Fluctuating (Pitch, Quality, Loudness) Unilateral Tinnitus — Part of the Challenge Is Sleep Apnea

[Peter Q]

Hey there @sspencermo, sure thing, I'm glad you found my posts helpful, and thanks for commenting here. It's a lot easier to have a conversation on threads like this rather than on profile pages due to their character limits.

It sounds like we have a very similar experience. I'm not exactly sure what caused mine either, but mine started after I had experienced months of pretty severe workplace stress. Prior to that, I had years of this very low hum in my ears which I had never thought of as tinnitus (I thought it was how ears normally function), but my audiologist affirms is actually tinnitus. I also have mild/moderate hearing loss. So the theory with me is that I had a low level preexisting tinnitus correlated with my hearing loss and then perhaps the stress triggered this intrusive cyclical experience. But I don't know for certain and probably never will know for certain.

I'm like you, I don't get two loud days in a row. How much of your tinnitus do you hear on your low days?

I also feel that REM is when my tinnitus ramps up. I have the same thoughts that you do: it's either the REM itself or some underlying trigger that causes the tinnitus to ramp up while also affecting REM sleep. I have tried different sleeping aids. The one I used for months in the beginning is Trazodone. None of them seems to have had any effect on my tinnitus or the cycle.

It's good that you recognize that you have a cycle. For the longest time, I didn't recognize my cycle. I was suspecting all sorts of external triggers, like sleep position, posture, diet, exercise, you name it. I think partly it was because in the beginning it was quite chaotic, without much pattern. It's also partly due to my having three types of days (loud, mild, quiet). But every since February of last year, I've been keeping a daily record. I'll post about it soon, but it appears that my cycles are lengthening, meaning more days between loud days. The overall volume has been steadily decreasing (knock on wood).

How's your anxiety level been?

Do you think your tinnitus might be somatic?

 

[Joe Cuber]

Do you think your tinnitus might be somatic?

Hi @Peter Q.

Yup, my tinnitus is rather somatic. I can change the pitch and volume by moving my head around, chewing, pressing against my scalp, rolling my eyes around. This cyclical on/off thing is a whole separate experience, but it might be possible that it gets spiked somatically in the night, though it's hard to believe that that's the cause given how regularly my tinnitus reappears.

 

[sspencermo]

Hey @Joe Cuber.

I was nosing around the other day and found this paper about people who have intermittent sleep-activated tinnitus. It describes mine to a "T" (so to speak). Can't remember -- does your intermittent tinnitus change with sleep as well? Looks like folks with this have reduced non-REM3 (deep sleep) and REM sleep cycles, which I completely believe, given my own sleep problems. I've just started low-dose Remeron and have had the best sleep that I've had in ages. I'll let you know if it has any effect on tinnitus...