Questions About Tinnitus

So a bit of back story. I first got tinnitus after listening to loud music through my earphones a few years back. It was bad for 2-3 days then it went down and almost completely gone. After a few years it's extremely quiet. I only hear it when I have headphones in (with nothing playing), plugged ears, or a completely silent room. Furthermore there are some times (like right this very moment) where it's completely gone. Sometimes when it's gone if I focus REALLY hard I can hear it mildly. The worst it bothers me is when I have my ear in my pillow. I also get it loud here and there but it usually only lasts 30 seconds - a minute so I just ignore it as everyone gets this from what I understand (not only people with tinnitus). I also have really bad anxiety which I am managing to cope with for the time being. I have been to the ENT and audiologist several times and am very strict with tests however I have had a hearing test done. My results were perfect and my ENT says my ears are in excellent condition; best he has seen in his many years as a doctor actually. The kicker is my allergies are horrendous and my sinuses are not at all great. I also recently suffered from full ears and constant hearing drops and popping due to my sinuses. This has pretty much resolved now (though it took about a month and a prednisone taper) though I have been getting mild ear pain lately (could be attributed to my allergies) but it only lasts about a minute. My worry is this: what if it gets worse? I do what I can to prevent loud noise exposure. In the past few years I have never really worried about it getting worse (it has only gotten better) but eventually the anxiety caught on to me having tinnitus and now has me constantly worrying. Oh, thought I should mention that I have listened to loud music through the years and nothing has ever bothered my tinnitus however I am not doing this anymore.

EDIT: Oh I also notice sometimes when I get a headache I feel pain in my neck and head and SOMETIMES a very mild tinnitus as described above. It usually also gets hot and kind of moist inside of my ear when this happens. Also sometimes when I get small spikes I feel it in my neck which is weird to me. The spikes and a majority of the tinnitus in general is in my left ear but slightly in my right ear as well.

EDIT 2: Also when I get exposed to a loud sound abruptly it spikes the tinnitus (usually in my left ear... again) but this goes away in under a minute.

EDIT 3: You can probably see by my edits my thoughts are everywhere, but another thing is sometimes if I bend my neck I hear a ringing but I swear it sounds like it's coming from my neck. It's also not really a ringing more of like... it's hard to explain kind of like my blood sizzling or maybe a static noise.

 

Exercise is helping with my anxiety. I read that if a person is already an anxious person that tinnitus will affect them seven times more than an unanxious person.

 

Yeah that's what I'm trying right now, it works pretty well! That second part is interesting, makes sense because I guess the anxiety would bring it into your focus.

Another thing I should add is sometimes I wake up and it's blaring for about an hour not sure why. This happens RARELY but in the past 4 years has happened around 4-5 times.

 

Another odd thing, sometimes it rapidly changes ears. My left ear will be silent, right ringing then it'll switch every like 10 minutes. Woke up with what seems to be TMJ as I have crackling in my jaw, had this before. Doctor said I had a bit of TMJ a while back. This is only the 2nd time I've had this. Hasn't noticeably bothered my tinnitus, hope it stays that way.

 

everyone with acoustic related tinnitus has some degree of hearing loss even if super mild or above the 8k range.

 

Not sure. My results came back perfect, though I don't know what ranges I was tested at. The mild tinnitus I have is very strange. It seems to change in the weirdest ways in terms of sometimes rapidly changing ears, sometimes I can't tell if it's there or not and I'll hear it and then when I focus on it to see if it's there it's not then when I stop it's back. I'm starting to think that my ACTUAL tinnitus has gone away and this is all just my anxiety playing major mind games.

 

when you first got your tinnitus how loud was it? a general rule of thumb but not always is the louder the tinnitus is the more hearing loss is present. Super mild tinnitus would indicate undetectable hearing loss in a very small degree.

they only test (0-8000hz in tonal noises) not complex background noise
and the human voice range (0-5000hz) without usually testing speech in background noise

once again their definition of perfect is only within that small criteria.

Don't be in denial if you do hear your tinnitus just accept it, but don't focus on it either.

 

It was pretty damn loud, not enough to make me go off the deep end but loud enough I wanted to rip my ears off my head. Denial no, if I have this minor T the rest of my life I wouldn't mind it. Just the worry it brings about worsening and the aforementioned things. My anxiety is my biggest issue so that's why I suggested that might be a thing, it has done similar things in the past.