Studies Confirm Tinnitus Improves Over Time

[Forever hopeful]

I do believe folks have posted improvement on Tinnitus Talk. I don't think it always gets worse. There's a whole populace of people who are here for a short period of time and then move on and you never hear from them again. And some come back and write success stories. We are not necessarily representative of the average person with tinnitus. Most of us are here because we're struggling.

 

[Frédéric]

Like you, I am not one of those people whose tinnitus decreases in loudness or distress over time from its onset.

Short- and long-term changes in auditory sensitivity and tinnitus distress between acute and chronic tinnitus: longitudinal observation in a community-based sample

 

[kingsfan]

 

[Julio G]

I can confirm that. Tinnitus has become a less significant issue in my life after a year. When it first started, I was deeply depressed and lost 10 pounds in just two weeks. I needed prescription sleep medication to get any decent rest, and even with the medication, I still would not wake up feeling fully rested.

Now, I am able to sleep through the entire night, and I am no longer depressed. Yes, it still bothers me at times, but I forget about it for long stretches, and it does not affect me nearly as much anymore. I have more or less gotten used to it and can focus on other things. It also feels softer now.

 

[Joeseph Stope]

I can confirm that. Tinnitus has become a less significant issue in my life after a year. When it first started, I was deeply depressed and lost 10 pounds in just two weeks. I needed prescription sleep medication to get any decent rest, and even with the medication, I still would not wake up feeling fully rested.

Now, I am able to sleep through the entire night, and I am no longer depressed. Yes, it still bothers me at times, but I forget about it for long stretches, and it does not affect me nearly as much anymore. I have more or less gotten used to it and can focus on other things. It also feels softer now.

I hate to rain on your parade, but you might be making a judgment too soon.

While it's true that many people learn to habituate to their tinnitus, in my case it only began to improve slightly after one year. Even then, it was still a major bother. I tried Tinnitus Retraining Therapy when it first came out in the late 1990s, and it did me a lot of good.

But I have reactive tinnitus, so I could live quite peacefully for weeks—until something like a car backfiring, a loud fire alarm, or a firecracker went off and caused a spike. That old remedy or hope used to work reliably, and the spike would eventually subside. Until it didn't.

It could be that the cumulative effect of those noise incidents caused further damage. It could also be age-related tinnitus (presbycusis), which might amount to the same thing. But at this point, I'm pretty much back to the level it was at in 1992.

 

[kingsfan]

I hate to rain on your parade, but you might be making a judgment too soon.

While it's true that many people learn to habituate to their tinnitus, in my case it only began to improve slightly after one year. Even then, it was still a major bother. I tried Tinnitus Retraining Therapy when it first came out in the late 1990s, and it did me a lot of good.

But I have reactive tinnitus, so I could live quite peacefully for weeks—until something like a car backfiring, a loud fire alarm, or a firecracker went off and caused a spike. That old remedy or hope used to work reliably, and the spike would eventually subside. Until it didn't.

It could be that the cumulative effect of those noise incidents caused further damage. It could also be age-related tinnitus (presbycusis), which might amount to the same thing. But at this point, I'm pretty much back to the level it was at in 1992.

This has been my experience over the past few years. The first year I had spikes, but I could pretty much do what I wanted (staying away from clubs and bars obviously), and everything stayed relatively constant.

Now anything slightly loud, even with earplugs, sets off spikes that last weeks. I don't even know what my baseline is anymore; it's just constantly all over the place. I believe the baseline has just been steadily elevating. And now I have some noxacusis symptoms too.