Tinnitus Fading 1.5 Years After Onset

Hi everyone,

Tinnitus hit me in December 2018 and I have been following Tinnitus Talk since. The experiences and info you shared were of great support in very dark times of my life, and especially this thread kept a tiny bit of hope alive in me even in moments of total desperation. I never thought I would be writing in this thread one day, however here I am finally sharing my success story and hoping to inspire other tinnitus victims the same hope that kept me going.

My tinnitus was caused by an acoustic trauma in my left ear; all of a sudden my peace of mind was replaced by a fluctuating electric buzz that would reach unbelievably loud volumes during the night and in quiet environments. My whole existence got kicked aside by this tinnitus monster and I found myself switching from living a happy life to barely surviving. I went through anxiety, depression, nervous breakdowns, suicidal thoughts and all those dark places that most of us are unfortunately familiar with. I have seen many doctors and tried lots of meds and treatments, but as we all know contemporary medicine is a big let down when it comes to tinnitus. Nothing I did seemed to give me some relief and at the same time I knew habituation was not an option for me as my tinnitus was not a steady tone but very fluctuating and super loud. I thought I had a future of suffering ahead and I was praying for a premature death. Then at around 1.5 year mark something changed: from a day to another tinnitus got quieter for no apparent reason. To my surprise, I was able to sleep again with no masking. Man, what a feeling! Since then, almost 3 months ago, it has stayed very quiet, except for a couple of days spike. When I go to bed sometimes I hear complete silence, sometimes tinnitus is there but its volume is so low that is barley noticeable. I don’t think it has anything to do with habituation, rather the volume objectively went down.

So, what has worked for me? Nothing really, only time. However there are a few things that helped in some way.

What helped:

- ADs and sleeping pills. I am not a fan of those and appreciate the risk of serious side effects; however they kept me sane enough not to jump out of the window

- White noise earbuds. Literally a life saviour at night

What didn’t help:

- Therapy. I tried mindfulness, hypnosis and CBT. After I tried these approaches I felt insulted as a tinnitus sufferer by how these treatments are often sold as a solution

- Lenire. I wrote a review post some time ago on my experience and I have to rise a red flag here. I approached Neuromod to treat my unilateral tinnitus and ended up developing new tones in both ears while using the device (one of them hasn’t completely faded yet). My reasonable doubt is: since both ears get stimulus through the headset, how can you make sure that it only targets the malfunctioning part? How can you make sure that the other functioning side doesn’t get stimulated and possibly messed up? I think that was the case with me, maybe got stimulus where not needed and so new tones came up, although I guess I will never know for sure.

So here's where I am at now, still with tinnitus at times but at a very low volume. I hope it continues improving over the next months, but if it doesn’t I am totally fine with it as well.

Life challenged me with some tough events, but tinnitus was a whole new level of torture. I pray for all of you to find relief and for a cure to come out soon.

 

Great uplifting story. Thanks for sharing.

Do you have any hearing loss, and if so, to what degree? Did you try any supplements?

 

I'm so happy for you!

It's nice to see someone improve after that long. Were you seeing any gradual improvements at all before a year and a half?

Mine is at a year and a half also but shows no signs of fading (though it's apples and oranges since mine is from an antibiotic).

 

Hi Gee,

Thank you for coming back to tell your story. I'm very happy for you -- congratulations

Sometimes 'time' really is all it takes.

 

I am really happy for you, @Gee82!

Thank you for sharing your story. I hope I will also find peace with my ears some day.

 

Thank you so much.

@all to gain no significant hearing loss up to 8 kHz, some minor hearing loss above that in both ears. I did try a long list of supplements, with no success.

@FGG over the 1.5 years I had 2-3 periods of time where tinnitus gave me a break, however they only lasted a few days, to my disappointment. That’s why I waited months before calling it a success story - I wanted to be sure tinnitus wasn’t around the corner again.

 

What earbuds did you use? Did you use then for sleep?

 

It's awesome that your body has managed to heal. You should definitely be careful with your hearing from now on to not end up with loud tinnitus again.

Could you tell us what antidepressant(s) you used? I'm sure others are curious too.

 

@Lilah I used the bose sleepbuds for sleeping; they were the only tool able to mask my tinnitus. Unfortunately they got withdrawn from the market a few months ago
@Gabriel5050 I was prescribed paroxetine. It made me emotionally numb, which may sound a bit ugly but that was exactly what I needed to remain sane. I am tapering off fine now

 

Thanks for sharing your story @Gee82 , how long are you going to taper for and how do you feel so far while tapering?

 

@AnxiouslyWaiting I started tapering off 2 months ago, from 20mg to 2.5mg now. All went smooth with no adverse effects until I dropped to 2.5mg a few days ago, when I started experiencing some soft brain zaps - nothing too bad though and hopefully they are only temporary

 

Hi, I’m just wondering if you have experience with Paroxetine taper? I tapered from 70mg to 40mg over a 2 week period. My tinnitus has gone crazy since then. Have I done permanent damage by too fast a taper?

 

@Padraigh Griffin My psychiatrist had me taper off very slowly, dropping 5mg every 15/20 days and I was fine with it. I am not sure in your case, dropping 30mg in 2 weeks sounds very fast. Maybe you can ask a psychiatrist/neurologist to assist you with a slower tapering

 

It took about the same amount of time for me.

Time really is the best remedy. There isn’t much else that’s worked for people.

I've faced other challenges and tinnitus is almost the least of my worries now.

I still have to be careful, but majority of time I don’t notice it.
I am on my 4th year.

 

You are tapering too fast!! Your body will will react to not having the same amount of drug in your system. Hopefully if you slow down your taper your tinnitus will settle. Please try and consult with your doctor about doing a slow SAFE taper

 

From what I’ve read they should be, glad it’s going well

 

Sleeping pills don't work with me at all, don't know why.
In other way caffeine drinks like coffee works really great to keep me awake.
------
My problem is that I have both tinnitus and sleep disorder (sleep apnea).
I am struggling to sleep enough time and come to work on time and work efficiently.
I am really worried about how much this (lack of sleep) will affect my health overtime.

 

Thank you. I really did a crazy taper. Do you think the tinnitus surge is permanent? Hard to say I suppose.

 

It is hard to say what will happen with your tinnitus but I know that dropping antidepressant medication as fast as what you have can cause many unwanted side effects temporarily.

In fact even doing a slow taper sometimes can cause a few. I did have a friend that had tinnitus and several years ago she ceased Paroxetine and her tinnitus went louder for a couple of months and then went back to her baseline. Another symptom that stayed with her for over 6 months was brain zaps these are quite common when reducing antidepressant medication.

I actually tapered off after 5 months use of Paroxetine over 20 years ago, it did not effect my tinnitus but I did have other unwanted side effects during and when ceasing the drug.

I was back to feeling good though about 6 weeks after ceasing the drug, I was only on 20mg though.

Give it time, slow your taper right down and hopefully things will settle

 

Thanks for coming back and posting.

 

I'm hitting my 2 year mark in less than a month. I still haven't improved like this, I just get many consecutive days of really loud severe spikes (loud enough to hear over anything), mostly in the right ear, and then 5-7 days of remission where it's almost nearly gone to the point I don't have to mask. Just this back and forth all summer. It's so discouraging but I hope I end up like this story.

oh, and here's my audiogram:

 

@Flyingsheep That sounds good to me. I have two bad days, a medium day and a good day. Sometimes it changes up in there. Did you progress to having more good days, or has it been like that for you since the beginning?

 

My tinnitus is like yours.

In the beginning, in the first months, did you hear your tinnitus even while watching TV?

 

@SadMan -- Just for reference, in the first few months of my tinnitus, it was about 2-3x the volume of watching TV.

 

How is it now? Do you only hear your tinnitus in quiet now?

 

Hi SadMan,

Just chiming in here...
Oh yes, don't we all hear the tinnitus over the TV ?
Would be nice though, if TV could mask it...

How about yours? Can TV or other sounds mask it?

 

Hi,

So very happy for you! Can I ask your age (younger, mid, older)?

 

No, TV doesn't mask my tinnitus. I can hear it even in a crowded bus. My tinnitus reacts to external sounds. If the external noise becomes louder, the tinnitus increases. When the external noise decreases, my tinnitus does not decrease immediately. Sometimes it decreases after 6 hours, sometimes after days.

 

Hi, unfortunately I have been struggling since last time I posted. After 4 months of doing so well my tinnitus has come back with vengeance, for no reason. All the improvement that (I thought) I had achieved was lost in a matter of days and now I feel I am back to square one: desperate, exhausted, hopeless. Scratch my success story, tinnitus is an endless losing war.

 

Man you have to stay positive, seems you had almost 5 months off? That is so great, what a great relief. You may just as likely have that again one day, maybe even soon. Don't panic as it's now early days again.