Tinnitus Worse After 20 Years — Doesn't Let Me Sleep and Causes Anxiety

Another update:

Most of the day I can manage and carry on. It’s fairly loud as it reacts to any white noise, and the tones go haywire. The underlying ringing gets louder to stress, caffeine, noise events. I can maybe handle 70 dB without earplugs fairly ok.

My left ear buzzsaw is intrusive maybe 3-4 days out of the week. Night time USUALLY my ears calm down in the quiet. Then I just hear my squeaking + static ringing. Can’t mask as my ears just roar back.

Also when my tinnitus is low and tones are behaving, if it’s really quiet, my brain will create this inner loud roaring noise that’s weird lol.

 

I haven’t updated in a while and not sure anyone cares but basically it’s the same as the above post. Slightly worse baseline/hyperacusis/tones and slightly better acceptance with it.

Just a battle of when I will break, maybe tomorrow, next month.. or who knows, maybe never.

My key survival tips:

1. Find ways to sleep. Without it you’re screwed.

2. Protect if you need to, avoid 24/7. If you’re constantly getting noise events then protect always when out but allow sound enrichment at home if it doesn’t bother.

3. Acceptance. Give up on it getting better, your brain will keep fighting. This is it, it’s here but doesn’t have to be the end of your life.

4. Maintain positivity. Fake it if you have to, I do. “Treatments will help”, “I’ll get used to this eventually” etc.

5. Distraction. Nonstop. Read, game, work out, anything.

6. TRT/CBT. The jury is still out on these. If you have pain hyperacusis, forget TRT. Sound enrichment and protection is a per individual basis. Have to log what bothers you and what doesn’t and go from there.

My old tinnitus can take a beating from any sound, new one is too unstable and worsens if I take noise beatings. Don’t listen to anyone saying just “will through it”. I tried in the beginning for months.

 

Sharp shooting pain is not in inner ear today, it’s outside by the ear canal above the TMJ area? Or around there.

I rather take the pain here but it still sucks lol. Just shooting pain and my jaw cracks fairly loud on the left side. Acoustic trauma causes TMJ for some folks I’m guessing.

 

My jaw sounds like stepping on gravel when I open and close it. I should probably get that looked at, yeah?

 

Yeah WE both should lol. At the very least we do not want TMD on top of tinnitus.

 

When you say sharp, shooting pain, do you mean the tinnitus itself is causing that pain? Like it’s such a high frequency that it hurts? Or do you mean pain that has nothing to do with tinnitus?

 

Well my tinnitus was pretty quiet (to my standards) when I was getting the sharp inner ear pain yesterday. Today no sharp inner ear pain but just sharp pain near TMJ and louder tinnitus. Everyday it’s something lol.

 

I get sharp inner ear pain from foam earplugs, so I stay away from them. What have you been sticking in your ears lately?

 

Same foam. Deeply inserted causes aching and itching. Not sure what to do about that dryness lol.

 

- Tylenol lowers my tinnitus more than half the time.

- Doing activity and increasing my heart rate usually spikes and the bird chirp comes in during those times.

- My hyperacusis is worse at night, I flinch for every noise especially when tired.

- Delayed spikes, I wish I knew what was causing them. My son talking makes my ears shudder. Mainly my left ear pulsatile grinder that annoys me when spiked.

- Getting more and more used to the bad days, when the good days happen I feel wonderful. I feel full of energy and productive, then it gets taken away.

- Double protected driving I still spike no matter what.

- Every now and then I start to obsess why this happened or what’s making me worse but it’s a waste, nothing makes sense lol.

 

I notice when I protect a lot, my tolerance gets worse. But if I’m not careful when exposing, I get set back. But also my tinnitus gets worse if I don’t protect around everyday noise so idk what to really do. It’s like there are no right answers. I’ve read a lot of your posts and our tinnitus sound similar.

 

Yeah I’ve tried the recommended approach of being positive, allowing everyday sounds and I got worse. Normally I should’ve gotten better but my son has outbursts of loud talking near me.

I truly think everyone is different.

Pain hyperacusis folks need to protect as much as possible and only allow sounds for small periods at a time.

Someone like you or me has to protect outside at all times because of unexpected events. Then do sound enrichment as long as it doesn’t bother or fatigue. Maybe gradual increase.

I don’t know... we need treatments man lol.

 

My pulsatile ear does this when my daughter speaks, it can be pretty painful at times. Is this hyperacusis? Or just sound sensitivity?

 

I think it's hyperacusis. Now I'm not sure if that is causing damage as I am exposed to that daily.

 

I get the exact same feeling, it’s almost like my ear is vibrating so fast that it makes a new high pitched noise.

Realistically though, what can you do, I’m not going to tell my little one to stop talking lol. If she is watching something that I know she will laugh at, or I’m playing a funny game with her, then I always wear earmuffs. Apart from that I don’t know what else to do. I can hardly make out a word she says in earplugs. If you ever find anything that helps, let me know.

I hope it’s not doing damage.

 

Yeah I’m looking at custom earplugs now, maybe a lower dB one for in house. My ears get bothered from wearing earplugs so much.

 

I can’t get custom earplugs fitted because of the pressure in my right ear. They say it’s a contradiction and could make things worse. I’ve bought them, just can’t get them fitted.

Swings and roundabouts.