Poll: Do You Mask Your Tinnitus When You Sleep?

If you do, please give your preferred method.

Since my spike a few months ago, I've gone a full 360 from wearing earplugs (wax) to sleep to being unable to mask. It's been hell. This is mostly due to the new tone in my left ear and my right "quite" ear now with a chirping tinnitus. I have ALL the apps, pillow speakers, headband speakers, noise-canceling earbuds and I still can't sleep. I habituated 18 years ago but this time it's not working.

 

Masking made my tinnitus worse in the morning. Earplugs for sleep has made this a lot more bearable.

 

I've tried it, but my masking level is so high, that just having mix with the screeching is too much input and it's harder to fall asleep for me. I like masking during the day and it helps me read, but curiously doesn't help to fall asleep.

 

It's at a point now where what works best for me is to fall asleep listening to talking heads. I think it functions like hearing bedtime stories do even though I'm hardly a child. But it has a calming effect that music or white noise patterns don't. I also think it "seeds" my dreams. I have been having increasingly lucid dreams. That's probably the only upside to my worsening tinnitus. Of course, part of that is also the compressed sleep cycle I tend to have, which is more like a 4 hour cycle at most rather than 8. I usually have the most vivid dreams when I initially hit the pillow and then struggle to get back to sleep if I wake up around 2-4AM. Then I finally get back to deep sleep again around when the sun comes up. This is because I need a lot of pent-up fatigue to fall asleep initially but if I wake up and I'm not really sleepy then I struggle with the tinnitus to get back to sleep, even if I'm still physically tired.

I have a pair of headphones that are relatively flat and have this rotating section so they are very comfortable and I can sleep sideways with them sinking into the pillow. I use these if there are others in the house. If I'm alone I will usually just let the phone stream youtube through the speaker and then the ear that's in the pillow will hear more T. When nobody is in the house but me sometimes the TV is a better masker but the light from the TV makes it harder to sleep. I'd probably need one of those visor things.

I bought a small indoor waterfall machine which isn't working right now. It kinda worked for "natural" white noise but even that on the endtable wasn't really loud enough to mask effectively. I also have an aromatherapy machine but it's not that noisy.

I've been trying not to use a formal noise generator but I may have to ultimately.

In the summertime the window air conditioner is like heaven. In the winter if my sinuses are all stopped up with a cold it's like hell.

EDIT: I also firmly believe that there is a neurochemical that is released when entering or existing sleep that suppresses tinnitus. Yes, this is part of the whole switch that shuts off external input when you're sleeping. The thing is, for me, it's not just an on-off switch. I usually don't sense the T fading away but I do sense the T coming back when I'm easing back into consciousness. I can be almost fully conscious with only very mild T and then the volume increases and it sucks. I can also be sort of half-asleep and roll around in bed with the T staying at a low level. That's when the chemical or mental switch is still in place. So I don't really need to be in complete REM sleep to achieve some relief.

 

I've been listening to a particular crickets sound from Sound Oasis for nearly 9 years. Don't think I could sleep without it.

 

I have noticed that when I am waking up, the tinnitus is very, very faint. If I can just keep the pain away, I would be able to sleep even with the tinnitus. As I gain consciousness, the tinnitus starts to all come back.

I wish that I could just hit that switch during the day.

 

Interesting. Ear plugs makes my tinnitus go crazy in the morning. Masking good when it's a steady ring but not when it's hissing which is most of the time nowadays.

 

@Mister Muso

I find the T goes down in a few minutes at night after getting them in. This has been one of the few things that has made this bearable for me.

When I tried masking, I woke up with ear fullness and worse T so I stopped it. I will say that masking helped me fall asleep faster, but the rest was not worth it to me.

 

I use a box fan and air purifier on turbo setting. Tinnitus is usually screaming when I go to bed. Several high pitched tones with fullness and sensitivity to some sounds. When I wake up it's all still there but the tones aren't as loud. As day goes on it gets worse.

 

I use a phone app with a river sound at low volume. It doesn't mask at all, but I focus on it and not the tinnitus. If I tried to mask it, I would wake up the whole house.

 

Posts like this really put things in perspective for me. I only have T in one ear, and it can usually be masked, execpt for really bad days.

Really sorry to hear about yours, man.

 

I used to sleep with the TV on for about a year. Never tried to mask it afterwards, even after my last spike.

 

I use a Marsona masker machine that feeds pillow speakers. I found that using this pillow from Amazon https://www.amazon.com/PureComfort-...07CQ9468V/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 helps because I sleep on my side and the holes in the pillow keep the speaker away from my ears. I run an air purifier in my bedroom that actually works well as a masker for the ear not in the pillow.

I also have the Levo system iPod that my audiologist programed around the 2 frequencies in my head that does help me sometimes. I can also use that iPod to bring up a website https://mynoise.net/ with masking sounds that help me. This iPod came with earbuds that are comfortable enough to sleep with and that pillow with the holes help to keep the buds from pressing against my ears.

Unfortunately, I have learned that my peace (silence) involves noise. It has taken me about 2 years to find a combination of sounds and volumes that are soothing depending on how my tinnitus happens to be affecting me at any given time. I also need meds to help me sleep but, to answer the OP’s question, this is how I’ve learned to cope when trying to sleep.

 

This is what works for me and I sleep well. I take a shower every night, I take 2 Tylenol PM, turn on a fan and a sound machine, it has all kinds of sounds, I use ocean and put on an eyemask.

I keep to the same routine, and it reduces my spikes to none at all.

 

I'm noticing the same thing. Glad you put it into words. As I'm sliding into the pre-sleep hypnagogic phase, sometimes I can actually consciously remark that "I'm half-asleep now and I cannot hear the tinnitus any more". Then if I jolt myself back awake from that state e.g. by moving, the suppressor comes off and the tinnitus is back.
Don't know what this mechanism is but I'm very glad it exists. If only it could be engaged without having to go to sleep...

 

As for the original question: I've been sleeping with wax earplugs for more than a decade, I don't use any masking.
On normal nights this works perfectly. However, when I have a spike, I don't really have any tools against it because I'm used to sleeping in perfect silence (apart from the normal tinnitus volume, of course). So on these nights I either toss and turn until sleep finally comes, or I capitulate and pop some Xanax which usually puts me out cold. Xanax ain't evil if you use it sparingly, and it works well.

 

Same. And sometimes an additional bit of notched noise generated from mynoise.net, and set a tad lower in volume than the talking heads.

 

I use the resound relief app and a Bluetooth speaker to play rain noise when I go to bed.

 

I program a playlist of appr 2 hours of sound on my pc. That can be ambient sound clips from Youtube [sea, bi-rds, cafe ...], a guided meditation or even a comedy or other TV series episode. As long as there is no loud noise in it... just imagine I fell asleep and suddenly a car crash in the middle of my room!

I hate 'white noise' like fans ... I have this monotonous T, so I'm not going to add another monotonous sound to it.

Rgrds,
Jo

 

I don’t mask at all. I fall asleep listening to the cacophony of noise in my head and ears.

 

Would you say your tinnitus is mild then? You are one of the Lenire users... are there any Lenire users that have moderate to severe tinnitus?

 

Yes, I use two mobile phones and two iPads to generate sounds all around the bedroom... from water fountains to birds... my bedroom is basically a jungle... it would be impossible for me to sleep in total silence...

 

I sleep with tabletop every night set just below ring. Some nights it works, other nights it does not. Ear plus for sleep a no no. Makes my tinnitus worse. God Bless. Peace.

 

My tinnitus used to be moderate (could hear it in my car speeding down a highway). Now it's mild to very mild (I have to be in a quiet room to hear it, but sometimes it's even quieter and I need to plug my ears to detect it). Lenire has significantly decreased my volume over the 11 or so weeks I've been using it. No perfect silence yet but if it stays like this for the rest of my life I'll be a very happy man.

Unfortunately I only know one Lenire user personally (@Krolo) and I think he's also mild-to-moderate.

 

I'm surprised how few people voted ALWAYS. I always play "Blue Noise by White Noise from Spotify" on my Alexa speaker. It masks it perfectly, but I might give ear plugs a try. I would think it would make things worse but who knows.

I remember the first couple days after my injury that I did not know I had tinnitus and fell asleep fine. So apparently the brain is able to ignore it, if it does not know it is there. That's given me hope.

 

You used earplugs when you were moderate? That I couldn’t do... but I greatly appreciate your Lenire feedback.

 

The first few days when my tinnitus was severe I could fall asleep, and kept waking up a few minutes later as any little sound, such as the heat turning on, would wake me up.

 

Yes, I use a SoundPillow and a fan.

 

Yes, same here... for me masking would mean turning up white noise to about 80 dB and that would give me severe ear pain for life and make tinnitus so loud I'd off myself in 3 minutes.

 

I don’t mask as it doesn’t benefit me, but out of respect for my wife and daughter, I probably wouldn’t anyway as it would be pretty loud.