I Know of 2 People in My Family Whose Tinnitus Has Gone Away

[New Guy]

@RoseFaith

I've read plenty of posts that say changing to a hissing is a good thing. The other thing to do is keep track of the volume. Is it getting any lower? Not day by day or even week to week but after a month have you had a lower point than the month before.

t makes no sense so what some observe may be different than what happens with you. If you've never had t before and spent 40 mins in a bar I hope the exposure wasn't great enough to cause long term t.

 

[Bill Bauer]

hissing in both my ears - the ring is still present in my right ear when I close my ears with my finger, but seems to be less loud.

This proves that hissing = quiet ringing. If you got it to hiss less than a month after the onset, you are in a better shape than most people on this forum (many take months to get to hear hissing [if they ever hear it]). I think that there is a good chance that you will get to the "can hear it only in quiet rooms" stage, or even get to hear silence again.

 

[Drone Draper]

What is the chance of going from "only hear it in quiet rooms" (e.g. 35-40dbish) to silence?

 

[Bill Bauer]

What is the chance of going from "only hear it in quiet rooms" (e.g. 35-40dbish) to silence?

Thus far, I think I've read only one or two testimonies where someone made the transition. Many people who claim to hear silence, turn out to still be hearing T in a quiet room.

But who knows - perhaps that quiet room stage lasts several years, and by the time it is over and one gets to hear silence again, one has forgotten about this forum, and so we don't get to hear the success stories...

 

[Drone Draper]

Mm. Interesting. I do think a lot of people who have very mild T and don't consider themselves sufferers probably hear it in very quiet rooms, but aren't really aware of it.

 

[Bob den Hartog]

If I may jump in, I had T in 2011 (noise induced, reactive), then it faded, then had the "quiet room" stage and forgot about it (probably habituation at first), then went to completely quiet.

I have to confess I don't really know how long it took to go from "quiet room" to quiet, since I only realised it when a friend asked me about it a few months later, and I then realized all of a sudden I hadn't heard it for a while (not just habituation anymore, actually *not hearing*).

Then went years without T, and now I'm back because of a stupid mistake .

But! Yes, I did experience the above and can confirm it happens.

 

[Bob den Hartog]

Mm. Interesting. I do think a lot of people who have very mild T and don't consider themselves sufferers probably hear it in very quiet rooms, but aren't really aware of it.

About this, I think it's just easier to habituate to "quiet room" T. I recently talked to a friend about my current troubles, and that evening, he was surprised to hear about the phenomenon, didn't know it existed, etc. Then a few days later, he told me that next morning he woke up and realized he heard a high pitched sound. I asked if it was fleeting, but he said, nope, it must've been there all along. He just actually did not hear it (at all!), because he wasn't aware of it.

To me this says that habituation can actually lead to not hearing it, even in quiet rooms.

 

[Drone Draper]

Nice! I love stories like that (the first part).

And yes, absolutely. I told my brother about my current woes and he said he has a bit of T in his left ear, like a tone, but he never thinks about it.

 

[Bunny_Lover1230]

@threefirefour hi I saw your post where you said your mom had tinnitus from her tmj for a little bit. I was wondering if hers gone away, how long it lasted, and what she treated it with. Please respond this would help me out a lot I am very worried that my t is permanent but I am having so many signs it's tmj related and was just needed some reassurance.

 

[Bill Bauer]

@threefirefour hi I saw your post where you said your mom had tinnitus from her tmj for a little bit. I was wondering if hers gone away, how long it lasted, and what she treated it with. Please respond this would help me out a lot I am very worried that my t is permanent but I am having so many signs it's tmj related and was just needed some reassurance.

@threefirefour's tinnitus was due to TMJ, and he shared with us that after he had treated his TMJ, eventually his tinnitus was gone.

 

[Bunny_Lover1230]

@Bill Bauer ok thank you for answering, sorry to bother you again but I have another question how long did it take for his to go away?

 

[Bill Bauer]

@Bill Bauer ok thank you for answering, sorry to bother you again but I have another question how long did it take for his to go away?

I am sorry, but I am not sure.

Hopefully he will answer your question soon.

 

[Auron]

Thank you for sharing these stories! It means a lot.

It took 2.5 years before he could hear silence again, right? May I ask you to please ask him how long his "can hear T only in quiet rooms" period had lasted? It would also help to know how loud was his T during the first month after onset (and was it a hiss or a high pitch tone). The latter would give us an idea about how bad he hurt his ears in the first place. Thank you!

Bill, so you are saying tinnitus loudness after onset is a good indicator of damage done to one's ear's? I'm just four months in to my tinnitus suffered from acoustic shock, but it's always been about 2/10 or better description is I can only really hear it in quiet rooms. Never had a spike either. I have experienced other symptoms though like distorted noise, monotone noise, and minor ear pain at times, but most have cleared up.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Bill, so you are saying tinnitus loudness after onset is a good indicator of damage done to one's ear's?

I am pretty sure that that's the case.

Your tinnitus is already where many people's tinnitus gets to after a year. But have you experienced any fading (or change in pitch for the better) compared to how it was three months ago?

 

[amillar1993]

To add to the above,

I've had T for just shy of 8 weeks, not 100% sure on the cause but my guess would be noise exposure. Mine has only ever been 'in a quiet/silent room'.

Did fine for about a month, completely ignored it for the most part. When anxiety/panic hit in the 4th week I think I basically gave myself TTTS because the other symptoms (twitching, hot ears etc) set in basically the day after I had a really bad meltdown.

I was super worried I'd done really bad damage but I'd had zero symptoms outside of the T for those first 3/4 weeks until I started to mentally let it effect me. I also notice I can basically start and stop these symptoms, within reason,d on how stressed out I am about it.

Long story short I'm almost certain my mild T is just that and nothing more (especially when combined with my 'above average hearing' during a 16k hearing test), which gives me hope itll just fade/go over time.

I refuse to check it or let myself listen to it but it definitely isn't getting worse. If anything it's already began to go down, and if I'm not going totally mad I think I may have heard a few seconds of it shifting to more of a hissing over the past few days when in a totally silent room.

Again, all this is only 2 months in (and I make sure to protect my ears from anything remotely loud now) but my initial thoughts are that because I never had a 'loud' phase, that it's likely to get much better over the next few months.

 

[Auron]

I am pretty sure that that's the case.

Your tinnitus is already where many people's tinnitus gets to after a year. But have you experienced any fading (or change in pitch for the better) compared to how it was three months ago?

Not really, no, maybe a little. I'll say it has always just been consistent. I do still have a few other symptoms still outside of tinnitus, but those have improved a lot since my trauma, although I want to FULLY HEAL (a man can dream huh). Like I said I never have experienced a spike either, which I take as a good sign (maybe?).

 

[amillar1993]

Sounds like yours is very similar to mine, noticed it about 5/6 days after a loud-ish jam session. I'm only at 2 months, but I actually only noticed mine after plugging my ears one night trying to find a whining noise that I'm not sure was even my tinnitus now I think about it! I think it was my extractor fan, a blessing in disguise in a way though as it's stopped me being negligent with ear protection!

Mine also isn't reactive, it doesn't spike at all, and it was it was never 'loud', it's just an irritating little 'eee' that's there if I plug my ears or sit in silence (which I'm just avoiding doing at the moment, I'll check back every few weeks on it I think).

I thought I had H for a period but I think what I'm actually experiencing is TTTS, I don't get pain from noise, but something in my ear definitely reacts to certain sounds. I've had mild periods of fullness/pain/heat, but from what I've seen it's not uncommon for TTTS to manifest itself in this way. I can make my ears hot just by thinking about the whole thing and all the other symptoms strongly correlate with how I'm coping that day. Case and point, I'm 5 days into a pretty decent period of less stress and they haven't shown up at all.

 

[Bill Bauer]

If the sound were to be decreasing by say 5% a month, then after 4 months the people whose T is loud would be able to tell their sound is quieter. It is possible that the people whose T was quiet to begin with will have trouble determining whether their T got quieter after 4 months (because 5% of a small number is small). Hopefully this is what's going on. If this is the case, it should continue fading and eventually you will experience it being quieter.

 

[threefirefour]

@threefirefour hi I saw your post where you said your mom had tinnitus from her tmj for a little bit. I was wondering if hers gone away, how long it lasted, and what she treated it with. Please respond this would help me out a lot I am very worried that my t is permanent but I am having so many signs it's tmj related and was just needed some reassurance.

In her case and my case yeah

 

[Bill Bauer]

In her case and my case yeah

How long did it take from the time you began treating your TMJ to the time when you thought to yourself that you were cured?

Also, can you hear silence when you wear earplugs in a quiet room, or do you still hear a distant hiss?

 

[Rb86]

FWIW in my own case... I have multiple sounds, but the absolute constant has been my high pitched one.

In the beginning I tracked it... it started around 10 kHz, then 3 days later to 12 kHz, then 15 kHz. It stayed at 15 kHz ever since...(4 months now)...HOWEVER...

It got to a point where if I was outside with cicadas or crickets blaring in the summer night I wouldn't hear it.....it sounded exactly like soda fizz or pop rocks candy in your mouth/going down your throat. Eventually then it was kind of like crickets going always. And now it's a TV static.

What's funny is I haven't noticed too much fading per se....it's just that one day I was like "this doesn't sound like soda fizz why would I call it that?" And then one day a couple months later "this doesn't sound like crickets why would I call it that? It sounds like TV static".

Some changes happen that you don't even quite notice, bc your Tinnitus is always ON, and that in itself is the bummer. But I think I'm beginning to understand why many who have it go away completely can not pinpoint when it stopped because nobody flicked the switch. It happened so gradually that you've already accepted it as part of your life now.

That's just how I see it. I may or may not ever experience silence again....

Let's rephrase that....maybe won't hear silence for several years until they actually can cure tinnitus.....and they will. I 100 percent believe that, unquestionably.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Why won't you answer the question @threefirefour? What's the big deal?

 

[Bunny_Lover1230]

@threefirefour how long did your tinnitus last??

 

[Harlos E Hall]

How long of taking ACV w/mother before any results?