My New Favourite Succes Story (No Habituation) — Tinnitus Gone After 16 Months

I read this story on reddit and right off the bat I fell in love with it because it looks so much like my situation (headphones induced). Wanted to share it with all of you:


Tinnitus gone after 16 months

Hello, I am writing my story of how my tinnitus disappeared. When I first got Tinnitus, I'd spend countless hours reading about success stories that would give me hope that this ailment would eventually disappear. I am writing this to pay it forward and to hopefully give hope to current sufferers. This isn't a story to promote any product or herb or whatever that some people say helped to eliminate their tinnitus. I acknowledge that I am one of the lucky ones and that quite frankly, not everyone will have their tinnitus go away.

Background: I obtained tinnitus in February of 2016. I was plugging my earphones into my Macbook Air. Before tinnitus, My friends would describe me as a person who could never be seen with earphones, I always had them plugged in and music was my life. I remember very clearly the events that led me to develop tinnitus. I was listening to music at the time and unknowingly had my Macbook air volume at the max, at a part of a song where the song was incredibly loud. It was quite unlucky, to say the least, lol. Instantly, my right ear began to ring and it was constantly annoying and I noticed that I also had hyperacusis in my right ear as well, as everything felt oddly "loud". It felt like every room I went to that there was a loud ringing sound. I went to doctors and to be honest, none of them helped me. My mood began to get incredibly terrible and I was easily irritable. The constant sound of a low pitched ringing was incredibly annoying and for many nights, I failed to sleep and in university lectures, I could never concentrate.

Eventually, I got tired of feeling terrible about having tinnitus and I changed many things in my life, which let my tinnitus improve substantially. My hyperacusis eventually faded and my tinnitus diminished to the point where I could only hear it if I put my finger inside my ear or if I put my ear directly against a pillow. First of all, I stopped using earphones of any kind, which was extremely difficult. Second of all, I started using earplugs when I went clubbing or at any event where I thought it would be loud. Lastly, to be honest, the weird part of this was that I just got busy with life in university and I stopped thinking about tinnitus. Of course, my tinnitus came back at times would worsen when I used earphones or neglected to bring earplugs to a loud event. Regardless, my tinnitus improved slowly, to the point where I could barely hear it at all. I guess I could say I was used to the sound of tinnitus to the point where it didn't bother me anymore.

That brings me to these last few weeks. I've noticed that I can't hear my tinnitus at all, even after putting my head to a pillow or my finger instead my ear. I'm no ENT or expert about tinnitus at all, but if I had to hypothesize, I'd say it's because I let my ears rest from any type of acoustic trauma and I stopped thinking about it. In my eyes, tinnitus also involves a mental battle, as before, the more I thought about it, the "louder" it seemed to get.

Regardless, I doubt I'll be going anywhere loud without earplugs and I probably won't ever use in ear headphones ever again. I hope that my experience will help many others who are currently dealing with tinnitus.

 

Hi @Salih - Thanks for sharing this story; a very hopeful and encouraging one!

 

What kind of ear plug did you use?

 

I used the in ear headphones that came with my iPhone 5S.

 

A very hopeful story. I think a lot of people often do make near complete recoveries.

 

I am so happy to hear your success story! I remain optimistic that mine too will go away in time. I have tinnitus in both ears and hyperacousis. It started with a loud concert, but I feel that stress and anxiety made my TMJ worse and I think that is why my tinnitus, stuffy ears and hyperacousis remains. I am being fitted for a splint tomorrow for my TMJ and I feel that this will help me over time. When I got a massage a few weeks ago he concentrated on my TMJ and my tinnitus was 90 % gone the next morning, however, returned that day. I do my own TMJ massages now and take a motrin for inflammation afterwards and it makes my tinnitus better. I too stopped using earbuds and use earplugs whenever I am at a loud event and hope hat over time all of my issues will dissappear. Thank you for sharing your success story and I wish you the best!