Tinnitus from Acoustic Trauma — It Got Better

Hello, I've been lurking the forums since last August when I got tinnitus, but only recently joined to post some suggestions. I thought might as well introduce myself while I'm at it.

So first off I want to say that I'm 22 and I have gotten tinnitus only once before this when a firecracker blew up in my face when I was 8 years old. I always thought that ear ringing was temporary like in movies and never knew that you could have it permanently. I have also been living next to a train for 10 years, and have used headphones excessively. Also keep in mind that I valued my silence greatly, at the end of the day, sleeping in pure silence was beautiful to me.

I got my tinnitus over a week where I was calling someone on the phone. I had the speaker close to my ear and turned the volume up because I could barely hear them. But at random times, the sound would shoot up loudly and I would feel a sharp pain in my ear. I knew something was wrong but my stupid self just ignored it. I didn't know at the time the damage it could possible do.

So this happened about 5-6 times over a week before I said enough is enough and told them they had to fix their phone or not call me. after a few days, I woke up with initially hissing which progressively got louder and louder over the next few days. At this point, I was having the following things happen:

• Severe tinnitus in one ear (morse code, multi tone high pitched Es, loud BURRR feeling/sound, electrical buzzing, weird on and off whistling) 10/10
• Terrible hyperacusis to the point where even eating hurt my ears, a rustling plastic bag would cause INTENSE pain
• Sound distortions
• Terrible anxiety where I always had an empty feeling in my stomach and chest
• Ear fullness, sharp random pains in ear, empty feeling in ear

Over a week it was probably the worst week I've ever experience because every sound would hurt, the sound radiated across the left side of my face, I could barely sleep and could not even bare having the fan close to my face to mask it, and even if it was, it would not mask the sound. The hyperacusis made it 10x worse since I couldn't even turn my computer on as the sound would cause discomfort.

During the week, I was using ear plugs and I pushed one in too deep which caused me to impact my ear wax. I believe I probably already had some impacted ear wax, but pushing the ear plug in made it worst because I could barely hear after that. So I went to a clinic to get that check out. They said I did have impacted ear wax and cleaned it out. Afterwards it actually felt a ton better, the noise got quieter, although I still had hyperacusis.

At this point I still didn't have tinnitus in my left ear, but over a week during the end of August, I would randomly get a hissing in my right ear that would come and go randomly, along with sharp ear pain. Then one night at the end of August, I had this crazy intense pressure sensation in both ears, as if I was getting two screw drivers driven in ear side of my head. For some reason I kept yawning and when I was finally able to sleep from exhaustion, I woke up with hissing tinnitus in my right ear. It raised my anxiety but subjectively, the sound wasn't too bad.

Over the next two months from this (at the end of October), my hyperacusis when away completely, it would gradually decrease to the point where no sound would hurt my ears. From September to January, my tinnitus would fluctuate ever few days where it'd be around 6-7/10 (multi tone high pitched E heard through most of the day) to 3-4/10 (no high pitched E sound heard through most of day). I would also have random sharp ear pains, along with ear fullness, and fleeting tinnitus almost daily. During January, it went down to 1-2/10 (multi tone E sound went to a hissing sound) where I didn't even notice it much when I was sleeping. I stopped having the random ear pains too. Fleeting tinnitus has became more rare as well. It been like that for til a few days ago where I was doing some stretches with my neck and one of the high pitched E tones came back, although it doesn't cause me much distress.

Just wanted to share my story with some hope for new comers that it can get better! I didn't really try much to get rid of the tinnitus, but I stopped using headphones and got some small speakers instead for my computer. Headphones would give me a weird fullness feeling after using them. I also covered my window up so the train wouldn't be as loud. I also avoid going to any loud places now. I will say that I have had incidents where I couldn't really control such as an idiot on a motorcycle and dog barking randomly near me. I just covered my ears with my fingers and ran. They would result in my tinnitus being louder temporary for a few days but nothing permanent.

One thing I really recommend is reading the Research News section! Understanding the new treatment options that are going to be coming in the future gave me tons of hope during the hardest times.

 

Thank you for sharing your story and giving us newbies some hope. I developed tinnitus 5ish weeks ago, and have been having extreme anxiety. Your story gives me some hope. I will try to hold hope.

Can you share some of the new research for treatments coming in our near future!?

 

Current Promising Treatments:

Regeneration Therapies:

Cochlear degradation has a strong correlation with tinnitus, therefore, regenerating these structures should benefit tinnitus patients.

Frequency Therapeutics - FX-322 (Phase 2a): Uses 2 molecules which, when injected in the ear, partially reprogram support cells into creating hair cells, while not depleting support cells. When created, hair and support cells release NT3/BDNF to attract neurons, which make the synapse components to communicate. They also added a tinnitus experimental arm and are doing a podcast with tinnitus talk.

Audion Therapeutics - LY3056480 (Phase 2): Uses a molecule which, when injected in the ear, causes support cells to trans-differentiate into hair cells. This does deplete support cells, so multiple uses will have diminishing efficiency. Results are said to come out at the end of April.

Hough Ear Institute - siRNA (Preclinical): Uses siRNA (silencing RNA) which, when injected in the ear, causes support cells trans-differentiate into hair cells. This does deplete support cells, so multiple uses will have diminishing efficiency. In animal testing, hair cells regenerated the synapse components to communicate.

Pipeline Therapeutics - PIPE-505 (Going to Phase 1): Uses gamma secretase inhibitor which, when injected in the ear, causes support cells to trans-differentiate in synapses and hair cells. This does deplete support cells, so multiple uses will have diminishing efficiency. Treatment for tinnitus was shown in their patent.

Hough Ear Institute - NHPN-1010 (Going to Phase 2): Uses a antioxidant (HPN-07) and molecule (NAC) which, when swallowed in pill form, regenerates hair cell synapses in chronic hearing loss models. Also has shown efficiency in animal tinnitus models.

Otomony - OTO-413 (Phase 1): Uses a protein (BDNF) which, when injected in the ear, causes regeneration of synapses. Hidden hearing loss is the loss of synapses connected to hair cells, thus, regenerating synapses can treat this, also with possibly helping tinnitus.

Neuromodulation Therapies:

Neuromadulation has shown efficiency in reducing or eliminating tinnitus by reducing hyperactivity in the area of the brain associated with tinnitus.

University of Michigan - Depending on which has the most effect on your tinnitus, they places stimulation around your head, jaw, and neck. This along with sound timing has shown a 12db tinnitus decrease in their testing.

University of Minnesota - Uses targeted timing based on your tinnitus/EEG to stimulate areas of your neck/head/jaw along with customized treatment for sound timing. Would be the most effective and has cured @kelpiemsp of his tinnitus.

Lenire - Stimulate the tongue along with sound timing has had some positive effects on people tinnitus.

Ion Channel Therapies:

Prof. Thanos Tzounopoulos - RL-81 (Preclinical): A drug based off Trobalt (Retigabine), which has shown positive effects on tinnitus, although having severe side effects. RL-81 aims to reduce side effects drastically by being more targeted, while also having a 15x potency in the targeted area, potentially reducing tinnitus.

There are more treatments coming as well but these are the most popular right now, so don't give up hope! All are planned to release within the next 5-10 years or less.

My Opinion:
I am a firm believer that cochlear degeneration (hair cell/synapse loss) has the highest likelihood of causing tinnitus and I also believe that it probably a lot more prevalent than people think, especially in higher frequencies. Today's technologies for diagnosing hearing loss are primitive and not precises. Along with the fact that subjective tinnitus can't be objectively diagnosed, it can make it seem as if tinnitus is some unknown mystery in the brain, when it's just a symptom of cochlear damage.

 

Does this happen even if they aren't on/plugged in?Meaning, just wearing them alone would cause you discomfort?

 

I can also say that things get better. I had my acoustic incident 5.5 months ago and I feel major improvement. My T and H are 70% gone I think. People here often wrote that it took them something like 10-14 months to recover, sometimes even 8-9 months. So don't loose hope. I try not to loose it too but sometimes its hard, I understand. Concentrate more on your life and other problems and days would fly.

 

No, only after listening to music for a bit.

 

You may want to look into some sound reducing curtains. The train passing can be loud, and I find noise when I am asleep can lead me to wake up with worse tinnitus.

https://soundproofliving.com/best-soundproof-curtains/

Also, lose the headphones as you did. The weird ear fullness after use sounds like repetitive acoustic traumas, and you are better off with the speakers at a low volume.

 

Glad to hear things got better for you, especially the hyperacusis which as you say can be 10x worse than tinnitus. I trust you are protecting your ears when going out in loud environments. You're lucky to have improvement without anything in the way of treatment to speak of, but you will have seen plenty stories of sufferers who thought they were better, until a further noise exposure left them worse off than they were before. Buying computer speakers instead of headphones was definitely a smart move.

So stay safe and thanks for sharing!

 

Thanks for the recommendation! I'll definitely look into getting some!

Thank you too, and don't worry, I'll never take my ears for granted and will take good care of them from now on.

 

Great, it does get better, but takes a really long time.