Poll: How Long Was Your Longest Spike?

Since I'm taking medications at night it's difficult to assess how long my spikes would have lasted, since the meds usually help me by the next day after a spike where it's back to its 'baseline' reactive oscillating tinnitus.

But some days are so debilitating that I become suicidal & then a day after that I can have a 'good' day where I'm not suicidal.

I don't know if this should count but the longest 'spike' would be from getting the COVID-19 vaccine, particularly the last one which was a booster shot. I don't really think this though should be considered a "spike" in real sense (hence the reason for the scare quotes) because it's more of a temporary change (the last time about a week in duration) in quality type of perception of the sound rather than perceived loudness alone.

 

There’s 2 known variations for reactive tinnitus. It’s been well documented here.

Variation 1 is what @Chris S. just outlined, but it’s usually tinnitus spiking easily after noise exposure.

The 2nd variation - Your tinnitus tone(s) or noise will increase in volume immediately when exposed to certain types of noise. Tinnitus will match the volume of the sound source that’s triggering the reactivity, almost as if it were a competition to see which sound overwhelms your auditory system more. Once the source of sound is removed, the tinnitus that’s reacting will immediately go back down to familiar baseline.

I have this variation above. Air conditioners trigger my reactivity. The higher the fan speed, the louder the tinnitus will be. When I turn off the AC, tinnitus goes back down to my familiar baseline.

It’s possible to have both.