Peekaboo Tinnitus

Hi all,
I've lurked around this forum the past few weeks gathering as much information as I could and finally figured I'd join.

Working in the audio production field for decades I've had my fair share of fleeting tinnitus over the years but in February it came on with a vengeance.

I had several weeks of loud hissing coming from left ear, traveling to both and then at times sounding like it was coming from the back of my head. A trip to the doctors office resulted in a prescription for ear drops which did nothing, I assume.

I have really bad days where the hiss is so ridiculously loud that it prevents me from concentrating on much of everything, and then I'll have days where it's barely perceptible and I can only hear it faintly in a quiet room.

I noticed that I can (seemingly) calm my tinnitus at times by giving myself shoulder and neck rubs, although doing that often enough in public causes some strange reactions.

The month prior to the tinnitus kicking in I did have a fall which banged up my shoulder and I still have some lingering pain from that. It's obviously affected my sleeping position and I guess it doesn't take a genius to see some correlation between the two.

Short of shoulder surgery (which I can't afford) has anyone ever heard of tinnitus just fading away with the healing of an injury?

Clearly I should count my blessings that I do have some quiet days and that I'm often able to calm the tinnitus down. I don't take those days or those self-neck rubs for granted.

What do you think should be my next step?

 

Noise induced hearing loss is the most common reason for most people on the forum.
That's why I'm here, from noise abuse.

Tinnitus coming and going from loud noise isn't a good thing, if you have ringing ears after listening to loud music it means you were treating your ears like crap and took a small bit of hearing. The damage accumulates over time.

 

You might find the clip below to be useful to you

Pillow Positioning to Reduce Shoulder and Back...

There is a good chance that your tinnitus will continue fading (the quieter period will hopefully keep getting longer and longer), and that you will feel a lot better in a couple of months. Just make sure to not get another injury (to your shoulder, jaw, or ears).

Check out
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...eone-else-who-has-tinnitus.26850/#post-307822

 

In case you'd be interested, this short 4-Min. video shows how to do self-acupuncture on a shoulder. -- Best!

 

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/physiotherapy-and-tinnitus.25513/

You could try some of these exercises. There’s definitely a neck/shoulder connection with tinnitus for some.

Also this one which is design to relax the sternocleidomastoid, a large muscle group of the neck/ shoulder/ neck. I used to do this to help headache but think it helps my tinnitus. Lie face down on a bed with arms by your side and palms up. Lift one arm off the bed whilst keeping the top of your shoulder relaxed, use the muscles round your shoulder blade. Do ten reps then the other arm, do 50 reps at a time.

 

This person is just going to ignore his history of loud music, as if it had not a thing to do with his tinnitus.

 

Yup, post concussion syndrome can cause tinnitus, and it can fade over time. Generally related to brain injury, but my GP says that neck injuries can cause T. Sorry, can't comment on the shoulder injury. This link may help if you think a concussion may have happened. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-concussion-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20353352

 

I don't have a history with loud music.
The kind of audio production I do is for film/TV/radio and I'm either recording voices or I'm the voice being recorded. No matter how many safety precautions are taken there are always going to be accidents in headphones, like someone turning the fader up on a track you've pushed to record which causes terrible feedback or someone mistakenly feeding the wrong audio into your ears at a volume level you weren't expecting. Think of these as the stereotypical "gunshot near someone's head" but happening once every year or so. I agree, it can add up but in a different way than what you're thinking (hours upon hours of loud music....not in my world). It's entirely possible that one of these incidents from the past set the ball in motion and it just came on like gangbusters after my fall.

I wouldn't discount the accidents along the way but I certainly wouldn't discount the fall either since I can have some control over my tinnitus at times by massaging the spot where I landed.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4208401/
research papers are saying tinnitus is a neurological response to a loss of hearing loss. (even if it's very mild)

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/podcast/episode/searching-tinnitus-cure-josef-rauschecker/
This forum's moderation did an interview with a tinnitus researcher named Josef Rauschecker, and he said that the brain has mechanisms that may prevent one from perceiving tinnitus and things like stress, or other things combined with hearing loss may trigger tinnitus. So since you had an injury as well that may be a clue.

 

I apologize for saying you had a history of loud music, I mis-interpreted your work.

A lot of people on this forum like myself however do.

 

No offense taken. I hope we can all eventually find a way to beat back this annoying little gnat in our ears. I had total silence yesterday. Even when I strained to hear it I couldn't. It started to sneak up on me before I went to bed last night but was still pretty quiet. Woke up with it being super loud this morning. Hissing in both ears but now it's moved over to one and it's starting to calm down.

I wish I could understand this tiny b*tch.

 

It is perplexing to say the least. I'm on my 4th. day of relative quiet. Also, without exception it spikes when there is a drop in barometric pressure. There is today and it did not spike. There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to it.

 

Hi @Agrajag364 -- Wow, pretty amazing timing with your comment. I just had the most interesting experience with my tinnitus just before getting out of my home mHBOT chamber. While in the chamber, I have earplugs in, and wrap a pillow around both ears to drown out the sound of the compressor. -- I almost always go to sleep when in the chamber, and it's been quite consistent that whenever I nap--no matter whether in our outside the chamber--my tinnitus spikes for a while afterwards (from 15 min. or so, to 2-3 hours).

Just a half hour or so ago, I was laying on my back waiting for the chamber to decompress, and I kind of stretched and scrunched my shoulders up around both my ears. I was somewhat startled how loud my t became, and was able to make a much clearer distinction between my left ear t and my right ear t. The left being more hollow sounding, the right be a somewhat fuller sound. I then "unscrunched", and the tinnitus went down immediately. -- I scrunched again, and this time the volume was noticeably less. I then unscrunched, and it was quieter as well. I then scrunched and unscrunched again a few more times, and each time the volume got lower after each one. By the time I got out of the chamber, my t was very close to baseline. -- This is all very new!

This reminds me of the day a few weeks ago when I was getting some Physical Therapy done, and she zoned in on my right shoulder, and some of the muscles coming down the right arm, all the way to my hand. I didn't notice any spots that were particularly painful, but I remember feeling a remarkable sense of relief while she was working on it, and afterwards as well. -- I then went on to have a couple days of less than baseline t. So my shoulders (besides my neck and TMJ) will be getting extra scrutiny going forward. I'll probably be doing a lot of self-acupuncture on all these areas.

@jmasterj @Mathew Gould @Greg Sacramento @Wolfears

 

@GhostyTMRS -- This sounds like potentially really good news. If you could get access to an HBOT chamber, I think that could be really good. There's not much else than can help heal brain and nerve trauma better than that. Except perhaps DMSO, which is used in conventional medicine to quickly bring down inflammation in people who've experienced a TBI or close head injury. @Melike

 

Holy Moly. I read what you wrote and just attempted the shoulder scrunch exercise myself and my tinnitus went from a loud hiss to a quieter whine. This is some strange beast this T.

 

@GhostyTMRS -- That was about my reaction as well. And now for a follow on. I took a hot bath a while ago, and did a bit of a scrunch in my head, which engaged my auriculare muscles--those right behind the ears that allow people to wiggle their ears. Got the same reaction as when I scrunched my shoulders. Initially got really loud, then softer when I let go. Then less loud when scrunched again, etc., etc., until that one layer of my tinnitus (I've got two) went away almost completely for a short while.

I then opened my jaw (which always makes my tinnitus louder). Went through the whole routine, and vuella, I got the tinnitus to stop for a short while after doing that a few times. -- And then I started in with my jaw, shifting it from right to left, which always increases my tinnitus. Same result. Eventually couldn't even hear that same layer with the jaw jutting in either direction. -- I'm thinking I've got LOTS of acupressure and acupuncture points to get started on, not to mention various kinds of massage, essential oils, etc. I'm feeling optimistic I'm onto something here.