Help Me Understand What Type of Tinnitus I Have

[zerosandones]

Hi all, I've had tinnitus for about a month, no hearing loss, no apparent cause. My left ear tone is ~600 Hz and is continuous and unvarying, while the right ear tone is ~11000 Hz and is intermittent and varies in loudness and tone, and can be affected by moving my jaw and head.

The left tone has pretty much stopped bothering me at this point, it's easily drowned out by opening the window, fridge noises, etc. The right tone, when it's present, is quite annoying as nothing really masks it. It seems to make my ears more sensitive to loud, high pitched noise as well.

Given it's intermittent, if there's something I can do to prevent it from getting worse, or make it go away, I would absolutely love to know.

I've read that since it can be affected by jaw/head movements it's somatic tinnitus? I don't have TMJ/bruxism as far as I can tell, my jaw is mildly tight these days but it's been much worse in the past and I would rate it as a 1 or 2 out of 10 as far as pain. I can open my jaw fully and eat without any pain.

I first noticed my ears were feeling funny when I moved from NY to CA in February. I would wake up with pulsing and sensitivity in my ears which would go away after a few hours. Since I moved states, many changes were concomitant with this -- different diet, different mattress, different exercise regimen, I also started vaping a few days after I moved (which I originally thought was the cause, though a month vape free and I haven't seen much change), different supplements (which I have all discontinued now except for zinc). In general, my tinnitus is always worse in the morning, and I still have the pulsatile tinnitus / feeling of fullness or pressure in the ears each morning.

Would very much appreciate any sage advice on things I could do to make a difference. I've read many threads on here and many research publications, but am having trouble distilling them into actionable things to try. Is the best advice, as my ENT said, to do nothing? The less I pay attention to it, the less hooked I get, the less chance of my brain becoming permanently wired to the tones?

Or are there any jaw relaxing exercises people have found helpful that I could do daily? Should I seek out finding healthcare providers with experience with tinnitus? Dentist, physical therapist, chiropractor etc? If so does any one have any recommendations in San Diego, CA?

For some final context, I'm 31, am not often exposed to loud noises (no clubs, concerts etc), used to have slightly higher than normal bp (135/90) but after a significantly increased exercise regimen the last 6 months have gotten it down to 108/68.

Thank you very much in advance for the advice and guidance.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Given it's intermittent, if there's something I can do to prevent it from getting worse, or make it go away, I would absolutely love to know.

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...eone-else-who-has-tinnitus.26850/#post-307822

I didn't read all the above comments, but did peruse a fair amount of it, and ran across many good points on both sides of the argument. What strikes me is there seems to be an underlying assumption (of course I may be wrong on this) that all brains and neurological systems are created equal. The way I see it, that's simply not the case, so everybody's way of dealing with tinnitus and/or hyperacusis is going to have to be highly individualized.

I read a book many years ago called "Adrenal Syndrome". A lot of the book touched on the residual resiliency of people's adrenal glands as they respond to life's stresses. Very low resiliency often resulted in months/years of chronic debilitating exhaustion following a stressful event(s) in their lives. Very high resiliency indicated essentially the opposite. The author broke this down into some rough numbers:

25% of people have low resiliency, meaning normal life stressors will often send them into some degree of a tailspin.
25% of people have high resiliency, meaning that no matter how severe a stressor comes into their lives, they will be able to cope without becoming debilitated to any degree.
50% of people fall somewhere inbetween.

I believe there are some kind of corresponding numbers for a person's brain and neurological resiliency as well, which can greatly affect the ability to cope with tinnitus. (I believe adrenal resiliency also plays a major role in our ability to cope). -- Based on these assumptions, it's pretty easy for me to conclude that what may be overprotection for one person will be underprotection for another, and vice versa.

I think the main point to understand for someone new to tinnitus is that their path forward is going to be a lot of "testing the waters". Generally, IMHO, it's going to take a few weeks or months to get important insights that will help us achieve a healthy balance. In all likelihood, most people are going to learn from experience when their over-protecting or under-protecting.

I've come to believe however, that in those early months, if one is going to err in either direction, it should be toward overprotection. It just seems to me the consequences of underprotection (which could result in permanent injury) in those early times are much more dire than the consequences of overprotection--which as I understand, generally results in temporary setbacks.

Doing a number of things to better support the brain and neurological system and the body's stress response (adrenal glands) is quite high on my list of recommendations I would make to anybody with tinnitus. Doing so might even prevent phonophobia or OCD, etc., as we go through our learning curves -- Just my 2 cents worth.

Relative newbies to tinnitus are likely to find all the information/opinions above quite confusing. So here are a few common-sense rules to follow:

1. The best protection of all is avoidance. Even the best earplugs can't guarantee complete hearing protection so those relatively new to tinnitus are best advised to avoid prolonged loud noise exposure - especially amplified sound at for example live concerts and sports events. This may involve lifestyle changes.

2. When in doubt, use hearing protection. In the many tasks we all do through the week, some will inevitably involve exposure to noise - which may be at higher levels than we at first realise - so using hearing protection for many of these is only sensible.

3. Build quiet into your day. It's not a good idea to be wearing hearing protection all the time - so you need to give your ears a break by ensuring that there will be quieter times during your day when hearing protection isn't necessary.This may involve changing your routine. Use soft masking noise and light music (not using headphones) to avoid "silence" where tinnitus is most noticeable.

4. Don't stress about stress. Tinnitus newbies are forever being told that the thing which makes tinnitus worse is stress. But while it's true that how you are feeling at a particular moment can make tinnitus temporarily louder, it won't have a lasting effect. But prolonged loud noise exposure can make tinnitus permanently louder. So don't stress about stress - but do be concerned about noise.

Is the best advice, as my ENT said, to do nothing?

Probably... But you also need to avoid some things (e.g., microsuction, etc.) to ensure that it doesn't get worse (see the tips in the post at the link above).

 

[zerosandones]

Thank you Bill, very helpful advice. Able to tune it out many days now, but seem to get hooked from time to time. Hope I can continue to work on this in the coming weeks and months.

 

[zerosandones]

Is there any way I can edit the original post? Don't believe that was the title I made (guess the mods changed it?), and it sounds fairly commanding! Would love to add a 'please' in there.