I was with you until you said this.
I didn't have T before the concert unless I ran a few miles from a workout or had very high stress. The only other time that I would have it was fleeting T that I still get from time to time.
Above the age of 25 we know for sure that everyone has some degree of hearing loss as a result of damage to hair cells in the cochlear even without exposure to excessive sound, thereby producing tinnitus, and in reality the process probably it begins far younger.
Put someone who never once complained to anyone about tinnitus into a sound proof booth and ask them to listen for any sound at all and eventually they will perceive something, usually a high pitch hiss.
We have to separate two very different things: tinnitus, and being aware/affected by tinnitus. The existence of tinnitus is a normal part of human existence, being aware of it and being distressed and affected by it (as all of us here are), is not.
If anything seriously contributes to that tinnitus, like exposure to loud noise or certainly any disease of the inner or middle ear, then yes that baseline tinnitus may well be raised above the threshold that our brains are used to filtering it out. In some cases it may well be to the extent that it's totally unreasonable to expect the brain to go back to filtering it out, and no doubt acoustic trauma can do that.
What I'm saying is that there is a subset of people with intrusive tinnitus in whom the physical cause for that worsening tinnitus has actually resolved but who continue to perceive even their baseline level of tinnitus despite it having resolved to the level it was before. That's because the brain has rewired to perceive the tinnitus as a threat, something that should not be filtered but rather should be carefully monitored.
These people need to be aware of that, otherwise they will forever be seeking a physical cure and forever be monitoring their tinnitus, both of which will actually prevent their tinnitus from resolving compared to those people who have an episode of tinnitus and shrug it off, forget about it, and a few minutes/hours/days later realise it's gone.
I just don't want those people to go through what I have put myself through. Looking back I don't know how long my "fleeting T" actually lasted, it was obviously a bit longer than the few seconds that everyone is used to from time to time, but I was 1) already stressed about life stuff and 2) I have a severe health anxiety issue meaning I totally freak the fuck out about basically any unusual symptom I get.
Within seconds of noticing the tinnitus I was asking myself "oh my god, what if this never goes". I was having an urgent audiogram within about 2 hours and was sitting in front of the GP literally in tears about 3 hours after that, on the same day...
You don't subject your brain to levels of anxiety like that and not expect it to adapt, and now I have no awareness of my tinnitus in the quiet or when distracted or when around most noise, but around continuous high pitch sounds like the shower or typing or the car it will gradually wind itself back up and be back again. All because I lost my shit and told my brain that tinnitus is a major threat to my life, so my brain naturally wired itself to be super aware of it.
I don't want people to put themselves through that. I am sure for people in my situation with the all clear from ENT and a normal audiogram will be doing themselves a huge favour by skipping the nervous breakdown bit and just crack on with calming down, distracting yourself, using some TRT techniques and before they know it they will be like the probable countless other people out there who had a brief episode of tinnitus that passed because they didn't worry too much about it.
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