Success: Noise-Induced Tinnitus and Hyperacusis 95% Gone

I crawled these forums when I had tinnitus/hyperacusis and they helped so I wanted to give back. This is for people who have noise-induced tinnitus. This is only since November, 2019 so a short time, but still.

I went to a loud concert and stood near a speaker without earplugs like an idiot. I woke up the next morning and was fine. Slight ear-ringing that I get after all concerts that goes away. This faded away the following week.

The following weekend, a friend visited me and we went to a bar where there happened to be live music. I wasn't close to the music but it was moderately loud. Didn't think anything of it. Next morning, my ears are ringing. It only got worse as days went on.

Within a week I had decently loud changing tones/beeps/static in both ears, as well as hyperacusis too. Dishes clanking, normal-decibal voices, etc. all made me wince. I also had burning, pain sensations in my left ear when this happened. I'm pretty sure this is because I subjected my ears to the first trauma (extreme loudness) and then went on to a second trauma within a week span.

I thought I was doomed. I got extremely anxious and this consumed me for the first month or so. I couldn't eat or think about anything else. Luckily it wasn't bad enough that I couldn't sleep (I use white noise anyway) BUT the extreme sensitivity to sound paired with the tinnitus was horrible. I was in pain and was scared of all noises. I bought earplugs and put them on my keychain (I still have them because it's a good idea for EVERYONE). I was worried I would have to live as a hermit forever and not do anything fun. I'm still young and didn't want to deal with this forever. I also thought I would go crazy because it felt like the sound was inside my brain and would never go away, that I'd go insane or something.

THE GOOD:
Within a month, I calmed down and habituated. The ringing was still there and the hyperacusis went down. When I went to any bar or restaurant, I told my friends I was going to wear earplugs and no one cared. Slowly, I stopped noticing the ringing and no longer felt sensitivity to certain sounds. Things started getting better. By January, I felt 85% better on all fronts. By now, I don't notice the ringing unless I'm in an extremely silent room. I went hiking in the woods with fresh snow fall (the quietest environment I can think of) and barely heard my tinnitus...what little ringing I had left, I barely heard. I went to the doctor and my hearing is perfect, as far as their tests could tell.

I will now be extremely careful with my ears. I have earplugs I bring everywhere. I will not go to any type of bar or club without ear protection (not that I do much of that anyway). I haven't gone to a concert and will probably wait until I consider doing that.

I just wanted to give people hope who were in the position I was in a few months ago. I can't speak for the people who have had it for years, but just know that if you're dealing with noise-induced tinnitus for a few months, it can go away. Just rest your ears, try to breathe and relax, and take care of yourself. Eat healthy food, try to get enough sleep, and exercise! Exercising was a huge stress-reliever for me. I just put in earplugs and went to the gym to sweat out my anxious energy. It didn't cure anything, but it helped.

Good luck to everyone!

 

Sounds like you've handled things really well. Congrats on getting your life back!

Just remember and stay consistent with protecting your ears from now on. I kept going to concerts after my first tinnitus scare but I wasn't consistent or careful enough and looks like I'm stuck with it now. But positivity makes a big difference and I really must make 2020 the year I get back into exercise again.

 

I wouldn't call it 95% gone. To me, it is either gone or not. There is no in-between. Your loudness and perception of it has just reduced... Which is called habituation.

Glad to hear you've reached this point as have I. I am in the same boat, only hear it when dead quiet and even then doesn't bother me... UNLESS spikes... haha dreaded spikes...

 

No, habituation is when the volume is unchanged, but one is no longer bothered by it. In his case, it was loud before, and now it is quieter.

Are you saying that someone whose tinnitus is as loud as a jet engine is having the same experience as someone whose tinnitus is like a whisper?

 

I don’t agree. The noise can fade and it does fade for many. I don’t believe that this is a habituation story.

Happy to hear that your tinnitus is 95% gone as well. It might fade to zero in a year or so.

 

No. I’m saying that it’s either there or it isn’t...?
And he has habituated to the sound that is still there...

 

It is impossible to habituate in a couple of weeks. It takes years before habituation happens.

When you say "it either is or isn't", are you saying that tinnitus can have only one volume level?

 

How do you not understand what I’m saying??

You either have tinnitus or you don’t. Regardless of how loud...

And no it’s not impossible. I did in about a month / 2 months max. And if you literally mean a couple as in 2 weeks. Yeah maybe you’re right. But it doesn’t take a year or more... not for everyone.

 

Noise induced tinnitus can settle fairly quickly for some people, others it may take months. My noise induced tinnitus settled after 4 months.

I know I may be in the minority but I had ten years of practically silence before it came back and started causing me problems.

The best advice I can give for those with noise induced tinnitus is staying vigilant in protecting your ears from further damage.

 

Sounds like you have tinnitus that you can hear only in quiet rooms. Good for you!

 

Yeh but I still have it... that’s my point, just because it’s quiet doesn’t mean it’s gone.

Hopefully you understand the concept of you either have it or you don’t...
Volume doesn’t change the fact that it’s there. Therefore it can’t be “95% gone”...

Can't be bothered to keep going over it.

 

What they are saying is 95% of the volume is gone. Tinnitus is all about volume. So yes if the volume is 95% lower then it’s the same as saying it’s 95% gone. If you have a bag of chips and eat 95% of that bag. Then it’s 95% gone even though you still have a bag of chips. Lol

 

What happened?

 

That's what people say when they want to convey that the volume is 95% of what it used to be.

 

For every positive comment, there are always some who try to make it less than it is.....

 

I meant to say 5% of what it used to be.

 

That’s true. I am happy the OP T has settled.
By all means am I not trying to pull anyone down. The terminology just didn’t make sense to me.

I just didn’t want it to be one of those success threads where some people misinterpret and think it’s actually gone when it’s just lowered and he’s getting used to it to a degree.
This is common for a lot of people with mild T.

 

I got old Bill, that's what happened I am 55 but my problems started at age 48, my tinnitus started acting up due to peri menopausal stuff. Hormone therapy made everything worse.

I was given Clonezepam and told it was safe to take long term, I only used it sparingly but I still hit tolerance on it quickly. Won't go into the story in detail but believe me this is when my true nightmare started.

My tinnitus is soooo much worse now, all because of this drug

 

It isn't listed on
http://hlaa-sbc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Ototoxic_Brochure.pdf
Shocking...

 

@Star64

IIRC clonazepam is not ototoxic but due to its MOA and downregulation of GABA receptors, can cause refractory tinnitus. But it should be temporary. There’s a case here by @1MW whose tinnitus was caused by benzos and it took him a while (5.5months) until it was 90% gone.

 

Sounds like you're an all or nothing kind of guy. From your comments you seem to imply that volume doesn't matter. This is ridiculous. Do you think that someone with the occasional twinge in their back has the same level of disability as someone with a herniated disk who is in pain 24/7?? They both have back pain, right?

>it’s just lowered and he’s getting used to it to a degree.

sounds like you're projecting. Tinnitus, for the vast majority of people completely goes away. It's the very, very unfortunate that end up on Tinnitus Talk.

 

Nope, take it how you please, it's as simple as saying, you have it or you don't have it. That's my point. yeah it's lower, but it's still there.

 

I would contend this; please don't take this in an attacking way, I would just like to offer you a different perspective. There is much evidence that tinnitus comes from aberrant neural activity in the auditory cortex. The thing is, neurons are always firing with some baseline level of noise. For everyone, they can get a spontaneous synchronous spike over some localised region of the auditory cortex, or elsewhere in the brain. This is just statistical. The conscious perception of sound comes from a)synchronous activity in auditory cortex and b)prefrontal cortex activity allowing us to selectively focus on it. I stress that there is some low baseline frequency of synchronous firing that everyone has. It may not be sufficient for us to register it as a sound unless we really try hard and are in a very quiet environment. The frequency of firing is definitely on a continuous scale. There is no cut off. And the firing frequency is related to intensity perception (logarithmically I think), as with any sensory perception (touch receptors, light intensity etc).

Hope this gives you something interesting to think on, whether or not it changes your view. But it may help you to understand that of others. Of course, it is difficult to pin down the mechanisms of phantom sound generation in the brain and active perception of it, and they are in constant interplay. I definitely don't think it is a case of 'either there or not', unless you consider it from the point of view of whether a person has ever in their life been aware of phantom sound. In that case I guess you can give a yes or no answer. I don't think it is wrong to think like this either. Tinnitus is as much about the perception (in the psychological sense) as the pathological mechanisms that lead to it.

 

Disagree, I know many people with mild tinnitus that would never come to an internet forum for advice etc.

 

Thanks for this, my story is VERY similar to yours so this is encouraging. I also developed tinnitus from a loud concert, same month as you too. Like you, mine faded after the concert, and then got worse. I've been very anxious about it and have also started carrying ear plugs with me everywhere as a precaution. I'm going to my first doctor's appointment for it tomorrow, so hopefully I get some good news... I'm still holding out hope that it will go away, but if it doesn't I just hope I can get to a point where I can calm down and habituate.

 

Hi@Star64,

I am sorry to hear about your worsening symptoms. I would be very surprised that Clonazepam would have caused or exacerbated your T. It has addictive qualities but many people with T report that it actually helps them manage and does not exacerbate/impact it at all. I am a behavioral health clinician and it is prescribe d all the time. I realize everyone is different but it isn't listed as an ototoxic drug and even the ENTs say it is safe in that regard. Did you rule out other causes?

I hope things have improved for you.

 

How are you now?

 

You think so? This forum is just a representation of the sufferers out there. None of the doctors I have seen told me it went away for anyone they knew. When I first got it, I trawled the internet and I still do occasionally and I never found truly convincing evidence that it goes away for anyone. While I trust it does for some people, depending on how they got it and a series of circumstances, when looking at the success threads here, very very few, if any, celebrate a complete relief from tinnitus that is a true back to silence and does NOT come back ever again. In fact, reading the success stories these days makes me quite depressed. Not because I am bitter, far from it, I come to find some encouragement, but because I can’t help but take everything that’s said here with a pinch of salt.

 

I think the reason why there are very few success threads is because most people that find relief just move on with their lives and have no need to come back to a tinnitus forum. So most of the stories here will naturally be more negative than positive.