Something Happens in the Brain When We Sleep That Makes Tinnitus Louder in the Middle of the Night

Now usually my tinnitus is on the left ear and I can handle i pretty well meaning I am somewhat habituated to it. But, what is the cause of the noise going straight up and you waking up in the middle of the night because of it? This is just what happened to me right now. I just gave it some time and it got quieter but now I am afraid to go back to sleep.

If I doze off in a noisy place, quiet place, whereever, at any time of day or night, I wake up to horrific T.. twice to 3 times as loud as my normal T.. It stays that way for hours too before subsiding, and depending on the day it may not subside at all.. Its NOT a "lack of aural stimulous".. Its something in the brain.. Something happens during sleep.. Its not just the quiet time. Maybe that's the reason so many T sufferers avoid even a 10 minute nap??.. Because they wake up miserable

 

Used to love naps, now even a 20 second doze fires T.
Very curious about T and sleep too.

 

My T doesn't do that. It's due to ototoxic meds.

I had a spike at the beginning of May. Everything seems to be almost back to normal in the morning. I wake up now with the same T I've had since 2007. It's very comforting actually...

Last night, I had a few drinks and went to bed with my T so loud.. I was worried that it would stay that way but this morning, it was back to my waterfall sound...

 

I have hearing loss in one ear, and notice that my T is much worse some days in the mornings if I exercise the previous day. Question, does the spike in T, give you the sense that the hearing loss is worse? Is there any correlation between the perceived temporary loudness in the T and perceived hearing loss? And then once the T settles down, the hearing loss improves somewhat?

 

I avoid naps because they often cause my T to increase. The only way I have found to lower the volume is when I sleep long enough to go into a deep sleep pattern. This does not work 100 percent of the time. I am getting old and find myself often wanting to just take a nap but these are not worth the often increase in T.

 

This happens to me. I wake every night around 3am with loud t. It's really odd.q

 

Is it the T that is actually waking you up? Or something else?

 

No i always wake during the night. ..but having loud t during is new for me.

 

My T is also at a spike in the morning. I have never woken up during the night because of my T though, as I sleep pretty hard to say it at least

 

I don't think it's exclusively from ototoxic meds as I wasn't taking anything at the time I got my T. I have age related high frequency hearing loss and I just woke up with it one morning. I have the same thing though--when I wake up my T is louder than normal.

I feel discouraged reading this thread--it seems like even long time tinnitus sufferers still have the same problems as us newbies. My husband has tinnitus when he takes his hearing aids out but he is so habituated that he can change the focus quickly. I asked him--he never gets it from napping.

 

@Asian, @Leah, @Relic Hunter, @Street Spirit, @lamasheen, @Mr. Cartman, and @Kathi, what you are describing isn’t due to something that happens during sleep. It is really due to waking up. It even has a name, the awakening response. It is a normal physiological process that occurs when a sleep cycle is interrupted, either by awakening from a nap or a night’s sleep, or sometimes when waking up in the middle of the night. When a sleep cycle is interrupted, the brain responds with "He/she is up. All hands on deck" and shoots a lot of adrenaline into your system. When this sort of "Attention kmart shoppers" moment occurs, it is very common for a number of folks to perceive their tinnitus as louder. It is normal physiology, and the effect is temporary.

Hope this helps!

here2help

 

Interesting. Thank you. I wondered why it's worse after nap as well.

 

Thanks for the explanation. Is too much adrenaline the problem?

 

Just woke up and t is loud.. it's been like this ever since it started. ..

 

Here2help,
Some have hypothesized it's an adrenaline spike that triggers the tinnitus. Maybe....... although I suspect it may be related to neck or jaw positioning as I can sometimes mitigate by changing my neck position while sleeping and/or when I wake-up.

It's quieter in the morning upon waking up. But louder in the night upon waking up. So I really doubt it's just the perception thing here. I suspect the amount of sleep has to to a lot on the volume when you get up.

A shower (or a comparable sound of that intensity) is the only thing that fully masks my T...and by fully I mean not a hint of tinnitus perception.

Its a brain thing, not simply a perception thing. I threw the perception theory out the window a long time ago. If you HEAR it louder, then it IS louder.

 

After wearing WNGs during the night, I found this went away completely. I'm not offering an explanation why, just my own personal experience. Before using WNGs I often woke up with the T blaring and had difficulty getting back to sleep. After I started using them this problem went away completely. It was a huge relief for me.

 

This used to happen to me.. waking up in the middle of the night with loud T. I would say the last few months that it doesn't happen anymore. Don't know why.....

 

This happens to me very often, i woke up in the middle of the night, with super loud t, then i started to think, and do breathing excersice and fall asleep again.

other thing that happens to me, is that..
sometimes i woke up and there is not T, this has happend to me at least 2 times, usually on sunday...
and one time i was t free for 1 long hour, i didnt even want to move lol.

 

@Engineer What are WNGs, please?

 

White Noise Generators

 

@engineerDo you use them all day and night too ? Is is a sound machine or a hearing aid type? Thanks tons!

 

Later reply sorry. When doing Trt
You wear them as much as possible To aid habituation. They are like hearing aids in form, but generate white noise to decrease your reaction to your T over time. I wear them infrequently now, they helped me to habituated.

 

Weapons of Nuclear Gestruction

 

I once heard an explanation of this. It came from a totally different field of study.

It said that when animals go to sleep, the brain turns up its volume to listen for predators. (If a person has tinnitus, it's going to turn that up too.)

Here's a good example: Is there anyone here who's old enough to remember the days when millions of people bought clock radios to use as a morning alarm? Before bed, you'd set the volume of your radio, so your favorite station would wake you pleasantly in the morning. The only problem was the volume. What had seemed pleasant the night before, sounded like 300 decibels in the morning. So everyone had to get in the habit of setting the radio to barely audible the night before. Even decades ago, everyone was smart enough to see that the radio wasn't louder in the morning; their heads were.

 

My t is utterly catastrophic when I wake up , a wall of high frequencies. Absolutely insane, would last for a few days it it did not back off in 30 to 60 minutes.

 

Maybe its an evolutionary thing , you might wake up because of hearing a predator and need full alert ?

 

Yes...

We think we're totally asleep, but our hearing is watching our back.

It's cranked up and listening intently for the footfall of a tiger.

 

This happens to me. I wake nights with loud t.