Real-Time Reactive Tinnitus Goes Away Completely When Quiet?

I'm 39F. Long story short, I've had a low-volume, pure tone tinnitus for pretty much my whole life. Always thought silence sounded like that low tone. Never bothered me.

A year (or more?) ago I noticed that I also had a very somatic high-pitched hissing. It hisses when I turn my head certain ways, clench my neck muscles, jut my jaw forward, or lean my head back. It shoots up in volume with that motion. This one is also pulsatile with increased blood flow like exercise or high emotion. It's not in just one ear, it's just a sound generally in my head, or 'both ears'. Thought it was a quirk of mine and never thought to be bothered by it. No stress, no anxiety. Went on with life.

More recently - again, can't tell you exactly how long - I've noticed a very shrill high-pitched buzzing fly type noise in my left ear that is REAL-TIME reactive to sounds that I'm hearing. It'll buzz around literally like a fly in my ear, very high pitched, when I am around noise. It is silent - as in not there AT ALL, in quiet rooms or rooms with low volume noise.

More info: I went to an ENT/Neurotologist who cleared me of anything medical (because I Googled pulsatile tinnitus and scared the crap out of myself). I had a hearing test that showed no clinical hearing loss. 100% on word recognition (plain and in background noise) and my pure tone hearing is the same in both ears and very good save for a 'notch' at 6 kHz in both ears. The notch is still within normal range.

Because my hissing tinnitus (which is only there when I do the movements I noted above) is sooo somatic and easily modulated, he thinks that's why it is sometimes pulsatile, as the sound when it 'pulses' is EXACTLY the same sound it makes when I modulate it with movement. I can make it 'pulse' and sound exactly like the actual pulsatile hissing by jerking my head to the side quickly.

My Cause: absolutely because I have been abusing my ears the last several years. I am extremely sensitive to certain noises and sounds. Both of my kids had 'colic' and both have behavioral issues. There's a lot of loudness and screaming in the house as they try to navigate their big emotions. I love my kids more than life... and I also have a crazy intolerance for the shrill, daily screaming. To protect my own mental health, I started wearing noise-canceling headphones most of the day to take the edge off the sound so I could be more present and helpful with them without losing my own mind. Sometimes I'd have a podcast or video playing to briefly give my mind something else to shift focus so I could stay centered. I also go on 6 mile walks in the evenings and have been wearing AirPods to listen to music during them. I didn't know I was listening too loud, but clearly I was. Off topic: my kids are doing a lot better now and are thriving more and more each day!

So... I can deal with the somatic hissing that seems to not be there at all sometimes, but this little shrill buzzing bee in my left ear is bringing me down. Film and music are huge parts of my life, but now it's difficult to enjoy those things because this shrill little sound reacts when I'm listening (not at high volume) to audio.

I've stopped ALL headphones/AirPods use as of a month ago (when my mental health took a huge dive as I started becoming worried and distressed about the sounds in my head for the first time ever). I also bought a pair of Loop earplugs to protect my ears against loud noises going forward.

But... why is the buzzing bee/real-time reactive sound not there AT ALL when I have the earplugs in? Like... it's just gone. The hissing will still hiss when I do something that modulates it, but I can watch TV (fairly low volume with subtitles on) with the earplugs in and I don't hear it. I also don't hear it in the morning when it's quiet (when I'm brave enough to attempt sleep without crickets/pink noise), but when I get up and go around my house, it's back again, reacting to the sounds around me.

What does this mean? And does anyone else experience this? I won't ask "Does this mean I have a chance of recovering?" because like all of you, I'd love for all of this to just go away, but I'm setting my expectations low. I'd kill to go back to 6 weeks ago when most of this was still present but NONE of it bothered me.

Love and support to you all.

 

It is all hypothetical but many would say you have sound sensitivity or hyperacusis and that's what's causing what's known as reactive tinnitus.

 

I’ve been reading about that too, and it makes sense. I’m an insanely sensitive person and have struggled with other psychological disorders that have manifested very real physical symptoms.

I also have health OCD and due to my situation at home I have been under EXTREME stress and anxiety for... years. I thought I was being so healthy going on those long daily walks without a thought that I was destroying my ears and would fall into a mental health pit I never knew existed before this. And that’s saying a lot considering my stress the last several years.

Is there any positive news here? If this is a form of hyperacusis, can I desensitize myself and make this thing more stable, at the very least?

I need some hope that I can get back to where I was just 6 weeks ago, naturally habituated until I Googled and pulled all of my focus onto these sounds that I’ve now decided are ruining my life, even though nothing has objectively changed between now and 6 weeks ago.

I wonder if I should stop researching and coming to these forums full stop. I may just be keeping my attention on all of this. Ugh, I’m so panicked. This did not bother me 6 weeks ago! Now it’s all I can hear or think about.

 

Are you on any medication that could be causing this?

 

I am not on anything daily. I am prescribed a low dose of Xanax for panic that I use only sparingly.

When I do take the Xanax, or if I have one alcoholic drink, my mind and body relaxes so entirely that the tinnitus is silent. I wish I could feel that way all the time (don’t we all?)

I do take basic supplements daily. Vitamin C, D3, B12, Fish oil, Turmeric...

 

How often is sparingly, and how long have you been taking Xanax?

Xanax could very well be the cause of this if there is no other known reason. What you're describing is how mine started. Like an electrical hiss in my head.

The fact that you are saying it goes silent when you take the Xanax is a little suspicious as well.

Just want to add it could also be one billion other things but starting with what you put in your body is always a good start.

 

Hey there, @FreshZucc. Thanks for sharing your story. Wow. You are one tough moma! I commend you for your super mom efforts, especially while dealing with something so scary and stressful.

I do think there is something to here with regards to a development of hyperacusis and thus the reactive tinnitus. You spoke about how the children’s screams and noises would become too much to a point you had to wear protection. Not only do I think it became physically too much, but it also probably became mentally and emotionally overwhelming, too. So, I think your fight-or-flight and stress response systems in the brain have been activated for quite some time and are on high alert, which I believe can definitely lead to hyperactivity in our auditory pathways and enhancing sounds and becoming “too reactive” to external stimuli. The most frustrating part of all of this is that we can’t just turn it off as fast as it seems to have come on. We can’t say “okay brain, calm down, don’t react to sound, chill out” and that work. Wouldn’t that just be great! However, this can improve and this can calm down, but it takes a lot of time, patience, trial and error, and, the hardest part in my opinion, rewiring our thought processes and brain as it views auditory stimuli/sound. To make our brain exit a constant fight or flight and fear of sound and rewire neural pathways so that it calms down these symptoms. This can happen, we’ve had some amazing success stories on this forum of many in much more severe cases improve drastically, but it took time. I can tell you in each of those cases, they had to work extremely hard on the brain-body connection and use some type of brain retraining. They also used some type of sound therapy approach, whether that was using natural sounds in their home and outdoor environment, pink/white/brown noises, nature noises, or taking part in a formal Tinnitus Retraining Therapy protocol. I myself tend to be a solutions gal, like I know this shit can suck but give me the positive stories and best practices that saw results and I will try those. So I’ve read those stories, took notes, and found consistent similarities.

I hope I didn’t provide too much and overwhelm you, but if I were you and looking for some advice, that’s what I would want to know about and look for in the success stories. Some of the ones I’m referencing are by @Marin, @OnlyUP, @Coffeebean, @Darrenb111. I hope you can find their stories and gain insight to help you!

 

I go weeks or months without taking Xanax. Sometimes I take it once or twice a week for my panic. During really bad times I’ve taken it once per day for 2 weeks straight. That’s happened twice. First prescription was in 2019.

I didn’t know a benzo could cause this. I have a pretty clear case of ear abuse with my daily and prolonged use of active noise-canceling headphones and AirPods... for years.

My hearing test stopped at 8 kHz like most, so I suspect I may have some higher frequency loss.

Do you think yours was due to medication?

 

Yes, mine was from Clonazepam.

Xanax is extremely strong. If it came up after you used it and then stopped, I would look into it. If it just came up out of the blue, like many months after, it's probably not the culprit.

 

This is very similar to my situation. In particular, yawning has always triggered a high-pitched buzz for me (albeit at varying volumes) that I noticed on a cognitive level but never thought for a second about. However, for me, a cold (or possibly COVID-19) made this much louder and more prevalent for me, along with introducing numerous new continuous sounds.

 

Heads up. I got reactive tinnitus a few months back and it seems to be gone now. One of the odd things I was doing around that time was wearing Bose noise-cancelling headphones for 6 hours a day, no sound.

There could be a connection. It went away mostly after about 2-4 weeks. Only slight popping up here and there after that.