Spontaneous Recovery Stats: Many Recover (3 Studies)

It's right here...

 

Thanks for posting. Very interesting.

 

I'll help.

 

Improved Sound Level Tolerance Accompanies Remission of Persistent Tinnitus in Adolescents with Clinically Normal Audiometry

Larry E. Roberts1; Tanit Ganz. Sanchez2 1McMaster University; 2University of São Paulo School of Medicine, São Paulo, Brazil

Sanchez et al. [1] found that 27.5% of 170 adolescents in a private school experienced verified tinnitus and reduced sound level tolerance (SLT) during psychoacoustic assessment with no impairment of otoacoustic emissions or clinical audiometry. Risky listening habits were near universal and not more prevalent among those experiencing tinnitus and reduced SLT. However, new cases of tinnitus can resolve over time without explicit treatment in an undetermined percentage of young adults [2]. We therefore carried out repeat measurements on 54 adolescents who returned voluntarily for study one year later. In both studies SLT was measured as Loudness Discomfort Level (LDL).

Results (1) Of the 14 subjects with verified tinnitus in the first study who returned for a second psychoacoustic measurement, 42.9% experienced verified tinnitus on retest while 57.1% did not. (2) SLT measured as LDL was reduced by 17.2 dB in repeating cases (p < 0.0001) and normal in resolving cases. (3) Hearing thresholds measured to 16 kHz were < 20 dBHL in 98.3% of ears, with only one tinnitus subject showing thresholds > 20 dBHL above 11.2 kHz. However, hearing thresholds > 4 kHz were higher in the left ear (8.33 dBHL) than the right ear (3.05 dBHL) of repeating compared to resolving tinnitus subjects (p = 0.037; all bilateral tinnitus). (4) Otoacoustic emissions did not differentiate between adolescents with or without verified tinnitus in either study. (5) Among returning adolescents those without tinnitus reported attending fewer parties and raves per week than did those with tinnitus (42.3% versus 62.5% respectively), but this difference was not statistically significant.

Conclusions There was a notable remission of persistent tinnitus in this sample (57.1% of cases), confirming previous reports that persisting tinnitus can resolve without explicit treatment in new cases in young adults [2]. Audiometric thresholds and otoacoustic emissions were clinically normal in repeating cases, although thresholds >4 kHz were elevated by ~5 dB in the left ear in repeating tinnitus. SLT was decreased in repeating tinnitus and recovered to normal levels in resolving tinnitus, confirming previous reports of a relationship to tinnitus [1]. The time course of SLT and tinnitus could
reflect hidden hearing loss followed by synaptic recovery which has been reported in animal models [3].

[1] Sci Rep, DOI: 10.1038/srep27109 1; [2] Roberts (2016), in D. Baguley & M. Fagelson, Tinnitus. Plural Press, pp. 13-33; [3] Song et al. (2016), Sci Rep DOI: 10.1038/srep25200. Assisted by NSERC of Canada.

 

Hey i'm curious, hows your tinnitus doing? I'm 2 weeks in, also suffering tinnitus, hyperacusis as well as slight hearing loss from a gunshot. i'm only 21.

 

It's important that you let your brain hear other sounds along with the tinnitus. What I mean by this is you cannot put the tinnitus sound above other sounds you normally hear. It is part of your soundscape, but it's one your brain actually doesn't need. By letting the working portions of your hearing have relevance, your brain will recalibrate quite a bit.

You also need to give your brain and hearing a rest. I mean, multiple hours a day of rest. It's a guarantee you will hear your tinnitus ins the quiet room, but by letting your brain also hear the sound of your surroundings, you will help it recalibrate.

A lot of researchers now believe that silence and tinnitus are both memory based. Essentially, when the volume of your surroundings drops to zero, your brain put whatever is the "silence" memory into your conscious. Tinnitus is a painful response to silence that results from either hearing damage or a brain problem. I have not recovered from mine - I've had it five years. But I have experienced very intermittent bouts of silence since I started practicing mindfulness and letting my tinnitus compete with real sounds, with the real sounds winning in the end everytime.

I doubt mine will ever completely go away, and that's OK, but you can manage the intensity of it. Before I had my current tinnitus, I actually had very low bass tinnitus that I didn't even think of as tinnitus because it was very soothing, and it came after I went to a death metal concert. It wasn't until I was under a ton of stress and hurt my ears again in a very psychologically damaging situation that I got my high pitched tinnitus. But like I said, I have managed to get my brain to calibrate a bit. Even if my tinnitus went away, I would still do this, because my brain deserves a break sometime, tinnitus or no tinnitus.

 

I’m doing ok . I heard silence last Tuesday when I walked in a closet with no sound. I still hear the T when I’m laying down on my T ear . I’ve seen progression slowly but still something to stay hopeful about.

 

Yeah I have silence now about 50% of the time down from no silence, I'm 9 months in.. Yeah sometimes I have tinnitus too or it's louder when I lay down on my ear. Wonder why that is??

 

Is your advice to try to be spend a couple of hours every day in Complete Silence (as in not even the sound of a desktop computer fan)?

 

I sleep in complete silence, only sound is when my furnace turns on... This last weekend I was around loud music and was drinking and I've had light tinnitus for about 6 days straight now.. Usually I would have it 3 days on and 3 days off. The 3 days with no tinnitus, the tinnitus was sooo soft it wouldn't effect me...

Bill Bauer when you say it could take 1-2 years for the tinnitus to go away do you mean for the tinnitus to really go away completely or the person just gets used to it??

 

What I was saying is that it Could (really) go away. In other words, if it Doesn't go away after two years (or if it doesn't fade after one year), it makes sense to begin worrying that it might be permanent. There are published studies that say that T is often permanent if it doesn't go away after two years.

In the studies cited in this thread, T actually went away.

Having said this, I believe that if one doesn't stay away from noise whenever one can, one decreases the chance of it going away.

 

If the tinnitus goes away does it get gradually better and then go away or just all of a sudden disappear??

And like I previously said I have T about 60% of the days now, while before from Sept-Jan I had it 90-95% of the time and its not as loud. T began with a misaligned jaw/neck.

 

@Mathew Gould - has it decreased on it's own? Or are you doing something for it? Did you go through with PT? I'm curious what type of daily or weekly regimen you've been incorporating into your life to reduce your symptoms.

 

It looks like in most cases it fades at a glacial pace. It seldom "turns off"...

 

I did PT on my jaw and neck, but the PT was novice stuff... I say that its gotten better on its own.

 

Fair enough. But there are many studies listed in the posts in this thread. I don't remember the recovery rates for each and every study. I remember that several studies of seniors reported spontaneous recovery rates of over 20%, and these rates ought to be a lot higher for younger people, as a number of studies mention a strong inverse relationship between the chance of recovery and age.

 

As long as the recovery rate is less than 100%, there will be people who do not recover. There are tens of millions of people with T on planet Earth who have access to the internet. So it is not surprising that some of those millions of sufferers made posts on this forum.

 

I still receive frequent "likes", etc. on this post.

My own tinnitus has also improved tremendously. My hyperacusis went away 99% of the time. I go to concerts again, loud bars, practice guitar daily.

I'm of the belief system that ears can heal for many of us if given enough time and are properly treated.

 

Is your T from accumulate damage from noise? When did you notice your T had gotten better?

 

It's from many years of abusing my hearing, followed by one night that was very VERY over the top with volume.

I'm 35. I've played guitar since Im 12. DJ'd at raves for years with shitty monitors pointed at my face in warehouses where the walls were not treated for acoustics, and have been active in the live music scene since my teenage years. I worked a desk job where I wore headphones for 8 hours a day for a decade.

then I went to the loudest place I'd ever been, and stayed for 3 hours. this was the anvil that broke the camels back.

If you read my posts you'll see I had very intense T, but it was intermittent even early on. In the beginning iw ent back and forth between a 10 and a 3-4. Now I go back and forth between a 2-3 and a 0-1. Most days I'm really fine. Last week I had a solid 3 for a few days but it faded again. I can't really hear it at all today.

I really started to feel OK at 14 months. About 2 months after that post I bumped. Of course, my spikes still bugged me, but they are less and less frequent these days.

 

Wow, now THAT is a succes story to me! That a person who has abused their ears a lifetime still can experience T getting better in time. This gives me new hope

 

you should have hope. I didn't, but here I am. I'm around less, but I still log in to spread positivity. I don't run from loud anymore. I've been to 5 shows in 2018 alone. I performed at one of them. It's MUCH louder on stage btw, and generally in more harmful frequencies (stage monitors tend to be EQ'd to higher frequencies b/c they "cut through" more - which allows you to hear it a bit better.

earplugs are your friend. time is your friend. keep hope alive.

 

Very interesting Bill. I know for a fact my hearing did "somewhat" improve since the initial trauma, Higher frequencies no longer sound smeared together as much as they use too.

 

The Neil Young case is interesting, he has a lot of hearing loss but in interviews he has said "I still have a little bit of T".

 

Was it 14 months before you had any improvement? Or significant improvement?

 

The latter. Hard to say though. The first year I had a lot of physical symptoms and it all came and went day over day. Fullness, hyperacusis, tensor tympani thumping, “reactive tinnitus”, ringing, buzzing. Changed every day.

 

That's still encouraging for many here. I had some improvement by 7 months but it f***ed off by 8 months. I was told by someone in a good position to know that many cases did resolve by 12-18 months. No idea if that's true though. Would not be surprised if not.

 

don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see

 

I don't believe it outright but because of its source it was certainly potentially compelling information