New to Tinnitus and This Forum

Hello all,

First and foremost I'm glad I found this forum. Just a quick back story on my Tinnitus. For whatever unknown reason on January 30th 2017 my ears began to ring when I got home from work. While I am sometimes in a noisy environment (IT data center) I always wear ear protection rated at NRR 25 db.

Anyway, as I said I have no idea what caused the initial ringing noise. During the evening the ringing seem to subside and things seemed better. Now fast forward to Tuesday 01/31/2017. All day the ringing is gone and things seem fine. I get home from work, greet my family, workout and go about my evening routine. That evening my nose gets congested and I blow out the mucous. Well... the ringing begins and has not let up since then (some days are better than others) this past Friday night as well as Sunday night were no sleep nights due to the ringing. I have tried some brown noise as well as a sound machine and it seems like the Tinnitus finds a way around the external noise.

I made an appointment with a ENT and saw him today. My hearing and pressure test results were excellent and upon examination he did not find anything physically wrong with my ears. However, he suspected that I may have created some trauma to my inner ear(s) via the Eustachian tube when I blew my nose. The good news is that the Tinnitus in my left ear seems to have stopped, or at least it seems to have stopped for now. The Tinnitus is still in my right ear. What is also interesting is that sometimes when I wake up I have no Tinnitus and it sometimes takes two hours after i wake for it to start.

The ENT put me on some Prednisone and a nasal decongestant to see if that helps. He did not seem overly worried about my condition and told me that it may take some time to heal and to give it a few weeks. Ironically when I was in his office I felt my left ear get a tad congested and the ringing started in it again but then subsided a few minutes later.

So, is my ENT perhaps on the right track? Also, any tips for being able to sleep at night when the Tinnitus seems to sneak its way around the external noises being created to cancel it out? Also, I do not listen to loud music or use earphones. I do enjoy going to the outdoor range and shooting once every few months. However, I have always doubled up on hearing protection with earplugs and ear muffs.

Thanks to all....

 

Perhaps you need to get different masking sounds hopefully some will cancel out T. But you can also try take some natural supplements for sleep, such as Melatonin, Lemon Balm, Kava, Hops, Valerian, Passion Flower etc. As for masking, here are some suggestions:
1) Mask at bed time so you can sleep better. Find whatever sounds/music that are soothing to you. You can use a sound machine or sound pillow for this, or a computer with speakers.

2) If you need masking on the go, try load an ipod with nature sounds or music using itune. If you have a smart phone, you can download free APPs for soothing or T-masking sounds.

3) If you have computer and speakers, you can try these excellent masking sounds too:

TT's audio player: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/audioplayer/

or this online sound library, particularly the self-mix nature sounds: http://mynoise.net/

or download free sound generator ‘aire freshener’: http://www.peterhirschberg.com/mysoftware.html

or search youtube with words like 'tinnitus masking sounds', 'white noise', 'rain sound' etc.

 

I've had T for years now. I woke up one morning and there it was. Last December I work up and it had suddenly become much worse. Over the years I had gotten used to it and seldom noticed it but now I'm back to learning to cope with it again.

There are a number of strategies what will help with sleep. Taking 3mg of Melatonin has helped me this time. I've been on Amitryptyline since my T started 13 years ago and that helps keep me asleep, while the Melatonin helps put me to sleep. Many people also run a box fan in their room at night--I've found that to help also.

Buying a good sleep machine and using it when you go to bed can help or there is an app available for iPhone and Android called myNoise (this is from the same guy that has the myNoise.net site mentioned in the post above). I've tried literally dozens of "masking" apps but myNoise has been the best. You can run it at night on your phone to help mask the Tinnitus. The trick to making it work best is to run it at a volume that is just below the volume of your Tinnitus. You don't want to completely drown out the Tinnitus so adjust the volume so that the Tinnitus becomes sort of a background noise. This can really, really help.

The myNoise.net website has the same sounds as the app, so you can use the website for free to find a sound that you find pleasant and that masks the Tinnitus and if you want you can then buy the sound from within the app. You can also just run the sound from the website on your phone. It doesn't stream the sound so internet usage for it is very low. The nice thing about it is that is has 10 equalizer-like settings so you can adjust individual sounds to mask your Tinnitus.

FYI. I am not affiliated with the app or website in any manner. My audiologist also recommended the app, for what that is worth.

Hopefully your T will go away, but even if it doesn't, most people eventually adjust to it over time.

I hope this was helpful.

 

Sleeping on my back, not to cup my ear(s) on the pillow and trap the sound in helps and fan definitely helps. The fan is stationed right next to me facing at the wall so it's not blowing on me or my husband! I just put a fan on the lower level of my home as well, or I have music on all the time! Hope this helps!