Tinnitus Modulated by Sleep... Anyone?

Hi everyone!

This is my first post, so go easy on me ;-)

34 year old male, born with some degree of Sensorineural hearing loss (and a lot of eye problems). I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember, I remember being a child and thought I heard rain/birds when there was no source for the sound.

Anyway, as I've gotten older my tinnitus has gotten worse, but I have found - so far - only one real thing that lack of sleep really does seem to make my tinnitus LOUD, and when I say LOUD I mean I can hear it OVER running two taps in the bath on full, or, sitting on the floor, right next to a vacuum cleaner on max.. so I'm guessing at that range it's about 70db in volume.

I think I suffer from Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder aswell (I naturally feel tired at 3-5am and naturally wake up at 10am-noon if I'm allowed) and when I get a good 8 hours sleep, during vacation times when I do get to stay up til' 4am and sleep until 11am - that those periods, my tinnitus is often a heck of a lot better.

The pattern I've noticed is, sleep little = VERY loud tinnitus.
Get 8 hours of sleep when I'm naturally tired, waking when my body wants to wake up = much better. It doesn't go away completely but is a heck of a lot better.

I should add that I take 3mg melatonin when I go to bed which does seem to help me sleep better and, if I can manage to get to bed early enough and get 8 hours, helps me sleep deeply. I have to wake up at 6am and I very seldom feel tired at 10pm in order to get 8 hours, I typically go to bed between 1 and 2am.

Can anyone relate to this?

(please excuse brevity - been one of those sleepless nights)

 

Hi noise! Actually, for some time now I've been saying "noise, go away..." but I digress.

I can't relate to not feeling tired at 10PM, but very much agree that poor sleep = more noise (pun intended). For me the correlation is significant. From what I understand poor sleep results in our bodies producing stress hormones (epinephrine and norepinephrine, also called adrenaline and noradrenaline), the fight and flight hormones. Assume this affects the limbic system and, in turn, increases T.

As for sleep, let me start off by saying I'm a big advocate for being "sun synchronous". By nodding off at 2AM, you are closer to sunrise than sunset. Can't be good in the long run. I think it's going to take a few million years for our circadian rhythms to change to adapt to modern society's way of doing things...

If you don't mind my suggestions, perhaps try using a "sleep stack" of supplements, including adding, perhaps, magnesium and valerian to the melatonin. Lastly, if possible, try a "lights-out" experiment, whereby you withdraw all light, particularly the so-called "bluelight" sources (computer, TV) after, say, 8PM. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that if you turn off the lights and take magnesium, valerian, melatonin, and also drink some calming tea, you'll feel a bit sedated much earlier.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, appreciate it

The thing with me is that I seldom have problems sleeping, I sleep deeply I just have the issue of not being tired until around 1am onwards.

I've tried magnesium and I've tried a few sleeping aids (Betasleep, Xanax) but they don't really help me that much and usually just make me feel groggy in the morning. Obviously I'm very hesitant to take Xanax (or any other chemical assistant) long term.

Have also tried taking coffee out my lifestyle - though it really made little difference I have to admit.

When I was reading about Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder, there are two 'tricks' to try get your body clock to 'reset' the one is slowly going to bed earler, say, an hour earlier every night.. this has had little affect on me. The other method is to go to bed later every night, 2am, 3am, 4am, etc until you go around the clock to 10pm (or whatever). I will most probably try this in in June as I have 4 weeks of vacation coming up then.

 

Sleep affects my T.
80% positive 20% negative

 

T gets worse for me without good night sleep.