My Tinnitus Has Significantly Changed in Character in the Past Weeks

I developed tinnitus about 7 months ago. It appears to be sound reactive. For the past 6 months, the tinnitus has varied throughout the day, and varied depending on what I do throughout the day. Get little sleep? Tinnitus way louder, get plenty of sleep? Tinnitus way quieter. Listen to some masking sounds for a couple hours? tinnitus lower, wear earplugs all day? Tinnitus way lower.

About 3 weeks ago this totally changed, now my tinnitus is a constant 5/10 all day long from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. Nothing seems to alter it. I can wear earplugs which helps while I have them in. The tinnitus masking sounds I had been using for the last several months are only about half as effective, and I have to listen to them louder, and the second i turn it off the tinnitus is back at 5/10.

I've been pretty bummed out by this whole tinnitus thing, and having it change character is scaring me. I had some hope it would go away before because i would have like 5 days in a row where my tinnitus was only 2/10, and i thought "i can live with this if it stays like this". I felt like I had positive behaviors I could work towards to get better.

This 5/10 with nothing altering it at all is not helping my mental state at all. I've had a really hard time working. I should probably just keep the earplugs in all day while I'm not sleeping.

Here is an example graph of what I mean:

 

About a week ago I woke up and my tinnitus had changed in pitch a lot. From around 13 kHz to much lower. The only thing abnormal about the previous day was I took an anti-allergy pill (Zyrtec) which I hadn't taken since my tinnitus started a year and a couple months ago. Like I would say my tinnitus went from a steady 5/10 to 6/10.

I woke up today, 8 days later, totally normal day, plenty of sleep, and my tinnitus has lowered in pitch yet again. I was just messing around with a tone generator and it seems like it's now at about 2.5 kHz.

No clue where this is going. It's much more annoying at this pitch, but not sure if I'm just not habituated yet or what.

Scared these changes are part of a degradation process that's going to leave me in a bad place.

 

Hey,

Your situation sounds very similar to mine.

Mine has steadily gotten worse over the years. At first I could ignore it in some situations. But since a year or so it is ever present.

I can only give you words of encouragement.

Mentally I was in a terrible place. Since a while I have realized it’s not going to get better. The only thing I can do is enjoy life but be very careful and not complacent around sound.

Since that realization I’ve been doing much better.

Since your tinnitus is kind of new, I would advise you to give your ears a rest and don’t be ashamed to use earplugs in safe (for other people) situations.

Let’s hope for some relief in a few years.

Stay safe.

 

Thanks. Yeah, I wear noise cancelling headphones pretty much all day. With this new change I've been having to listen to one of those tinnitus videos basically all day to keep my anxiety about it down. I mean the the last time it got worse it stayed worse, so I've started trying to accept this new change. I'll continue to deal with it and it's not so bad, and if it ever does get so bad I'll take Xanax and listen to masking sounds 24/7 if I have to until one of these regenerative medicine drugs gets approved.

 

How are you doing now? I am considering taking Zyrtec for another medical issue I have but I’m so scared as I react ototoxically to everything I take. But I’m desperate for relief of pain I’m having which is said to perhaps be alleviated by Zyrtec.

Did your new tinnitus tone dissipate? Would you urge me to not take that Zyrtec med?

 

You should definitely stop using noise-canceling headphones. If you search this forum you’ll find they have aggravated tinnitus for quite a few people here...

 

I had something similar happen to my tinnitus after taking Zyrtec. The same evening the frequency changed from a low background, almost not audible, sinus tone, up to a much louder 1400 Hz.

It has since been the same frequency but the intensity varies. It seems that tinnitus is a possible side effect from Zyrtec.

 

Thank you for responding. I will stay away from Zyrtec then. I appreciate your input. I’m so sorry. My loudness has also increased in the past month. Horrible now. I cannot sleep hardly at all. I can’t stand it. I’m going out of my mind.

 

Given your tinnitus has just started in recent times - might it be due to the COVID-19 vaccinations? Tinnitus is a side effect and it’s not a ‘rare’ one.

 

You'll be waiting a minimum of 10 years, so decide if that's a good management strategy now.

 

Tinnitus is just so unpredictable. I have only had it for 4.5 months and the frequency has changed and also the loudness despite me pretty much staying isolated from noisy environments. For the first 3 months I could mask using rain, then I had to start using crickets, then blue noise - all at safe, low volumes of course. Now this week nothing will really mask it.

I haven't been to restaurants or anything really to cause a spike. Like you, I try to correlate the changes to something but who really knows.

 

Try a vasodilator or constrictor? Zyrtec acts on histamine receptors in the vasculature. It could easily be playing with your cochlea if it constricts, which would be my assumption. Because it doesn't cross the BBB easily, I doubt its effects on tinnitus are happening there. If it's staying that way post drug, that's interesting as maybe your tinnitus is metastable, basically meaning you should be able to attenuate it again.

Just some thoughts.

I'd give Pseudoephedrine or Betahistine a try.

 

Could you explain this to me? I don’t quite understand. I started taking Zyrtec a month or so ago and recently have had a sudden onset of new tones + a reactive/distortion component. I stopped taking Zyrtec a few days ago just because I’m trying to eliminate every factor I can think of. Are you saying Zyrtec can have a negative effect on tinnitus, or positive?

 

This is the mysterious part of tinnitus. Mine amped up after moving from the desert to a high humidity city. Very annoying, and nothing I've tried seems to make any change. Causation eludes me. The last few days it's been lower. Today I laid down for a nap, woke up, its louder, but not as loud as it has been. Not one thing changed other than I took a nap. All I know for sure is what makes it louder (temporarily). Strenuous exercise and loud noises.

Masking noises usually work, but not always, and sometimes it makes it louder. You hear this over and over, and of course it's impossible to do this all the time, but if I'm busy, it takes my mind away from it. I'm beginning to think the best thing to do is move next to a highway that has the constant sound of traffic. One person's noise is another person's sound.

 

It's now more than a year later. I've had 2-3 escalations in the tinnitus sounds since then. I can no longer listen to the tinnitus maskers on YouTube, now they actually make the tinnitus much worse. The only thing that calms it now is a couple hours of silence. My baseline tinnitus is now like a 6 most of the day. I'm pretty afraid for the future. 8 months back I developed this oscillating tone just in my right ear, that I could only hear when the general tinnitus noises were pretty quiet. I can almost never hear the oscillating tone anymore. My tinnitus is usually louder than the bathroom fan. It's starting to compete with the shower.

I take Zinc and Melatonin daily hoping for some placebo effect, but those have stopped working along with the YouTube maskers.

The most recent escalation started like a month or two ago. I just woke up one day and the sound was different and louder and there was no reason for it. I told myself it's just a spike and waited months, but it just never went down.

I still wear my noise-cancelling headphones 75% of the day. Now it's almost required to sleep.

I haven't been to an audiologist. I just do those stupid online hearing tests. It seems like my hearing is still fine. The pitch of my main tinnitus sound is like a high-pitched white noise. I can't even match it on a tone generator anymore, maybe it's like 12 kHz.

Sorry for the depressive post. My friends and family got bored of listening to me complain already years ago.

 

Perhaps it's the noise-cancelling headphones causing the worsenings?

They produce artificial sound which causes some people's tinnitus to get worse.

 

Yeah, it did with mine after one day.

 

Hmm, okay. I started using them after my tinnitus began and I noticed silence helped it. I'll try and go back to earplugs again and see if it affects anything.

 

Wearing the noise-cancelling headphones all day is not a good term solution, and probably making the noise sensitivity worse because your hearing is not used to be around noise anymore. I had a very long period that I was very afraid of noises because of my reactive tinnitus, but slowly I abandoned most of the irrational precautions, and the reactivity is much lower now. The only activity that I don’t do is going to live concerts, other than that, now I am able to do all the activities that I used to, and listening to music is great again. I consider music to be a very important healing factor, and likely one of the reasons why musicians do not complain too much about their tinnitus.

I am far from being who I was before tinnitus, but I lead a normal life. The fear is gone.

 

I went to a tinnitus specialist and she highly advised to NOT wear earplugs or noise-canceling headphones all day everyday. Only when going to very loud places, like a concert or music event etc. Wearing hearing protection 24/7 actually increases the intensity of tinnitus, and over time also produces hyperacusis.

 

Wearing hearing protection 24/7 for most sufferers is probably overkill, but only wearing to very loud places sounds too extreme to the side. There are even loud sounds right around home that you should wear earplugs or protectors for, such as blender, vacuum cleaner, mower, snow blower, power tools, motorcycle. I didn't used to in the past, but if I could go back, I would change that and prevent this problem.

 

Yeah, for sure. I actually wear earplugs when vacuuming and have on hand for loud environments. I am fortunate I have mild tinnitus, but I stay cautious.