Highly Fluctuating Tinnitus/Spikes... Confused.

[DaneV]

I have had tinnitus for over 8 years now. Like many, I struggled at first but habituated after a couple of months, making tinnitus a non-issue in my life. I think there were months in a row that I didn`t even think about tinnitus during this years, even though I could hear it when I listened to it.

Some days, I used to have nasty spikes. Often, it would follow a day of over-exercising, to little sleep or great amounts of mental stress. During these (rare) spikes, I could hear my tinnitus over every normal sound and even loud music couldn`t mask it. The good thing was, these spikes always went back to normal within 1-2 days.

During the last 3-4 months however, these disturbing spikes became more and more frequent. Currently, my tinnitus is at this insanely loud level for almost half of my days. Other days, it is so silent that I can barely hear it in a quiet room and I forget about it quickly.

I really wish I could pinpoint why one day my tinnitus is nearly non-existent and the other day it is going trough the roof. I mean, there must be something that "triggers" the bad days, right?

Some facts/observations:

• I quit drinking (a bottle of wine per day) and smoking over 2 months ago. Quitting seemed to have worsened the frequency and severity of my tinnitus "spikes" significantly
• I have some mild hyperacusis and some fullness in my ears during these spikes
• Stress doesn`t seem to directly influence it. I can have stressful but silent days and vice versa
• Sleep always "resets" it, it never changes during the day. If I wake up with loud tinnitus, I will go to bed with it. But I can go to bed with screaming tinnitus, sleep 6 hours and wake up allmost without it
• I have the feeling caffeine makes it worse, but I have a hard time quitting it

Does anyone have experiences like this, or has any idea what I could try to pinpoint the reason for these "extreme" fluctuations in my tinnitus? I can easily live with my mild tinnitus, but I`m really struggling with this (now frequent) episodes where I can hear tinnitus even over very loud sounds :/

 

[Jason37]

I have the exact same tinnitus. Your description of it is exactly like mine. No time or reason why tinnitus does what it does. I just go about my day on the loud ones and I know it will go back down soon enough. Eventually I feel like I just stop caring about the loud days.

 

[BuzzyBee]

Same here. It's been this way for about 2 1/2 years.

 

[PDodge]

You can add me to the list. Few days will be awesome, followed by a shit one. Sleep is usually a factor.

 

[Zaimon]

Wow this is so creepy. Whatever you write, I have 100% the same. I also got it after I had vertigo for 2 weeks.

I usually have 2-3 good (quiet) days, then a shit day where the tinnitus is super high pitched and super loud directly inside the brain. Then I go to bed and wake up in (almost) silence the next morning.

I also think that sleep has to do with the loud days. Sometimes, when I wake up multiple times at night (not enough REM sleep), I will have a shitty day for sure the next day. I also feel quite tired on those loud days. I usually sleep 7-8 hours / night. Maybe I should try 9-10 hours, don't know.

However, it's almost impossible to habituate like this. Every shit day is really a shit day, sometimes I can't even work (Software Engineer, need to focus hard) because the pitch is so high and nasty...

 

[PortugalTheMan]

My tinnitus is a TV noise without tuning in. A pure tone of 14000 Hz. Today when I was in a semi-awake phase there were noises so loud, from other frequencies that I was super scared.