Noise-Induced Tinnitus Recovery After 2 Years (Not Habituation)

I first heard tinnitus in late August of 2015. It was weird, but I was just thinking about it one day when I came across an instance of some musician having tinnitus. And I wondered what that would be like. And then all of a sudden I could hear it. You can imagine that this freaked me out a lot. It seemed like it wasn’t at all real, because it’d seemed to come out of nowhere. It took me an age to accept (if I ever even fully did) that this was now the state of my ears. I don’t actually think. however, that my brain just pulled the sound out of nowhere, because it was the middle of summer with crickets blaring outside my window all day every day, so I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t looking for it in a sealed room, and I /had/ been to a concert a week prior that had been far, far too loud. Painfully so. I remembered hearing ringing in my ears after leaving the venue and thinking nothing of it. I had my right ear closest to the music and had been kind of plugging my left with my finger for a while.


And now I was left with ringing in that same ear.


I don’t think my T was very severe at all, but I can’t really tell if it was moderate or minor. I completely lost it. I have a history of depression and it absolutely destroyed me. I left for university and kept thinking that it would go away. I read about timelines for these things. And kept bargaining and extending the “deadline” for it to go away. I told myself things like “it’s still only 2 months after the fact.” I changed my mind about how loud it was on the daily. I checked constantly. My first inkling that it had gotten a bit quieter was November of that year, but I changed my mind constantly about this as well. Thinking “you’re kidding yourself nothing happened” and the next moment thinking “it’s gonna fade it’s gonna fade.”


Things went on like this for months. I started to think it might actually fade around April 2016. My tone seemed to have faded into white noise, but it was still annoying, and there were days that I thought I could hear the tone again. I was still freaked out. That summer I started saying that my T was basically gone. And this was true, on some days. And not on others.


Flash forward to now, April 2017. I definitely have significant reduction in T. The bulk of that reduction happened after the 8 month mark ish. As of now, I can hear a slight bit of white noise, but is genuinely not bothersome and I’m not sure if I had it in the first place or not. I no longer feel the need to check constantly. While I do think the anxiety in the beginning (and the middle and the end ha) plays a big role in what you hear, habituation can most definitely not explain my recovery, not entirely.


I will now forever protect my ears, never put my ears in danger like that in a situation I didn’t even want to be in bc it was uncomfortably loud. Still scared of clubs, but I didn’t like those in the first place. In terms of what I did to improve, I’m not sure what to say. I massaged my neck, did TMJ exercises, and alternately masked with these, when anxiety was high:

http://www.infinitelooper.com/?v=a_LRAI3GkOs&p=n

http://www.infinitelooper.com/?v=a_LRAI3GkOs&p=n

http://www.infinitelooper.com/?v=FkVX52AdX5o&p=n

I also tried to sleep in silence. I don’t know if I was imagining things or not, and I know people who have done this for years and it has apparently never helped them, but I thought it helped in the long-term. I’m not sure, though.


Note: I found out I could manipulate it slightly by my neck, but I don’t think it originated from TMJ, although I do have it. By bending my neck, left ear to shoulder, the tone in my right ear would disappear. I don’t know what that means at all. I genuinely still think it was caused by noise damage, but I can’t be sure, so I thought I’d mention that.


So anyway, I wanted to write this so that people know that things can improve after the 1 yr mark. I know it’s so hard to wait. And it’s terrifying. And some people will just have to live with it I suppose. But yeah. That’s just my experience. I will be around to answer random questions if you have any for a while, but after that I’d like to leave this place behind forever. No offense, but I'd really like to never have to come back and just move on from this (having learned something, of course).

 

Congrats, Sarah. It is an amazing feeling when we regain our silence.

 

Thank you for sharing. I am three months into this nightmare, and your post does give me some hope. I wish more people were to share their positive experiences...

 

yeah I actually bookmarked a whole bunch of success stories that I might compile into a list on a google doc if people are interested. theyære all mostly stories like mine. noise+induced and stating an actual reduction in noise not just habituation. some from here, some from other forums. ones that helped me stay positive. bc there were people saying that if your noise doesnæt disappear after like 2 months then youære gonna have it forever, which isnæt true. a lot of people just donæt come back to tell others. or they donæt think of it as a problem in the first place. so yeah.

 

Wonder post! thank you. I too have suffered from T that completely went away. Aprox 12 years ago a very load 1 hour exposure some machinery gave me horrible Tinnitus, but it completely faded away after 18 months. Now, I have had Tinnitus again for about 7 months after going to an outdoor concert. It too has faded about 70 % now and I expect it to fade completely in another 6 months or so.
like your post say's, most people who recover just get on with their life and don't usually post a success story, leading new people here to only hear the bad, and they think they will never recover.
I know there are people here who have suffered for years, but the vast majority of noise induced Tinnitus (if it was a short exposure, like a concert or something, not months or years of exposure, like working around loud machines)
will fade away in 6-18 months. It is just so slow, but it usually does resolve itself.

 

One question if I may, both ears or only one?

 

no problem. that's what I'm here for. I think I had some white noise in my left ear at the beginning. don't know when that went away, but yeah, right ear only, I would say. I had a clear tone of some kind in that one. genuine ringing.

 

@Sarah Russett
Yeah for me its my right ear only, the louder unmaskable one. Got it in my left but it doesnt bother me at all.

On the right It's like an electric tone hiss thing, feels like its coming from my head. Not sure if its from my head injury back in Jan. or something else but I have no hearing loss.
Thank you for responding to my message.

 

Both ears ,both times. but the right was the worst (both times)

 

Bill, I can't imagine a sonic toothbrush can cause permanent damage. The human body is an amazing thing and it just needs time to heal. Remember, there is a huge difference between injuring and damaging you ears. It is a very slow process for it to heal, but it will fade. And I know the nightmare you're in, I've been there too

 

Thank you for your encouraging words. I had never been to a live concert, and I believe I would always listen to music at reasonable volume levels. The buzzing sonic toothbrush was in contact with the opening of my ear canal for only a fraction of a second. I had that "full ear" sensation that lasted for over a month. Tinnitus kicked in 12 days after the incident. I started hearing it the evening of the day when I visited an audiologist. I can't imagine my audiologist doing anything to cause it. She performed a "bone-conduction" test... The fact that later that day I started suffering from tinnitus has got to be a coincidence.

Nowadays, my tinnitus seems a little quieter. I am hoping for the best. The alternative - one wrong move causing a lifetime of tinnitus - implies the world is a scary place...

 

Hey @Sarah Russett
Same story, it came after cinema + stress caused by discovering negative stories about tinnitus.

It did decrease by 90% during 2 months... Then it didn't bother me so much.

I'm happy to finally find someone who come back here after losing tinnitus induced by loud noise exposure.

At this moment it's been 2 years it did appear for me, but it doesn't bother me now.
I can say that it did disappear (95% less than the beginning 2 years ago).

And like you I always slept in absolute silence, I think it helps a lot because you start putting the T in the classic perception of silence.

Anyway, your story like mine prove that a tinnitus induced by loud noise exposure can fade away after more than 1 year and we need more stories like ours in this website

 

I have noise induced tinnitus following an EXTREMELY loud party. My symptoms are 15-20% of what they were 11 months ago, perhaps less.

I'm mostly sure I had low level tinnitus for years before that incident as I've been surrounded by amplified music with no plugs for over 20 years, but it wasn't bothersome.

As time goes on I have a feeling I'll end up back where I started if I continue to protect my ears. With T - but not severe T. I'd be very happy with that outcome.

 

Hello @Sarah Russett
Congrats on your tinnitus recovery! Today is my 9-week anniversary of T. Got it after using a loud power tool while I was lying down inside of a car trunk. It's amazing that only 10 seconds of using an impact driver caused this. My T is in my head and ears at any given point and has reduced in volume. My high-frequency hissing (static sound) continues to become higher in frequency and alternates to an almost non-existent tone that I barely hear in silence but escalates in louder environments. I usually have a day of hissing then 1 or 2 days of this high-pitched almost non-existent tone. Does this alternating pattern match yours? Anyone on the forum is welcome to respond. BTW, @jjflyman and @Tom Cnyc I've read all of your posts on this site and really appreciate your input. I've read @jjflyman a few times along with @Vinnitus and @heartohelp more in the beginning of T when I needed something positive to hang on to.

 

Sarah, thanks for your post! My tinnitus came about after an ear infection and I'm just past my 10 month anniversary. You mentioned you were starting to have hope at around 9 months, and I guess that's what I'm feeling. I still have awful, awful days, but there seem to be a lot of good days where I don't notice it as much -- usually the second half of my cycle when progesterone is higher. Weird correlation.

The sound I have is usually loud hissing which which competes with noises around it. For instance, when I go outside the hissing increases, but when I'm indoors it's usually pretty quiet. I read somewhere that it's harder to habituate to fluctuating tinnitus, but I'm not sure if that's true. My doctor told me that the 2 year mark was when people usually stopped noticing it.

Also, I too sleep in a quiet room because the masking device I have makes the tinnitus louder. Usually the evening tinnitus is loud crickets chirping, so I just pretend I'm camping.

 

Rick
My first exposure 12 years ago was from a riding lawn mower that had a bad muffler. I was stupid (When we're young, we think we're invincible) and used it for nearly an hour but it was LOUD, and my ears literally hurt. Pain, fullness, and a screeching ring. I thought there was no way they would every get better. But, they did, and like I said, after about 18 months the Tinnitus was totally gone, even in the most quiet conditions.
I doubt after only 9 weeks you will see much improvement, so hang in there. It might be 3-4 months before you notice any real improvement, and probably close to a year before it is faded to the point you no longer hear it.
I did a lot of research Tinnitus, and the horror stories on the web would have people believe there is no hope, but the vast majority of acute cases of Tinnitus resolve themselves in 6-18 months. And noise induced Tinnitus from short term exposer almost always fades away, it just takes a long time. I know of people who's Tinnitus did not totally fade, but thats from things like guns going off near their ears or something catastrophic like that, that causes actual ear damage. I know an impact driver can be loud inside a closed area, but I doubt it reaches the decibel level of a gunshot.

 

Can't say it better

 

@jjflyman Getting T once in one's life sucks. Getting it twice must really suck. I read that @Vinnitus also got it twice and both of you are currently waiting out your 2nd T term. When it came back the 2nd time, you knew right away what's in store without the learning curve. I've also done some reading on T. Have you seen people with documented hearing damage where their T has faded away?

 

I would be very interested!

 

I already made a post about what follows, but that post was not in the Success section of this message board.

Check out
https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/27440/investig.pdf?sequence=1
In that dissertation, the author writes (on page 35 of 77):
"Of conscripts exposed to a single shot, tinnitus was initially present in 96% and hearing
loss in 52% (I). At discharge, 23% had tinnitus, 23% had hearing loss, and 39% had
either symptom still at discharge from the military service, indicating a long-lasting
effect after exposure to only a single shot. {Note: The figures above and the law for unions and intersections from probability theory imply that 7% had both tinnitus and hearing loss. This means that 70% out of 96%, or almost 73% had recovered from tinnitus.}
Although tinnitus was present in 97% of conscripts after AAT, the majority had resolved
by the end of the military service, at which time tinnitus was still present in 32%, and
68% had resolved. Hearing loss was present in 48% after AAT and 23% persisted at the
end of service. Thus, at the last visit before discharge, tinnitus, hearing loss or both were
present in 45%, and 55% were cured. Most of the conscripts received hyperbaric oxygen
treatment, so it is not known, what the spontaneous recovery rate of symptoms was, and
how many were cured due to treatment."

{"AAT [Acute acoustic trauma] causes including single gun shots, rapid firing by machine gun, cannon firing, explosions and fire crackers"}

Page 15: "In a study of a terrorist bomb explosion in a municipal bus, where 22 people lost their lives and 48 were wounded, 23 patients were hospitalized, and 17 of them were followed for six months in the otolaryngologic outpatient clinic (Cohen et al., 2002). All but one patient had a perforated TM. The most common auditory complaints of these 17 patients were aural fullness and pressure (88%), tinnitus (88%), otalgia (53%), dizziness (41%) and aural discharge (53%). After the six month follow-up period, 40% of the patients initially complaining of tinnitus still had tinnitus. Tinnitus had improved in 13%, and in 47% it had disappeared by the end of the six month follow-up period."

and, on the same page:
"In that study, the patients underwent initial examination from the first day up to 10 months after the explosion, so the frequency of acute effects is not known. Pahor found the most frequent otologic symptoms in 111 hospitalized bombing victims to be deafness, high-pitched tinnitus, TM perforations, and earache. Otologic problems were found in less than one-third of the patients. Deafness was reported in 27 cases, and tinnitus in 26 cases. Twenty patients had perforated TMs. Hearing loss was mostly in the high-tones. In that study, all but one tinnitus case resolved spontaneously under follow-up (Pahor, 1981)."

So it looks like noise/acoustic trauma tinnitus can resolve spontaneously, by itself. If there were people who got tinnitus after their eardrums were ruptured by an explosion, who got better, surely there is a chance that we can get better...

 

I don't know about hearing damage after/because of T, but in my case it has not cause any hearing loss at all.I doubt after one loud exposer anyone would have permanent hearing loss, I always thought that happened over a long term exposer like working in a factory. You're right about it being bad enough the first time, but to have to go thru it again really sucks. It seems nobody I talk to "gets it". They don't understand how devastating it is. I don't know if certain people are more apt to get T, or if once you had it it's easier to get again. Either way, I now carry high definition ear plugs on my key chain. I will be very careful from now on. I have no desire to be around any loud noise ever again!!

 

Bill,
I'm not a specialist, but IMO your chances of complete recover is 100%
It just takes a long time!

 

Thank you. As they say: "Hope is the last part of a human being to die..."

The medical establishment is partially to blame for a lot of the distress tinnitus sufferers experience during the first weeks and months of the disease. Websites like webmd and mayo clinic never mention that a substantial fraction of new sufferers will eventually recover. They just inform us that there is no cure. Same goes for family doctors and ENTs. If not for the internet, I would naturally think that I would eventually get better. If they can't cure tinnitus, the least the doctors could do is to provide one with information about how likely one is to beat tinnitus...

 

Okay so I compiled a bunch of those success stories (ones that aren't on this website). Some of them are just links, for some of them I went trhough and picked out the success stories and pasted them along with the links if you don't want to read all of them. most of them are stories of noise-induced T going away after a couple of months to a year bc those were the stories that were the most interesting to me. Other people can add if they want.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11ZnW_ZKDGUOQfPucuS652KQBrWzB3fVmaSP2JPRicfA/edit?usp=sharing

 

I'm two months in with acoustic trauma T. These stories are great. Thanks for posting! <3

 

Thank you!

 

I am indeed having this for a second time.

Unfortunately, I have to say I have not seen much improvement so far for myself (symptom-wise). I will be crossing the one year boundary coming april 28, 2017. Like you said, I did indeed improve the first time I got it till the point that is was completely gone.

Never lose hope, it still can disappear. Even if this seems less likely the longer you had it. There aren't any reliable recorded statistics about longer term Tinnitus remission or permanency (apart from one study with military conscripts). I am positive a lot of people do not even report about it's remission when it happens. Also the so-called "tinnitus anniversaries" are made out of thin air and do not really mean much.

Even if the Tinnitus does decide to hang round; the future looks brighter than it did before regarding research and possibly also regarding treatment options.

 

Do these people who have their tinnitus disappear experience spikes/fleeting increasing tinnitus during their suffering?

 

Yes, I did. I do now and I did during my first episode. However, I also had these before my first episode when I didn't have any Tinnitus yet. I personally don't think fleeting Tinnitus or the frequency of occurence is any good indicator of anything. It appears to happen in both "healthy" patients as in Tinnitus patients.

 

@Vinnitus
Good point! Thank you for the insight...