Spike or New Level?

Hey all, this is my first time posting. In the last two weeks my tinnitus has gone from barely bothering me to making me feel very depressed. It's probably gone from a 3 to a 7 on a scale of 10. i had stupidly been listening to music with my headphones every night for about a month and about two weeks ago my tinnitus got louder. Im not sure if it will go back down to the normal level they were at before. Does anyone think ive caused more damage and louder tinnitus permanetly?

 

It's impossible to say if you caused more damage by using headphones. And it's impossible to say where the tinnitus will level off. Try not to beat yourself up over it though. Just use this tinnitus "scare" to clean up your auditory habits: no more headphones or ear buds; wear hearing protection when running loud machinery like paper shredders, vacuums, lawn movers, snow blowers, etc. Make sure you always have a set of ear plugs in your pocket -- but don't go overboard and become paranoid of every sound you encounter in the world thereby prompting you to wear them more than necessary. In short, don't let the tinnitus control you. Make sure you're in the drivers seat.

Again, try not to let your regrets endlessly loop through your brain over this. Things happen. If it wasn't the headphones it might have been something else that triggered the spike. That's just how life goes when you're one of the tribe.

 

Zorro is right. There's no sense in beating yourself up on how or what you did. There's no way of knowing whether it's leveled off or not. I'm in a similar situation. I actually woke up from my T half an hour ago. I was asleep then kind of woke up from a dream but was more awakened by the higher sounds in my right ear, where it's usually lower. I'm praying it's just a spike. I had to press up one more on my white noise app volume just so I can help mask this new higher pitch noise. In the mean time, like Zorro said, just keep some plugs handy and no more headphones. Try to relax your mind, if at all possible. Good luck my friend.

 

I'm not beating myself up just want it to go back to normal as it didn't bug me before. Any tips if does stay this loud?

 

Also I'm very worried about hearing loss

 

I still use headphones; just don't be dumb with them. If you're in a 30db environment, fine. If you're in a 70db environment, not fine.

Hearing loss is an fact of life. Protect yourself, but then don't worry, you may as well worry about the moon.

 

The only fact of using headphones is not harmful. The level on which you use them may be . If you listened to silent music and not for long hours, it shouldn't cause damage, but I'm sure you know it can depending if you did otherwise, that's pretty obvious..you can try to do a test at your ENT and compare it with your old one. Otherwise, try to protect your ears and what's done is done. No doctor and nobody in the world will tell you how it will develop, it's impossible..but it surely still can settle back, this option is not excluded.

 

A warm welcome to the forums @Brandon Wilson.
Your ears are telling you they are not happy around loud music.
Headphones or earphones should only be used very softly but might be worth not using them just for a while give your ears a rest.

Try to stay calm as your tinnitus as every chance in going but only time will tell.

Some doctors might offer you prednisone to help any inflammation .
Try keep sound on around you to mask your tinnitus and at night play soft natural sounds set below your tinnitus.
Playing soft natural sounds below your tinnitus helps your brain work hard to pick up the lower sound you have chosen and learn your brain not to react to your tinnitus sound.

Have a good read of the forum posts and the positive posts and we are always around to support you....lots of love glynis

 

Would you think my ears will calm down even a bit then? its been about 10 days since i stopped using headphones.

 

Hi Brandon,
Give it time and it might settle down for you.
Try not get stressed and relax as much as you can...lots of love glynis

 

I used to run on a treadmill with my iPod speakers pretty loud. Long story short, if i did this for two weeks or more and than stopped with the earphones, within a few weeks the tinnitus would go down. It sometimes a month to notice the difference

 

Really depends on how loud you had your headphones.

I still use my headphone (not in-ear) at work when the chatting around me is disturbing my concentration. I don't have it as long as I used to in one sitting however, it is more maybe max an hour at the time. Usually meetings, bathroom visits, getting coffee etc are always making me to take break from the headphones. Also, I have it rather quiet, much much lower than I used to have before T.
I also game a lot during my free time, I used to have headphones to talk to my friends. I have switched the settings so that I get the sound out of my TV instead, to not put a lot of unnecessary stress on my ears. I have also noticed that my ears get tired much faster (I cant stand to sit in a meeting more than 1 hour), which also gives me a good indication when my ears needs silence and relief.
I think your spike will go down, but I would like to advice you to be careful with the volume and also how much you sit with them. I don't advocate for you to stop with the headphones forever, just to read your body's sign when it is telling you "that's enough".

Good luck

 

Wow I hope this is what happened to me. It was basically a whole month of music every night at decent volume so lets hope the spike goes down. Its been about three weeks now though..

 

The good news is that your spike can possibly go down and/or you will habituate to it. The bad news is that it could take months for this to happen. But ultimately a year from now you could be feeling a lot better about things. You just have to give it time.

It wouldn't hurt to look into relaxation techniques or even seek counseling if you feel you need it. There's no shame in getting help over the next few months while you're waiting to see how things shake out.

Hang in there!

 

Thank you. This is a really supportive group here. Glad I found this place. Everyone is so encouraging!