Tinnitus Seems to Be Somehow Linked to a Crucial Bodily Function, Studies Hint

Hey @Flowergirl, yeah, I have what I consider an unusual type of tinnitus in my right ear only (I do have mild reactivity in both ears, but it's minimal). I get anywhere for a 0/10 to a 7/10 on any given day. What I hear is established while I sleep. Whatever I wake up to is what I get for that day, like my head rolls some dice in my sleep. So some days it's a loud hiss or squeal (like I can hear it even when I shower), and some days it's so low I have to go to a quiet room to hear it (I've had a couple of days where it was like gone-gone). When it's a 0/10, I ironically have a hard time falling asleep because I worry I'm likely to have noise when I wake up.

Since you hear silence when you first wake up, I wanted to tell you something that I've happened upon. I've been able to do this like 6 times now. On my 7/10 days, I get fatigued towards the evening--so tired of hearing my tinnitus it all day. So, I lay down in bed in the fetal position on my side, listening to nature sounds to mask my tinnitus, and just tell myself to rest but not sleep. Often I'm just surfing on my phone while I do this. After about 20 minutes, I get really tired but I force myself to stay awake and I get into this really zen, meditative state. Feels otherworldly and euphoric, and I feel like I'm floating. Anyway, when I'm in this state, my tinnitus evaporates, just like when waking up to silence. I can stay in this state for about an hour before the shoulder I'm laying on starts to feel uncomfortable and I have to get up. My tinnitus returns about 20 minutes after I get up. I can't always get myself into this state, but it's really nice when I'm able to. Have you tried any form of meditation? I wonder if you tried this, would you experience the same thing.

 

Does anyone notice a rise in their tinnitus if they sleep for an hour or so in the morning after they first wake up?

 

When I sometimes wake up to a lower level, if I get up and moving right away, it tends to stay somewhat lower whereas if I lie awake in bed, it'll slowly start to rise! Makes no sense to me.

 

Mine is almost like Joe Cuber's.

 

Hey @Joey72, that's interesting. In what ways is yours the same and different?

 

Yeah it seems very common if you take a nap and your tinnitus drastically increases... I found this to be true.

 

Same thing happens to me. Seems like there is a link between movement and sound perception.

Just from Google:

Stop and listen: Study shows how movement affects hearing

 

A week late but I’d like to report on the Melatonin:

I don’t think it had a particularly strong effect for me. What does, however, is CBD oil from a NY medical dispensary. I use 2 ML at night and 1 ML in the afternoon if my anxiety is causing a tough day.

Sadly a firework went off and I didn’t have any hearing protection on in an area where I thought I was safe. It was far away but not far enough. My TV pitch, which is fading, is now accompanied by a moderate electrical hum/ring. Hoping to be okay in a year. I have TMJ and neck issues that have yet to be dealt with in depth. I will be at 2 full months on Sunday 7/10.

 

Similar here. My current sleep routine is the sound of crickets plus rain through a Bluetooth speaker resting on my headboard right above my head. I leave it playing all night.

I can usually fall asleep fine but then I wake up anywhere between 3 and 5 hours later and have a hell of a time getting back to sleep, if at all. Some nights if I don't have to work the next day I may take a hit off a THC vape pen at 2 or 3 in the morning to help me go back to sleep, but obviously can't do that if the next day is a work day.

Then when I do wake up, the tinnitus is slightly quieter than its baseline but after a few minutes being awake it's back to its normal screech.

 

I wake up to a Roar ! Then it quiets down after I get up. The shower is especially effective - while it lasts

 

My sleep has been recently disrupted from what I'm hoping is a temporary spike in my left ear. I barely got 2 hours of sleep at my parents' house and had to sleep over at my grandparents' house in one of their recliners. That worked better, being able to get maybe 3 hours in one sitting and 2 hours in another. Tinnitus is definitely more distressing with little to no sleep.

 

So my sleep pattern has changed a bit since I posted here in July. I now have a wide soundbar sitting on my headboard through which I play either crickets + something else or notched violet/purple noise to help me sleep. I switched to the soundbar because the Bluetooth speaker wouldn't cover a wide enough area so I'd hear the masking sounds from one ear or the other depending on how I was facing, but never through both ears at the same time. The important ear is the left one so with the wide soundbar I can hear the sounds through my left ear regardless of my position.

I am also taking 7.5 mg of Mirtazapine every night along with Melatonin, Valerian, and THC. That's currently the only way I can get to sleep. I need to make sure I sleep through the night because if I wake up in the middle of the night the eeeeeeeeee is so loud that I can't get back to sleep no matter what I do. And it has been a long time since I've woken up and found the eeeeee noise to be quieter. Lately it has been annoyingly loud as soon as I open my eyes.

Basically, it's not getting any better and is just getting worse. Last night for the first time in months I had to use my sleep headphones to pipe violet noise right into my left ear. And even that didn't mask it completely.

As I type this at my desk I'm listening to notched violet noise through headphones and it's not masking the eeeeeeeeeeee.

 

How do you know you don't experience tinnitus if you are asleep?

 

It might seem like a kind of facile answer, but if you did experience tinnitus during the REM phase of your sleep, you would recall experiencing it in at least one or more of your dreams? No?

 

Hi @DebInAustralia -- I had a dream a few nights ago where I heard a loud noise, and could then hear and feel my tinnitus start spiking (while still asleep). When I awoke, my tinnitus was louder than normal. I've had a few other times where I had some kind of stressful dream, and my tinnitus was worse than normal when I awoke. So it seems my dream state affects my tinnitus, but it's always been of a short duration.

 

Golly,

How did you get your tinnitus?

 

My tinnitus started shortly after a mysterious (probably) viral ENT infection. I am not sure the relationship was causal. /G

 

The phenomenon you are describing is called yoga nidra. In a nutshell, it's a way of getting rest not by sleeping but by falling into a deep meditative state that has many of the benefits of sleep.

Those of you who want to try this can read up on yoga nidra techniques and see if they work for you. I have yet to try them myself, but I'm interested. I've accidentally achieved this state once or twice, and it would be great if I can train myself to achieve it at will.

 

Thanks @ECP. I didn't realize that that was what yoga nidra is. I've heard the term but didn't know what it entailed. I'll look it up to learn about it some more. Coincidentally, I applied it just now. It's 3 am right now in my time zone. I woke up at 2:30 am to a cacophony of tinnitus sounds, so I applied the technique to calm it down. It's not entirely gone, but it's a lot more quiet now. Keep us updated of you give it a try.