I'm wondering if any subscribers here have had tinnitus and experience permanent relief from the ringing? Not just reduction, but actual permanent relief that never comes back even when doing things that previously worsened the tinnitus.
If you can't tell, I'm trying to establish an "existence proof" here, if no one has ever gotten permanent relief then it seems like it might not be worth bothering with the "symptom reduction" therapies since they would most likely lead to focusing on the symptoms more intensely.
My wife has a friend who told her just a few days ago that her husband has had some success toning his done by chewing Bay leaves. I've not tried that yet, but I will soon.
From what I've read there is still no "cure". But those two things may contain a clue that's worth looking for.
The 'ringing' sound people hear isn't actually a sound. It is how the brain processes signals produced by damaged Stereocilia.
If the 'ringing' is constant it means the cilia are permanently damaged. While it would, in theory, be possible to use surgery on the ear and some sort of lazer to completely remove all damaged cilia to avoid them outputting a damaged signal, this procedure would be incredibly invasive and risky. I don't believe it's ever been done and i would find it hard to believe any Otolaryngologist willing to try.
The solution that worked for my was basically “acceptance and commitment therapy” - I think I learned it from a book written by a Dr Russell or something like that.
Would recommend, am very glad I did it. It seems kind of kooky though, it’s almost like you pretend the tinnitus is a part of you and you have a conversation with it and welcome it and all that kinda stuff over time, and then eventually it just kinda stops being bothersome. Doesn’t really make sense, but worked well.
obviously time to get approved/confirm it works - etc lies ahead.
other than that - i had taken up drums and was paranoid of tinnitus, i could hear ringing etc. once i got audiologist confirmation my hearing was 20/20 guess what? It went away. Anxiety levels can affect it...obviously it was mild for me - chronic sufferers wont get away with "dont worry about it and it will go away".
I've spent a lot of time on PubMed, but so far I've not found anything that helps mine, even partially or temporarily. I've consulted with close friends that have significant expertise is relevant fields, which has not been fruitful.
Thankfully it's just part of existence as I've always known it, and so it's usually not too difficult, but can really be maddening when trying to fall asleep.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230605181219.h...
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/new-university-of-michi...
Apparently it's in the process of being commercialised in the US.
Had overpressure therapy in the weeks/months after but didn't help. Have a bone anchored heading aid (via implanted screw) but doesn't work well.
Learned to live with it but mostly terrified if something will happen to my other ear... still have a few decades to go I hope, so better hold on to the hearing I have or science better hurry up
I'm not convinced it's an entirely physical issue though. Our brains can filter out all kinds of excessive external stimuli both visual and from other senses so why not that ringing also?
Perhaps the most notable attempt at a cure was Frequency Therapeutics, whose efforts were promising, but unfortunately didn't pan out.
There's a constant churn of biotech companies trying to solve this, as curing tinnitus (and/or hearing loss) would be a goldmine, but no one has really gotten anywhere yet.
If you want to stay on top of it, the /r/tinnitusresearch is a pretty good hub, and there are a few mailing lists out there.
That said, over time I found that ceasing to follow all the promises and inevitable disappointments helped me better achieve the only real "treatment" we have right now, which is accepting it and slowly learning to live with it.
When there's a real deal cure, you'll know about it. Until then, I suggest not paying attention to the churn and the extremely dubious "treatments" out there.
There's some mediation treatment somewhat similar to the mirror box used to help amputees with phantom limb pain. It's all still early but something to look into further.
Most doctor visits were quite disappointing since they didn't do anything. I heard from many people that early therapy can help a lot (like oxygen therapy) but my doctor only tried some of these things after I repeatedly asked for it. But by that time it was already too late (like 3-4 weeks later).
What helped me was: - distraction - constant white noise in the background - avoiding any source of loud sounds/music/etc (I am very sensitive on that now) - relaxing my jaw muscles - distraction - going to the doctor at the earliest sign of possible ear infections to stop infections from spreading to the inner ear.
At that point I started to ignore it, and it works well enough. Except for when I am trying to fall asleep. I sometimes go by many weeks before I notice it.
However, when I received the second dose of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine in 2021, within a day I had a substantial increase in tinnitus in both ears, particularly my right. I also had a persistent sensation of "fullness" in my right ear.
I went to an ENT. They were pretty skeptical of the connection to the vaccine, said they couldn't see anything physically wrong with my ears, but we had a good conversation about tinnitus in general. They told me there wasn't much anyone could do, but anecdotally, they did think that many of their patients reported actual improvement from an OTC nutritional supplement, "Lipo-flavonoid", specifically marketed for tinnitus.
https://www.amazon.com/Lipo-Flavonoid-Supplement-Recommended...
I ordered a bottle and tried it out, and sure enough, I do think it made a difference - it did seem to quiet down the tinnitus, but not back to the level I was used to.
After about 2 months the tinnitus and sensation of fullness faded.
I elected not to get the booster.
Best of luck to you.
For those of you skeptical about any connection to the covid vaccines, you might find this article interesting quoting the Editor-in-Chief of the journal VACCINE and head of vaccine research at Mayo Clinic. https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2022/08/08/tinnitus-widespre...
Sudden hearing loss can be reversed with prompt steroid injections but if it's left then it will become permanent. My mother woke up one day with no hearing in one ear. Unfortunately, by the time she got a proper diagnosis it was too late to do anything about it. Since then she's had tinnitus and vertigo to go with it.
No idea if the long-term quiet environment played a role, but I also occasionally would supplement with sublingual b12[0] methylcobalamin supplements.
It's impossible to say what's responsible, there's far too many variables. Maybe just time passing since quitting riding motorcycles is all that was needed.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12_deficiency (search in page for tinnitus)
We want to try this with my dad. He has tinnitus for around 5 years, it started after an ear infection.
It works the same way as the method in obobbobo's comment.
It's FDA approved!
Over the last year or so I've developed really bad hyperacusis, this coupled with misophonia had made me severely suicidal, I even contacted the local mental health services and autism charities.
I've reduced that by wearing coloured lenses, I had been diagnosed with irlen but I see it as a little bit woo, however the coloured lenses have really worked.
My theory - I have a sensory fuck-it-bucket - I'm bombarded by all this crap every day, and if it overflows I'm under real stress, by reducing overload from other senses my bucket fills much slower, and the sound and tinnitus doesn't seem to affect me so much.
Strange to think that a £16 pair of cheap glasses has saved me.
https://www.healthline.com/health/medications-that-cause-tin...
https://www.webmd.com/migraines-headaches/features/aspirin-a...
I know this isn't true, but I've told myself that having tinnitus is a normal thing, that everyone has.
The "fact" that it's normal and that everyone has it has removed the suffering for me.
Weird, but maybe it will help someone here.
"Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional."
The url looks weird, I'm not talking about the video but the comment this links to.
It looks like ... his method makes it stop for 10-15minutes, so it's not permanent.
It helped surprisingly soon. My family member had Tinnitus for 6 month, super high pitch, appeared as burnout reaction.
We were told by the doctor that this treatment might take several rounds and has a high chance of not working at all if physical damage is involved.
That's it. It's not permanent, but I can forget it's there.
My hearing was tested by an Audiologist and my hearing was normal.
The “sound” I observe is high pitched. Using a tone generator I matched it to around 16,500 Hz. If I play that tone I get temporary relief on the order of 2-10 minutes.
As far as I understand my tinnitus is the result of something going wonky with the signal processing in the brain.
If you’re suffering from tinnitus for the first time it’s important to remain calm. There is defiantly an amplifying effect from the psychological aspect of tinnitus. Eventually the body will “habituate” if it does not go away. It took me around 3-6 months to be able to ignore it. During the day I rarely hear it. At night a little more. Playing sounds at a low volume on a Bluetooth speaker helps. For example on Spotify an artist called “TMSOFT” has good stuff.
It’s important to protect your ears. iPhone has a hearing protection feature for headphones and I have it on the lowest setting. I would avoid in-ear headphones. Use hearing protection at concerts.
After 5 years of Tinnitus-hell I was put on yet another benzo and my symptoms were _gone_. It lasted only a number of months, though and when I started to stop taking the new benzo ... it all came back.
I came to the diagnosis of benzo-dependency myself and found a psychiatrist who agreed to assist in a 6-month withdrawal with a gradual taper. After each step my tinnitus came back a bit for a few days and then dropped again. After a number of iterations it became what is known as "baseline", i.e. a background tinnitus I can live with.
In recent months I started taking Magnesium supplements in the form of citrates and Taurine. I then found this on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/tinnitus/comments/znyuyj/partial_su... The top comment by kenzocarj is my current working model for dealing with Tinnitus. I'd like to try L-Theanine but it's illegal in my country - you can buy it in a form that has added glutamine which worsens my T. I'm now drinking matcha tea as a source of L-Theanine.
Hope this helps.
But I have had complete temporary relief for a few days at a time that coincided with other signs of healing in my body, which hints at what could bring about permanent abatement.
I’ve had mild tinnitus since I was about 12-13yrs old (I’m in my 40s now).
It’s never been especially debilitating; it doesn’t impair my hearing or diminish quality of life, it’s just always there in the background.
Since about the same age I’ve had signs of inflammation in the digestive system/mouth/respiratory system and other mild/moderate symptoms that research suggests are related to microbiome issues - EBV, CMV, etc. at its worst it’s been like chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia, though not always and not these days.
I’ve tried a lot of things over the years to try and resolve these issues - diet/nutrition, detoxing, cleansing, infrared, occasionally more extreme things I won’t mention here. On a few precious occasions everything seemed to click into place and I just felt a really pleasant, energized feeling through my body, the signs of inflammation went away, my digestion improved and the tinnitus abated and my hearing was completely clear.
Every time however, the baseline symptoms, including the the tinnitus, returned within a few days and remain to this day (though probably at a milder level than a few years ago).
I don’t have any definitive takeaways from all this, but it suggests to me that if there’s a way to fully resolve chronic inflammation and microbiome issues (which are quite common), may bring about a complete abatement of tinnitus.
(You can Google for CMV tinnitus/EBV tinnitus to find research papers and articles/discussions on correlations between these conditions).
I have/had Tinnitus (it’s nowhere near as bad as it was 7/10 to it’s current 1/10). It’s been gone 7-8 years now.
1. I listen to music much quieter, and let my ears adjust.
2. This is the weird part. I would get itchy all the time, random pin pricks I’d feel often. I read about monks who meditated so long they could turn off their hearts. So I sat in bed for 3 months (before going to sleep) and tried really hard to look at where I felt an itch and see it was my body was wrong. There was no reason to give me a cue to itch. Nothing was happening.
I can easily ‘feel’ the pin pricks if I desire but don’t anymore. It’s like a weird mental trick. I can also feel mosquitos and really anything touch me and no longer get false cues.
Anyhow I suffered from tinnitus and did the normal suggested stuff but it didn’t work. So I remembered the time I got rid of my itching and tried to replicate what I did.
I sat and listened to ‘true noise’ and untrue ‘noise’ and it wasn’t instant relief but over 2-3 weeks it went to level it’s at now. I only notice it if I desire. It’s louder an extremely quiet environment but I swear it’s almost like I can hear my blood pump.
Listen to really low noise. Quieter than whispers. Then up and up. Train your ear to understand sound and not sound. Then go back down again. Sadly the truest quiet will cost you (some place remote with no bugs or wind) but I did it fine at home because I could remember before I had tinnitus. Earplugs I think don’t work because you hear your blood pump.
Anyway I’m sorry you’re suffering and I know what I wrote sounds really dumb/unbelievable but I do pretty good on prediction markets… ;) it might work for you. Very weird - no proof in the literature but it worked me.
-(I did the itch cue training around 12 or 13, tinnitus around 22) -(I didn’t use any drugs)
I worried about my tinnitus for so long. It drove me nuts at the beginning. Then one day I stopped worrying. I can't even tell you why, or when exactly that happened, just that it happened.
I remember reading all the comments saying "you'll get used to it", and then lying awake at night and thinking "I'll NEVER get used to it". It felt like I would have to accept a huge handicap. I really didn't understand how people could just say it doesn't bother them anymore. Really, that loud sound doesn't bother you?
And here I am today. I don't even think about it on most days. And most importantly, it does not feel like a handicap at all. It's mostly just gone. Still there and clearly audible when I think about it, but otherwise gone. Zero impact on my regular life, on my music listening or music making behaviour.
I also have a pretty strong hayfever allergy. Many people told me I'd get used to that, too, and I have to disagree: no, I don't get used to it, I'm 35 years old and it drives me nuts every single year. But the tinnitus is different. I have it for over 15 years now, and it just became irrelevant.
It's gonna be a while
In my case the secret was a sort of a therapy. At the second year I’ve become quite suicidal about it. There was a point in time after collecting all the information there is, when I absolutely ultimately had to make a decision. As a result of this thought process, “I will die with it” got fully accepted either way. Somehow this deadened my reactions and after a short while it became just a part of my life that I ignore. My brain got so good at masking it that I have to carefully listen sometimes (yeah, it’s there and it’s loud). I also stopped looking for a cure, relief, methods, threads like this. Not like “I shouldn’t”, but like “not interested”.
Pretty sure I must not recommend this way or leave it without a disclaimer: if you feel the same, then get professional help, don’t go through it alone.
My key insight is that you suffer while the hope lives, not that you have to lean over the edge to realize that.
I have no idea how that relates to tinnitus; I hear high pitched tones/chords outside of meditation occasionally, but it's never bothering/disturbing.
My gut feeling says that sometimes, labeling an experience as a problem is why it becomes a problem.
I have the kind I believe is called "somatic tinnitus". It's very high pitch and multiple tones. If I stretch my body or clench my teeth it becomes louder. It does not really sound like they come from one ear or the other.
It can also become louder if I'm drunk, or if I get a nicotine rush. It also becomes temporary louder if I listen to noise for a long time and then turn it off.
But from time to time I also get the occasional high pitch ringing in one of my ears that last for a few seconds. I've also gotten temporary tinnitus from a loud concert. While they are similar they seem different to me.
Just having casually talked to other people about this, I wonder if a lot of people have somatic tinnitus but are sensitive to it to varying degrees.
I came across an FDA-approved device called lenire. Reviews seem hit or miss, but if I'm feeling flush I may try it. I can mostly put up with my tinnitus these days but it can get quite frustrating when tired & I want to sleep.
Things I've done to try prevent it getting worse:
* iOS has a limit volume option - that's on permanently.
* I use a speaker on soft volume in the room when wfh rather than headphones when listening to music.
* I have ear plugs on my keys for when I end up going out to music events and festivals (I use Alpine, partner uses Loop). This made a huge difference and I'll go to bed without ringing ears.
* I try have days where I don't listen to music. At first it was weird, now I'm quite used to it.
* Online meetings, keep the volume low where possible.
Had a mild(?) case of tinnitus from about 17 to 20 years of age. Haven't really even thought about it since then but in my case the prime suspect was probably loud music. During that time period I was super depressed and angry at the world so I used to listen to loud heavy metal music nearly all day every day from my earbuds.
I stopped doing that because of the tinnitus, but it lingered on for long enough such that I can't draw a clear link between the music and tinnitus. Other potential suspects have been quitting dairy, cigarettes and weed, which I also quit in that same time period as the loud music.
If I had to guess, it was probably damaged stereocilia as @RelativeDelta mentioned.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21572827
Anyone with tinnitus ever tried it?
I managed to rehabilitate myself mostly by walking for hundreds of hours. That isn't really some trick or secret. That is what health care would eventually tell you to do. It just isn't reflected as much as the easy and the qualified solutions. Now I got tinnitus a few weeks back and it's the same landscape on the Internet. But getting the information isn't really the problem, it is making use of it. It's easy to find a high level of engagement and it's easy to find a high level of knowledge. The challenge is finding both.
I have always been somewhat sensitive to noise, but a lot of people aren't. They have whining fridges, squeaking doors or noise pollution all over the place. They don't really care. You are dismissing symptom reduction a bit. But as far I can tell that is the solution for most. A combination of stress reduction, lifestyle reform and behavioural therapy, potentially with a hearing aid or noise masking. And then it gets manageable enough that they don't care. Maybe you can do that yourself, but possibly you can't and will conclude that it doesn't work.
Of course like I said you shouldn't trust me. I'm going to go find whatever specialist health care can give me without paying too much extra.
They work really well to dampen loud sounds and, importantly, they let conversation through, though it sounds muffled. But you can feel the difference. They are much better than using foam ear plugs, which muffle everything.
I used to go to a lot of concerts without any ear protection, when I was young and dumb. I REALLY wish I had these things back then, since I've acquired mild tinnitus as a result.
Now I carry them on my keychain all the time and use them even in restaurants and bars or whenever I'm some place where I have to speak at an elevated level.
I went back to my audiologist and got a hearing aid to reprogram my brain. I did 90 days of light programming and got reduced to maybe a 3.5. After 90 days she cranked the programming up to more intense and I'm now down to maybe 2.5. Definitely livable. Annoying, present, detectable. But also easy to lose track of it when distracted.
I hope it goes away some day. It's only in my left ear and a hearing test showed I did have partial hearing loss in my left ear at higher frequencies.
One interesting thing in my experience is that just like when you get a new eye glass prescription they ask if A or B is better but here they asked if my tinnitus sounded more like A or B and for every single one I could not answer. It was not like either of them. Not even close. It somehow did not compare.
There is a new approach out there and my audiologist has inquired to be part of the next wave (it's super early still) and I will try it out if she gets it. It's a new technique involving modulation and the tongue.
Thankfully there are other more professional conscientious sound editors that do not do such 'plunder' to our auditive system. I just keep my fingers crossed that they will keep their good common sense, which unfortunately has not been the case in a recent high budget film that was released recently :/
If you are lucky enough to have a diagnostic, then the priority is to treat the disease. This may alleviate the hearing loss and sometimes the tinnitus. In some cases tinnitus may completely disappear (for example in the case of a viral infection affecting the auditory nerve). But often tinnitus remains and you have to live with it. Anyway having a diagnostic is in itself a relief.
If you do not have a diagnostic, I guess you have to learn to live with it. It may be more difficult in this case. After all it is not the end of the world. Many things are worse than this. It can be hard to sleep at times. Doing sport improves sleep. It can be hard to hear people during meetings. Sometimes you will have to ask them to repeat. You can seat closer to the main speaker. You can prefer to connect remotely with a good headset.
I have a disease of the hear which for sure won't improve. In a sense this is a relief because I stopped "monitoring" my tinnitus so closely, maybe 7 or 8 years after my diagnostic, and 2 years after my second surgical operation. It does not keep me awake at night.
However, the annoyance went away by itself after a few years. If I focus I might be able to hear it still, but it's hard to tell.
Basically acknowledging it as part of the background noise let me stop concentrating on it as much.
On the other side I worked out what makes it worse - lack of sleep being one, if I stay up too many days watching Netflix then I'll get bad tinnitus, same for hangovers.
It's meant to be linked to inflammation so being more healthy, getting more sleep and putting yourself under less stress all help.
It's hard though - rn I have terrible tinnitus, and of course any reminder of it can bring it back, it'll fade until I scroll past this article again.
... but not through any conscious method. In fact, this post just "reminded" me of the fact that I had regular and occasionally severe tinnitus over the course of many years. Mine started in high school and persisted well into adulthood. Possibly rooted in a couple of concussions I suffered in reasonably quick succession, possibly too much time under headphones too loud.
Right now, I have to think hard to even recall the sensation, which I take as a pretty strong sign that I haven't suffered it for quite some time.
Hopefully this reminder about the condition's existence doesn't trigger a relapse. I'm terribly prone to suggestion.
Everything else is full of people saying they are going to go crazy.
My opinion is to approach it that it cannot be cured and is a part of life. I got it around 2016, unknown reasons why, at the time my hearing tested normal for my age. Have seen doctors over the years and while I know its potentially a symptom of something else, I don't know what that something else is.
The first few years were brutal, reading online does not help as people talking about going crazy. The best approach is to ignore all that and just accept it. Mine not be that terrible, but it is always there but it no longer bothers me. Sometimes I do get some weird flare ups where it pulsates but overall its just part of my life. The sooner you accept that the better.
Based on some Internet search I found that other people were helped by listening to (coloured) noise. I started self medicating by keeping headphones on during the work day, and quite a bit outside work as well. White noise sounded annoying, pink noise sounded soothing, but both masked the tinnitus and helped focus. I mentioned this to my GP, who didn't think it would treat it, but also that it would not hurt, either.
About three months in, basically a daily dose of six to ten hours of pink noise and the tinnitus was gone. Of course, it might have healed all by itself, and listening to the noise worked only as a temporary relief.
However - I'm lucky in that I'm not really bothered by it anymore. In fact I didn't notice it now until I saw the HN headline and thought "tinnitus". And now I hear it. It's not very loud, as I said, but still loud enough to hear it over the traffic noise outside. And still, somehow, I forget about it a lot of the time. A guy at work is so disturbed by his tinnitus that he sometimes have to take the rest of the day off. I'm lucky I guess. I don't know if there's any mental method which can help with this.
Edit: I remember now that when I still traveled at lot at work the tinnitus would get worse after long noisy flights, and last for a while (up to a month) after that. I started using good noise-cancelling headphones and that definitely helped. As someone else said, protect you ears. It's even more important if you already have some hearing issues, I believe.
I've noticed a few things though: the pitch is always the same but the loudness vary noticeably over time and it seem very linked to my level of stress. If I'm very relaxed, say peacefully hiking in sunbathed forest on a cool summer day, it can become so faint I can hardly hear it. But most of the time, unfortunately, it's pretty loud. When I still cared, I also noticed I could drawn it out with white noise, either natural (ex: a waterfall) or artificial.
I notice it every second month or so and see it as a stress indicator and friendly reminder to go for a walk. But I can easily imagine that this does not work for everyone.
Except for a single night: November 12, 2022. For about 8 hours I had no tinnitus. (Sadly, it came back the next morning.)
The only unusual thing about that day was that I'd had an MRI (Brain and Cervical Spine, with contrast) for unrelated (and thankfully pointless) reasons. But somehow it fixed my tinnitus for a few hours??
Back in 2019 I had a Meniere's Protocol MRI and CT Scan to diagnose my Meniere's Disease. Gadolinium contrast. No effect on my tinnitus.
After a bit of reading I came across rTMS as a possible mechanism for temporary relief of tinnitus - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3563643/ - which the MRI that day would have induced. (Can't explain why the previous one had no effect, but the paper suggests that the literal motion and direction of the magnetic resonance matters).
A Uni nearby where I lived was even doing clinical trials. But I was dealing with another health issue at the time, and life got busy, and I've since moved interstate. I have no idea how it works or if it's just some incredible coincidence. But one day soon I'll go exploring down the rTMS path and see if I can consistently get tinnitus relief.
Like others in the thread, I've heard of plenty of other snake oil things. And my tinnitus is really not bad enough that I need to consider anything right now. But if tinnitus relief is a real thing one day, my money is currently on rTMS. Just far too big a coincidence for me to ignore.
The main things for me were
- take a major break from djing and clubs. I was playing out a lot - get great earplugs. I have westone custom molds - talk to friends about it
In talking about it I have been absolutely shocked to learn how pervasive hearing problems are.
Lots of friends have some form of tinnitus and some have shared major problems like major tinnitus from playing drums a long time or loss of sound in one ear from rocket explosions in the military. All was a complete surprise, I just assumed everyone’s hearing was great.
This greatly helped with my initial depression which presumably was causing me to focus on the sounds more rather to accept and ignore it.
Health problems are coming for all of us. Take great joy out of whatever health you do have, try to reduce harm from unhealthy habits, but have fun too.
I'm not sure whether it's actually gone away in a medical sense or whether I'm just heavily desensitised at this point.
For context, my tinnitus onset coincided with loud music exposure and what I believed to have been eustachian tube dysfunction. I did take some treatment steps like staying away from live music / nightclubs and using antihistamines for the eustachian tube dysfunction.
1. Place both hands on your ear. Palms on the ears and fingers backwards
2. Now tap with your fingers on the back of your neck. It doesn't have to be hard. It will sound very hollow.
3. Keep tapping for 30 seconds
4. Stop and remove hands from ears
I have a friend who's an osteopath. He points out that if, at wakeup, you have symptoms like feeling of swollen head or cant breathe with nose despite there's no snoot, and these symptoms go away in few minutes, it's neck issues and obstructed blood vessels and lymph,,which work ok with gravity, but not in horizontal position.
There are many possible causes for tinnitus, and looking for a singular solution to solve it all may be a fruitless errand. Even if someone found one, it may not correspond to your root causes.
I've noticed my own tinnitus seems tied up with muscle strain in my neck and shoulders. A frequent trigger is when I turn my head very quickly--a sudden bout of ringing starts in the corresponding ear. I've also seen my tinnitus wind down when I take the time to stretch those muscles, get massages, get acupuncture, etc. The solution here requires upkeep, not a singular, one-time expense. At least in my case.
Forgetting doesn't mean that it isn't there, it's permanently there, but that I can forget about it for some time, sometimes for hours.
Later I tried everything, I have come to the conclusion that you learn to live with it. It means it's not going anywhere. I was in my twenties at the time.
I think if you can't get rid of it, you have to make a friend of it.
Worst case scenario, something like loud banging your finger behind your ear to tap it helps. Noise also helps. For me, head position changes it, as does contracting the muscles in the neck and neck. Poor sleep, hypertension.
https://generalfuzz.net/acrn/ you can try this (found here sometime long ago).
Stay strong, look for direction, not a solution.
I'm a slave to white noise, and during power outages will wake from a dead slumber to listen to the needle threading between my ears.
On the other hand staying in a quiet place and rarely using headphones for an extended period of time has let my symptoms drop below the threshold of irritation. They’re still there it I focus on them, but except for the occasional very noticeable passing flare up they cause no distraction or annoyance.
My audiologist said I was SOL and there was nothing to do about it. A few months later, I went to see a nurse practitioner about something unrelated. The ear came up and she wrote me a Rx for a steroid just to try it and see what happens. Two weeks later, I go for a walk. I hear this rush in my ear and suddenly I could hear again and the tinnitus was gone. It was a miracle.
Second opinions FTW.
Other times something in my body seems to make the tinnitus flare up and then I can't hear anything but the ringing for a few seconds. This doesn't happen all that often and I'm more conscious of wearing ear protection these days.
Anyone else? I've only ever heard of people acquiring it over the course of their lives, but I know I was born with it.
It doesn't really bother me, since its been normal for me since before I was even forming memories.
They gave me a TEBOFORTAN, as well as cortisone infusions over several weeks.
It was bad enough that I could not concentrate on learning for university. I heard before that psychology plays a big role, so I was trying my best to just ignore it and do something else than studying.
It completely went away. I can hear a very small ringing if I concentrate on it and its completely silent, but I had this for as long as I can remember (definitely when I was 4 years old) and I wouldn't call it tinnitus.
I took a plane while sick, sinus were kinda jammed, ended up hurting like hell when the plane started landing. Next thing I know, I had a new condition: my hear would sometimes start a beat which I believed to be my heartbeat. It was extremely loud and would drive me insane. It would start at random times and stop at random times. It made me feel helpless and desperate a number of times.
One day I decided: fuck it. Just accept it. Just embrace it. And from that point on it bothered me much much less. Fast forward a year and a half I think, and I realized that I hadn’t heard that drumming for a while. I guess time cured it.
I also realized that my ears can easily get jammed so I ask for an ear cleaning from times to times (kaiser give it to you if you ask that during checkup).
Once in Thailand I woke up with swimmer ear, and freaked the fuck out because I had a flight a few hours in the future. I resolved to not get on that plane if I couldn’t resolve the issue, so I ran to the nearest island clinic and got my ears unstuck. Everything was fine after!
Never fly if your sinuses or ears are jammed!
In the summer of 2016, I first noticed some ringing in one of my ears when I would insert ear plugs at night. I shared my concern with an ENT who then prescribed ciprofloxacin ear drops. I administered it that night to the one ear and awoke a few hours later to profoundly increased ringing. It was bad enough that it triggered pretty severe suicidal ideation. It also greatly exacerbated my difficulty sleeping, which in turn exacerbated the tinnitus, forming a feedback loop. By late 2017, I also started to develop migraines, intermittent brain fog, and malaise. Addressing these symptoms became a higher priority than the tinnitus, although I believed them to likely have a common cause.
After the first year or so, I very gradually began to habituate to the tinnitus. By early 2019, I had largely habituated to it. I could still hear the ringing regularly, but it no longer contributed to low mood or insomnia. My other neurological symptoms had also somewhat abated.
Throughout that time, I had visited many doctors: ENTs, audiologists, general neurologists, cardiologists, a migraine specialist, a sleep specialist, gastroenterologists. None of the doctors were helpful at all. I had a full battery of tests and none revealed anything abnormal.
Around mid 2019, I had mostly given up on doctors being able to help my condition and instead determined that I'd have to figure it out myself.
After years of trying to directly resolve the neurological symptoms, I eventually reasoned that I probably had some sort of more systemic issue of which the tinnitus was merely one symptom. This was initially difficult for me to accept as I was otherwise generally "looked" like I was in good health: I worked out regularly (both cardio and weightlifting), I mostly ate healthily, I didn't drink very much, I didn't do any other recreational drugs, I socialized regularly.
I then set out to try every possible intervention which was generally safe and which could potentially improve my health (not just the tinnitus, but my health holistically). I tried tons of supplements individually. I reduced my dairy intake. I tried low FODMAP. I tried various prescription drugs (CGRPi, beta blockers, blood pressure medication, etc.). I started to do red light therapy regularly. I started to sauna (both dry and infrared) regularly. I did extended water fasts (5-7 days), which provided surprisingly large (albeit temporary) symptomatic relief. I did some gut microbiome protocols. I tried some other protocols for eradicating latent infections. I tried protocols for improving mitochondrial health and protocols for addressing chronic fatigue syndrome. I tried stem cell therapy, both autologous and umbilical cord-derived.
Throughout late 2019 and through 2020, I increasingly started to notice times where I couldn't find my tinnitus, even when I was looking for it. Unfortunately, I couldn't very easily correlate this with any particular intervention. I also was executing multiple interventions simultaneously, so attribution would have probably been impossible anyway.
Since late 2020, my tinnitus has been more absent than it is present. I cannot hear it today, even if I listen for it and try to trigger it. The last time I recall hearing my tinnitus involuntarily was mid 2021.
I wish I could tell you definitively what caused my tinnitus and which intervention(s) worked for me.
My best guess is that I had some sort of gut dysbiosis which resulted in elevated ammonia and hydrogen sulfide levels in my blood. These toxins are known to harm both mitochondria and neurons, which could manifest as tinnitus (and eventually as my other symptoms). This gut dysbiosis likely originated from the time that I got very bad food poisoning twice within two weeks while visiting Southeast Asia; I also had terrible appendicitis in the months following that, ultimately culminating in the removal of my appendix.
Red light therapy improves mitochondrial health (which in turn improve anything which relies on ATP production, which is quite literally everything). It seemed to help me.
Sauna also improves mitochondrial health. Sweat contains more ammonia than does plasma, and so the sweating from sauna likely reduces ammonia levels (and possibly other toxins like hydrogen sulfide, too). This also seemed to help me.
When I fasted, I stopped fueling my gut microbiome, which meant that they stopped producing those toxins. This could explain why I noticed such sudden relief. This also clued me in to this being some sort of diet or digestive issue.
I think the gut microbiome protocols helped, but by the time I had started those, my symptoms were already abating. These also tend to be a bit hit-or-miss, and they can take months to impact symptoms.
But this theory as to the origin of my condition and what specifically resolved it is probably colored as much by my a priori beliefs about what would work as it is informed by my actual experience.
That being said, I do think the general approach of "aggressively try everything (safe) which could potentially improve your health" worked for me and could likely work for many others.
I went to the hospital that day, then saw two different specialists, and the only prescription I received was for Ambien so I could at least get a night’s sleep. Even on day three I could barely drive it was so distracting.
II woke up on day four and it was totally gone. Like it’d just been a terrible dream. I still went to the audiologist the next day to follow up, he said that sometimes that just happens, and posited that it might have been neurological.
I doubt this is helpful to your case, but it’s an example proof of _something_.
I haven't found a permanent cure. Thankfully I'm not even aware of it most of the time, and it's never been an actual issue.
I have found a partial, temporary cure - this was discussed on HN a few months ago, and someone linked to a YT video or audio file with some sort of noise patterns (not white noise, more like periodic beeping at different pitches and volumes), and if I listen to that for 10-15 minutes, I can't hear the ringing for a while.
Maybe I should try doing this more consistently, and see if it goes away permanently. Has anyone had any luck with that?
I was given steroids for recovery within a couple days of the event but I don't recall it actually improving the tinnitus. It definitely was louder in the first day after the event but that's usual for concerts, before it settled on a volume/tone. Now I'm just extremely careful and have good earplugs etc.
I also had all mercury fillings removed by a specialist with the correct equipment and procedures.
I dove into research as well and found one which sounded promising but I didn’t research further. Shocking the tongue.
On the website under pulsative they mention surgery based on a specific MRI for pulsative tinnitus being read by a specialist. It cured some people.
Mine changes often and both ears are different with multiple different sequences of sounds. I wear hearing aids which I can switch on/off white noise or play music through them with Bluetooth. I play music, videos, or podcasts most of the day and take something to help me sleep.
There’s a “How to manage your tinnitus: a step-by-step workbook” by James Henry, Zaugg, Myers, and Schmidt all PhD.
Step 1: YouTube-dl this blessed sound: https://youtu.be/8indTo2ykPw?si=izyTOg4gYvnfsqZs (Plz tip the guy) (You should be able to tell just by listening to the sound that it immediately cuts out the tinnitus— if this sound print doesn’t work for you, there may be others that work better. But I have let other tinnitus sufferers wear my headphones and they all say it makes the tinnitus go away completely) 1a: (cut out the dialogue in the beginning with audacity) Step 2: buy a pair of these waterproof mp3 ONLY (it’s an appliance) bone conduction headphones: https://a.co/d/aqqhPm9 Step 3:put the mp3 you ripped on the headphones and remember what a normal life feels like
The only times I realize I have tinnitus is are right before I fall asleep, right when I wake up, and once a day for 20 minutes when I need to charge my headphones.
And I want to emphasize my tinnitus sounds like the screaming sun planet on Rick and Morty. It’s really bad. But thanks to this technique I only experience pain a few minutes per day. Good luck everyone.
Back when they were doing the OTO-313 study a year or so ago, I read several reports from people who were in the study the drug had made their tinnitus go away (one on the TinniusTalk forums, and a few in a tinnitus Facebook group). However, when the results came back, the drug did not beat placebo. A similar thing happened with the FX-322 drug (that one was for hearing restoration but people were hopeful it could address tinnitus too).
What I find fascinating is that when I meditate or start falling asleep, I can consciously enter periods where it disappears or it becomes bearable. Like if I learn a trick with my brain in which I can mute it. Sadly entering it requires a lot of effort. And when I wake up or leave the meditation state (which is hard to reach because of the tinnitus) its impossible to reproduce it.
Mine I am sure is due to problems with my jaw (bruxism). One thing that helped with the jaw (but not the tinnitus since it is now fully embedded in my brain) was with botox injections. If you are on early stages and if you think the jaw is a main factor in your tinnitus, go to a neurodoctor and ask him for botox injections in order to treat it.
About the Lenire device, two things: it requires dedication and time, which I don't have, and you cannot event rent it. Selling it is also forbidden. In essence is an mp3 player which electrocutes your tongue. I have come with many such solutions and all are the same. Snake oil.
One last thing: the tinnitus is louder in periods where I experience more lack of sleep and stress / anxiety. It might sound cliche, but meditation, yoga, even going for a walk (no phone, no headphones, just a walk) really does work in reducing its volume.
Anyone get relief from wisdom teeth removal?
No stimulants (no coffee), magnesium, gelatin (or glycine, not collagen) thiamine (B1)
Specifically, if the nerve cells for a certain frequency have gone down, and the brain boosts the gain from that cell as part of its normal AGC (automatic gain control), resulting in a phantom sound.
After listening to this I heard silence for the first time in a while. I guess I do have it. But its not delibitating.
I guess I don't get bothered by tinnitus any more.
It didn't go away suddenly. We had moved, and I went 6 months without getting a new Dr so I wasn't taking any prescriptions. It never came back (15 years), so if it was medication it was a different blood pressure medication than I take now or an antidepressant which I never went back on.
https://medicine.umich.edu/dept/mni/news/archive/202306/mni-...
I have some degree of tinnitus (I'm sure it's damage from that Metallica concert..), but I mostly don't notice it unless triggered. White noise triggers it. One office I worked in had white noise generators which made it worse and worse. New office does not have them, now no problem.
Working with an audiologist who has been through the Tinnitus Care Provider program [1] is probably your best bet.
[1] https://myhome.ihsinfo.org/myhome/Find_Provider.aspx?Find_a_...
Be cautious with bupropion. It was the trigger for me and, in a nutshell, I needed several rounds of steroids just to reduce the perceived volume of the high-pitched tone. It eventually subsided on its own over a span of about two years. However, I had to be especially mindful of potential triggers during that time, for some reason I became notably more sensitive to factors like respiratory and skin allergies, poor neck posture, and loud noises.
Interestingly, speedy fans or the ANC from my QC35s seemed to exacerbate it. Yet, another pair of in-ears with adjustable ANC didn't have that adverse effect. SSRIs might have been beneficial as well. Addressing these factors progressively reduced the frequency of episodes, which eventually dwindled to once every two weeks, lasting for about 10 minutes and being barely noticeable.
Mine was from getting squeezed from flying with a sinus infection. I got rid of mine almost completely most of the time with hyperbaric treatment. I had the journal article saying this is common practice in Germany that I used to convince my ENT to refer me to a hyperbaric chamber, but I can't seem to find it.
1: https://neosensory.com/product/neosensory-duo-for-tinnitus/
There are quite a few reviews of different tinnitus interventions here, from zinc supplements to cognitive behavioral therapy https://www.cochranelibrary.com/search
One common theme skimming through is that there is no intervention known to be effective for everyone. But it is worth looking at the ones that have been studied and seeing if any might be worth trying for you.
Full disclosure: I work for the Campbell Collaboration which is essentially the sister organization of Cochrane doing systematic reviews on subjects outside of health (education, crime prevention, business and management, international development and lots else) campbellcollaboration.org/
Twenty years ago I gave up hearing aids.
But the tinnitus stayed with me.
I accepted the tinnitus.
It can be triggered easily, for example from very loud noises (120 dB and more), or just thinking about tinnitus. While writing this post I got tinnitus.
Usually I hear moaning swelling up and down.
Sometimes I hear high-pitched explosions.
Rarely I hear what I call cat music, a surprising and arrythmic melange of different noises.
When I hear tinnitus, I try to listen to it. Especially the cat music is interesting.
The explosions are not so nice. They sometimes work like audio jump scares.
The moaning is sometimes soothing.
I also dramatically reduced eating cheese and anything with lots of gelatin or thickeners in it.
The cure is to shield the nervous system by using absorbing material like meat/water or living in a shielded room.
Same for Havana Syndrome, EMF hypersensitivity. Read my posts.
So I don't have any permanent hearing loss beyond what's normal. My tinnitus is Somatosensory [1], in my case aggravated by neck and jaw tension. My jaw doesn't align all that well on one side, and I can hear a sharp ring if I move my neck/jaw in the right ways.
I first noticed it after a kayaking trip in which I packed my ear with water so badly that I gave up on getting it out. This went on for months until the conductive hearing loss (i.e. earwax) + neck/jaw tension combined to produce tinnitus. Obviously I didn't know the cause at the time, so it caused me some stress before I started to make progress.
This is just armchair science, but in my experience, tinnitus is caused by poor signal to noise. If my neck/jaw is tense or misaligned, then the noise floor is raised. I think it's literally my auditory nerve picking up interference from my neck or jar. Similarly, if my hearing is blocked, then the signal is lowered. If the signal to noise is too poor, then my brain stops filtering out the noise, and I hear it as tinnitus.
The solution for me is just a combination of neck stretching, and protecting myself from all hearing loss. I have to monitor this because it will flare up occasionally.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S180759322...