Trying to Do This Again

[Wfg3]

Hello. I acquired tinnitus in April 2010. Simply woke up with it. Never could pinpoint a cause.

I fought very hard to solve this problem for the first five years. Tried everything I could, even hypnosis.

Ultimately, nothing helped except the passage of time and acceptance. My audiogram remains basically stable after almost nine years. 20 dB loss in both ears at 2 kHz.

After a sound exposure this past May, my tinnitus worsened, and I am trying to get through this again. I am much more aware of it and feel like I did when it originally hit me.

Anyway, my audiologist has fitted me with hearing aid maskers and wants me to listen to fractal tones for eight hours a day. She states that amplification is not necessary, because my hearing loss is mild. I guess this is some kind of retraining therapy.

I'm not 100 percent confident with this approach. Any thoughts on the effectiveness of this type of sound therapy would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[New Guy]

I'm sorry that happened to you. May I ask what happened in May?

 

[Wfg3]

@New Guy My wife and I went to an outdoor concert. I wore my 36DB ear plugs. I didn't notice the change until 48 hours later. When I did, my brain zoomed in and sent me down the rabbit hole. For anyone considering concerts, even with plugs, please try to refrain.

 

[New Guy]

Wow! You even had ear plugs in. That sucks. I've heard of a member here who went to a concert and didn't wear plugs and had issues @jjflyman .

How low had the t gotten to and how much louder is it now?

 

[Wfg3]

@New Guy My T improved a lot over time or maybe my perception of it did. It has improved again since May, but I hate the way it is now. Before it liked masking and noise. Now it likes the quiet. It reacts to fans and the TV. It didn't do that before. It had a set pattern before. Now I have to adjust all over again. I've read some of your posts. I'm a hands on guy too. I hate all these precautions I have to take when doing things. Let's hope this year is a better one.

 

[New Guy]

I hope you just have a mild case of hyperacusis, where your ears are more sensitive to noise, and things will improve with time. Have you noticed any improvement with the sensitivity?

I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to be hands on with this condition. Hopefully time will show me the answer.

 

[Wfg3]

@New Guy The audiologist confirmed I have mild hyper acusis. It has improved, but I'm definitely still sound sensitive. I agree with you regarding the time aspect. When I initially had this happen, I spent so much time and money on things that didn't work. I think those disappointments made it worse. Time helped a lot, and things just kind of improved. I'm hoping this happens again. For you too.

 

[New Guy]

My hyperacusis has improved significantly in 10 months, I forgot what it was like to hear things at an almost normal level, though I've still got a way to go. I've visited two ENT's so far and gotten the same results which make sense for what I have. I keep giving things time and hoping for the best. Everything seems to be improving except the noise in my ears so I do the only thing I can, give it more time.

You're not the only person on this forum who had t return or act up @john paul .

I hope you continue to improve too.

 

[Digital Doc]

I hope you just have a mild case of hyperacusis, where your ears are more sensitive to noise, and things will improve with time. Have you noticed any improvement with the sensitivity?

I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to be hands on with this condition. Hopefully time will show me the answer.

This T and H just sucks too much mental energy as before every task I think about how it will impact my ears. It takes a lot of thinking and planning to constantly deal with it, and even think about if the T is getting louder or not.

I find it physically draining, and the insomnia that comes with just makes it a step worse.

The silver lining is that for many folks, if you play by the rules with no additional insults, it gets better. The challenge is in getting there.

 

[john paul]

This T and H just sucks too much mental energy as before every task I think about how it will impact my ears. It takes a lot of thinking and planning to constantly deal with it, and even think about if the T is getting louder or not.

I find it physically draining, and the insomnia that comes with just makes it a step worse.

The silver lining is that for many folks, if you play by the rules with no additional insults, it gets better. The challenge is in getting there.

It should improve, certainly should improve drastically after the first few months. I had mild tinnitus without it bothering me for some years, it was literally just the sound of silence to me. 30 or 40 mins of a loud band (really loud band) sent it over the edge though. I'm at about 13 months since my incident and I'm almost back to pre incident days. The 2 months following the incident were hell, in the top end of the scale hell and now i'm back to borderline mild. The healing has been non linear, few days of good then a few bad days then more good days etc etc less and less fleeting tinnitus attacks as time goes by. If I can go from what I was to where I'm at then healing is totally possible, it's just very slow since I still feel like I'm healing even now. I know I'll always have mild tinnitus at best but I managed to live a completely normal life with it before so I know it's possible, it just has to get to that super mild level again.

 

[Vincent R]

Anyway, my audiologist has fitted me with hearing aid maskers and wants me to listen to fractal tones for eight hours a day. She states that amplification is not necessary, because my hearing loss is mild. I guess this is some kind of retraining therapy.

I'm not 100 percent confident with this approach. Any thoughts on the effectiveness of this type of sound therapy would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

There are two potential results:

1. Your T will improve over time and/or you will get used to it.

2. Your T won't improve over time and/or you won't get used to it.

You will just have to wait and see. In any case, I advice you to stop using the hearing aid maskers, as the use of inner ear phones is what causes T for many people to begin with. I wouldn't carry inner ear phones even one minute, and she wants you to carry them eight hours per day. This ads an extra risk without providing any likely benefit.

Do not assume that medical professionals know what they're doing when it comes to T. They don't. For example, it's not a rare thing for ENT's to perform tests on the ears that severely aggravate the condition:

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/poll-tympanometry-acoustic-reflex-—-did-you-experience-a-spike-in-your-tinnitus-afterwards.33029/#post-403159

 

[Wfg3]

Thanks @john paul for sharing your experience. Your recovery sounds very similar to what has been happening with me. Things have improved somewhat and I'm hoping time will allow a return to baseline. Did you sense a change immediately after the show or was it delayed?
Thank you for your recommendation @Vincent R. This is what my gut has been telling me regarding the sound therapy. Do you think using hearing aid amplification in my range of loss could be beneficial? Thank you.

 

[Vincent R]

Thanks @john paul for sharing your experience. Your recovery sounds very similar to what has been happening with me. Things have improved somewhat and I'm hoping time will allow a return to baseline. Did you sense a change immediately after the show or was it delayed?
Thank you for your recommendation @Vincent R. This is what my gut has been telling me regarding the sound therapy. Do you think using hearing aid amplification in my range of loss could be beneficial? Thank you.

Hearing aids won't have any positive effect on your T, but I've never read any claims that they make T worse either.

 

[john paul]

Thanks @john paul for sharing your experience. Your recovery sounds very similar to what has been happening with me. Things have improved somewhat and I'm hoping time will allow a return to baseline. Did you sense a change immediately after the show or was it delayed?

Oh I knew about it as soon as got home, it was so loud I knew I was in trouble. I have a bad memory though so when I woke up I felt fine. I only noticed it later the following day slightly and figured more time was needed even though I knew it wasn't right.

About 5 days later I remembered again and listened for it and that's when I freaked out. It got progressively worse for about 2 months after that to the point where it was freakishly loud and burning my brain at night time. My left ear was howling for periods of time, if I woke in the night it was always screeching. It was so intense it was painful to listen too. Its quite scary to think about now I'm reliving it just how bad it was compared to now. I'm so thankful that it's not like that anymore, it was unbearable and agonising.

 

[Arseny]

It should improve, certainly should improve drastically after the first few months. I had mild tinnitus without it bothering me for some years, it was literally just the sound of silence to me. 30 or 40 mins of a loud band (really loud band) sent it over the edge though. I'm at about 13 months since my incident and I'm almost back to pre incident days. The 2 months following the incident were hell, in the top end of the scale hell and now i'm back to borderline mild. The healing has been non linear, few days of good then a few bad days then more good days etc etc less and less fleeting tinnitus attacks as time goes by. If I can go from what I was to where I'm at then healing is totally possible, it's just very slow since I still feel like I'm healing even now. I know I'll always have mild tinnitus at best but I managed to live a completely normal life with it before so I know it's possible, it just has to get to that super mild level again.

What was the first sign of improvement you've noticed?

It's been 3 months for me and 2 months after acoustic trauma (brain MRI). I think I have some improvements, but it's hard to tell since I had 2 additional noise exposures that aggravated tinnitus again.

I originally got tinnitus from headphones or ETD (most likely from combination of both, audiogram showed unilateral conductive hearing loss at low and high frequencies) and it was mild to moderate.

Now it's been 2 months of severe tinnitus and I only got a few moderate days (5-6/10) in November and after that it was aggravated by "safe" noise exposure and my other ear started hissing too with mild beeps.

I think I have improved from 8-9/10 to 7/10. My left ear definitely got better, but the hissing is still very loud, I can't mask it with everyday sounds. It's audible even when I ride in the car. I don't know how long should I wait for it to improve more. I already did HBOT and steroids.

 

[john paul]

What was the first sign of improvement you've noticed?

The very first time I noticed improvement was actually after my first fleeting tinnitus attack. I had a Chinese meal and the MSG triggered it off. It seemed quieter after that for some reason could have been a relative thing though. My left ear was the worst it kinda seemed like it had something in it that was blasting this awful noise intermittently. It was so much so that I thought it was only my left ear at first which again might have been relative or it might have spread over to my right side of my brain in time.

But overall the first improvement i noticed was my left stopping these howling attacks after 2 months or so. Everything was very intense in those first months. Night time I could feel it all over my brain zapping electrical signals everywhere and if I woke up in middle of night my left ear would be screaming like there was a speaker in it. I thought my left ear was sure to go deaf.

Over time all things begin to flatline out and dissolve, it's a very slow process and where I'm at now, it is hard to explain, it's just not intense enough to need to mask it. Bad days are the days where it's intense that I prefer to mask it otherwise I'm comfortable without it now. It's getting to the stage where it's soft enough to not be bothered by it, it's a very mild hum similar to the central heating or fridge or something. That's the easy to deal with tinnitus that everyone talks about and given enough time and rest is where you will end up hopefully. I've stayed well away from noise apart from one gig with ear plugs, which set me back 2 months of healing but it went back to where it was in 5 days.