediately got in the car and drove to the sea (low car noise also cancels out my tinnitus).

Googled it and it came out on "Residual Inhibition"
Problem is that residual inhibition shouldn't make me tinnitus "free" for an entire day, only more like a couple of seconds after playing a white noise masking sound.

Anyone else with this same behavior?

 

Residual inhibition helps to calm down my "reactive" tinnitus when it's at the "whistling kettle" stage. I used the files from HushTinnitus which you customise to your frequency before paying £20 to download them. Well worth the cost for me.

Also I use "airplane cabin" sounds to cancel out my low rumbling tinnitus. This is different to residual inhibition, because the effect is immediate rather than delayed. I'm not sure how it works, I'm just glad it does, as it has helped me to get to sleep on a number of occasions. But I only play them through speakers, never through headphones.

 

How is your rumbling now? I have switched from almost exclusively high pitched to almost exclusively low-pitched/atonal (though still loud) in the last 9 months.

 

Not many responses about this but it seems to be a common theme here.

MOST low frequency tinnitus has a long inhibition which is one of its most unique attributes. Seemingly to 48 hours by flying on a long flight/car trip/going out for an hour.

I wish we knew if this inhibition is a sign of damage or simply a relief of a symptom.

As we know with regular tinnitus, ears do usually become sensitive and reactive to sounds a lot lower than the usual damage range. Setbacks and hyperacusis can happen from pretty low level sound for some people and I'd hate to be intentionally worsening long term for some temporary suppression.

However, if we figure that out that it's not causing damage, we can feel confident about utilising the suppression and inhibition to keep it at bay like @Ben Winders does currently.

If anyone who's had longer term low frequency tinnitus has any insight, please let us know.