Would Wearing Earplugs 24/7 for a Year Help with the Nerve Repair Process?

It has improved. So sounds like kitchen fans and running faucet don't annoy me as much. Most improvement I am aware of is with computer audio. 2020 0.5 h of Teams conference gave me burning ear pain and now after 2 h I may have some slight ear tingling sensations. Clearly I try to reduce those exposures as much as possible still. I am not sure if it is the 24/7 ear protection or the Magnesium & Potassium supplements, but both have certainly helped. On the other hand I am nowhere near on writing a success story here. If I would drive with my car without foam earplugs and noise cancelling headphones, my tinnitus would probably still spike like crazy.

My tinnitus made me in 2020 very sleep deprived. Now I would say it is mild to moderate and I get 7 h of sleep.

 

That’s wonderful. I would love to protect 24/7 but just the amount I have been is causing lower sound tolerance for me. Hyperacusis is very individual.

 

That’s what happened to me as well. Tinnitus should be one of the world wonders.

 

I think that you can actually have less tinnitus by overprotecting your partly broken high frequency tiny hair cells. But what kind of a life will that be in the long run?

The alternative might be a little bit more tinnitus but much less protection and constant worries. In the end, hopefully the perceived tinnitus will be less as well.

I am going from overprotecting to constant sound enrichment. It is not easy but as I see it I have no other choice. Once the process is over I just have to accept the tinnitus I am left with.

 

Just to chime in on the whole earplug debate...

I had completely blocked ears full of wax for 10 years+.

This added an earplug type effect to my ears for many years and not once did I suffer from any type of hyperacusis or ear infection.

Don't get me wrong, this is a bad idea and probably led to why I got severe tinnitus through microsuction - although in reality, towards the end, the wax was kind of protecting me.

I was depriving my audio system of sound for years and years, as my hearing was terrible, but again not once did any type of hyperacusis develop.

 

It's probably not a bad idea to protect during the acute phases of a noise trauma, but protecting 24/7 after the fact may not be a good idea.

The brain is a very adaptive organ. It can and will adapt to changes in its environment. So, if you avoid and protect from sound 24/7 for a year or more, it is quite possible that you will actually lower the threshold of sound that your brain can tolerate and quite possibly even encourage a subconscious fear of sound to develop.

I understand that there are two very different schools of thought on protecting in order to heal versus using sound therapy. The truth is that there isn't really a one-size-fits-all approach.

Noise damage occurs in a variety of levels and ways, from stereocilia ablation, to excitatory/inhibitory synapse damage, etc... Age and genetics are likely to play a part in how your brain adapts to and recovers from sudden changes to the auditory system.

Maybe try an approach of gradually bringing noise back into your life. I am a musician and I developed a reactive form of tinnitus at the start of this year.

At first, I couldn't even have the TV on without developing a migraine, but now I can pretty easily go about my everyday life with minimal issues. My condition only started to improve when I began using pink noise and some of my favorite music playing while I was working (I work from home). The only thing I can't really do again yet is produce music. Go figure...

I suspect that as long as you do not impose undue stress upon your hearing mechanisms by way of truly loud and damaging sounds, you should recover over time. Protecting from every day sound is probably not a good idea unless it is actively causing you pain.

 

Wearing earplugs 24/7 is not a good idea. I think that you would hear your tinnitus louder, which would hinder your auditory system and brain to habituate and fade the tinnitus volume as much as possible.

Earplugs are good for protecting from acute loud noises (concerts, discos, etc), but not for prolonged continuous usage (every day for 8 hours).

 

What about people whose job requires hearing protection 8 hours per shift, e.g., construction?

 

Hi @Jupiterman, tinnitus is a very complex ailment. It is originated in the auditory nerve, but then the brain makes things more complex due to the auditory cortex.

It's most important that you protect your ears if the situation calls for it.

If you are not exposed to loud noises, and you have loud tinnitus, using earplugs too much in silence would force your auditory cortex to hear the tinnitus louder, and reinforce the message in your brain to listen to it more, affecting neuroplasticity.

So, if there is no danger of loud noises, and you have loud tinnitus, I wouldn't suggest using earplugs in surroundings where the ambient noise is quiet.

 

My 2 cents. I fucked up my tinnitus and got hyperacusis following some members' advice here of using hearing protection against any sounds.

Do not, at any cost, use hearing protection 24x7. It will definitely make things worse.

I wish I had listened to @Michael Leigh.

 

I am pleased that you have seen the light @Jibran. The overuse of hearing protection can cause more harm than good in the long term. Even regular use of hearing protection when not really needed can be harmful for someone with noise-induced tinnitus or other types of tinnitus.

It is similar to someone that wears sunglasses for prolonged periods when they are not needed. This practice can cause the pupils to dilate and make them more sensitive to light, which can lead to discomfort when the sunglasses are taken off. In addition to this, it's possible that wearing shades when they are not needed for UV protection can damage one's eyesight in the long run.

I believe you can address your oversensitivity to sound @Jibran, by following some of the advice that I have previously given you. The key is to start using low level sound enrichment at night and during the day. Experiment with what you are able to cope with since we are all different. It will take time but don't be put off by this, just take things slowly.

Michael

 

Sorry to hear your hyperacusis got worse.

Can you describe the effect this had on your tinnitus? I know you said f****** but if you could be more descriptive?

 

What kind of hyperacusis did you have? Was it loudness or noxacusis or both? Also, did you have any reactive tinnitus?

 

Loudness hyperacusis with reactive tinnitus. It wasn't reactive before the hearing protection abuse.

My tinnitus has become highly reactive. It spikes in reaction to pretty much any sound. People talking, road noise inside the car, tap water running in kitchen, if I sneeze, someone giggling... pretty much anything normal.

Thank you Michael. I have started sound enrichment. I got a Sound Oasis Bluetooth speaker which I have placed on the bedside table playing nature sounds at night. Also using my hearing aids to stream white noise at a volume lower than the tinnitus. However, I have to alternate between musician earplugs and hearing aids at work as some people talk louder than the threshold I can tolerate.

 

I know what you mean. I have gone through the exact same thing.

Nowadays I never wear hearing protection except for flights but the thing is I don't go to loud places either.

My hyperacusis (noxacusis) improved significantly as a result.

 

Interesting read, my tinnitus seems to spike and react much easier than it did during the ‘middle phase’ of my worsening. And the only thing I’ve done is abuse hearing protection. So maybe that could be a factor to the increased reactivity.

Although one thing is certain from reading this forum vastly, there really is no one size fits all approach. However it does seem that more often than not, hyperacusis and reactiveness seem to have a better rate of improvement for those who expose to sounds. Could be nothing but the passage of time or there could be something into it.

I want to make it clear that my above comment does not relate to noxacusis at all. I have read very little in regards to that subject

 

For clarity; do you mean you over or under protected?

 

Definitely overprotected. The only time I’m not in hearing protection (silicone Loop earplugs) is when brushing my teeth, eating or when I’m walking in the woods.

It’s a hard habit to break, but one I need to explore.

 

You can't know you wouldn't have got worse if you hadn't overprotected. I have not "overprotected" since May. I have just used molded earplugs when in the car or outside in uncontrolled environment - overall very little of that. I am either at quiet home but with plenty of sounds or in the woods (plenty of sounds).

My tinnitus got worse, so did hyperacusis. I then started having fleeting burning sensation, mostly in my right ear (the "better" one). As of yesterday, I started having pain in my right ear as well.

It seems you just do not know what is the right or wrong choice in this condition. Apart from avoiding exposing yourself to really loud noise, anything else you will do/won't do looks like crapshoot. Or maybe it does not matter and your fate is sealed in some cases.

 

Yep, that seems to be the issue, maybe it makes no difference what any of us do. It may follow the path it intended regardless.

 

I believe it does make a difference what we do because after 4.5 years I made a huge mistake by sitting in almost silence for months and that made everything (noxacusis and hyperacusis) worse.

 

So, being around noise makes it worse - and sitting in silence makes it worse. What a solidly messed up brain condition we all have.

FWIW, I started exposing to noise in a careful way - I wear headphones when outside, but do not wear them indoors. I certainly don't deprive my ears of noise, I just reduce it a bit. My sound reactivity has become worse, my tinnitus has become louder. Going out without headphones to give my ears the full experience doesn't sound a good idea either.

The reality is we are in a no-win situation. We know noise can cause us more issues due to the damage we have, but we also know the brain has a natural default mechanism to amplify the sounds we hear when we are in silence due to its protectiveness.

Meaning the more we protect, the louder the tinnitus will become and we become more sensitive to certain frequencies, but equally further damage is caused by the more noise we are exposed too - like smashing a bruised arm continuously through the day expecting it to heal.

Both conflict with each other of course, and causes us to second guess ourselves, and both result in increased tinnitus!

As much as I hate the TRT crap, there has been enough case studies and real evidence that the brain can desensitize itself to a lot of stimuli. We have all experienced that one way or another.

The logical approach does seem to point at exposing the ears to very light levels of the frequencies the ears and brain are damaged against and 'see' if the brain can desensitize.

It just depends I guess on whether it's damage we are continuously re-injuring or brain hypersensitivity we are trying to desensitize.

If only there was a test to know.

 

I believe it's the latter. What I did to get out of the hell was to start exposing myself to noise. At first it was painful, I did it after having some consultation sessions with my audiologist who assured me that I was not going to damage my ears by exposing myself to everyday noise. As I said, it was painful at first but it was like my ears adjusted to noise.

I never recommend noise therapy or something because I am not an audiologist and everyone's different but that was what I did and it improved my sensitivity.

I was just trying to say that if you expose to noise and have pain at first, maybe it is something natural that will improve as time goes by, but it's better to have a consultation with a professional audiologist.

 

Did you have sound reactive tinnitus with it? And did that improve with noise desensitization?

 

I can't say I had, no.

 

This thread and the comments perfectly highlights one of the only things we do know about tinnitus and the thing we are discussing at present. What works for one can be a catalyst to worsen for another, and vice versa.

Unfortunately it’s all trial and error to figure out what works for you on a personal level. The errors can however be catastrophic for some.

 

My tinnitus spikes when exposed to moderately loud sounds but I find wearing earplugs unbearable as the tinnitus ramps up to insane levels. I only wear earplugs for short periods when around noisy environments. I can't imagine wearing them 24/7. Unlike eyes, that we can close, we can't switch off our hearing. Ears are always listening, even when we are asleep. Depriving them of sound 24/7 would make your ears search for sound and ramp up the tinnitus if there was no external input.

 

This is a very good question. I doubt if anyone has ever carried out this experiment and not many would have the resources to do so.

Wearing earplugs 24/7 would be a hygiene concern, earwax could build up or an infection could start.

A routine where the earplugs are removed for a daily period of time would be an essential requirement, and would need to be done in a guaranteed silent/quiet environment. Perhaps a deep (sub-terrainian) basement where you sleep with earplugs out? Then you move upstairs to your house and work from home with ears plugged from the moment you walk up the stairs to the ground floor of your house till the moment you walk back down to your basement at night.

Starving your ears of sound for an entire year would almost certainly cause increased sensitivity and possibly/definitely hyperacusis.

BUT...

IMO, the simple answer to your question is "yes". If you protected damaged ears from any sound at all for an entire year, I believe this would not only benefit the PHYSICAL healing process but would accelerate it.

If you pushed it to 18 months, you would likely get an even better result. 18 months is roughly the time for nerves to heal (if they are going to heal).

That said; if your brain gets used to hearing nothing but your tinnitus for an entire year, it could be fooled into thinking that this is the 'new' silence and latch onto to it and replicate it.

That all said; if your hair cells, neurons and auditory nerves have all healed well, once exposed to sound after a year, it may well be easier for the brain to knock-out the phantom sound as it would be hearing the correct real external sounds.

 

Is that true? That’s pretty much what I’ve been doing and, if anything, my tinnitus is probably louder now. I have new tones I can pinpoint to noise exposures, but haven’t found a correlation to increased volume, considering I’m in hearing protection for at least 23 hours a day.

 

Hi @Jupiterman, where does the 18 month figure come from for nerve healing? Is that purely for auditory nerves or just nerves in general? Thanks.