If Tinnitus Goes Away, Does It Happen Instantly or in a Gradual Manner?

[Aaaron8]

Hi all,

I am still very new to Tinnitus Talk and tinnitus in general. However I am just wondering when your tinnitus goes away, does it just stop or is it a gradual, unnoticeable feeling? Do you wake up and it's gone or is it something that happens during the daytime?

I am curious as mine has fluctuated a lot over the past few days. Sometimes I feel like it's going away and then a few hours later it's as if it is playing a joke on me and comes on again. I am still trying to be optimistic and tell myself it might go.

Would love to hear from anyone who has been relieved of this horrible thing.

A

 

[Tybs]

Completely depends on the cause of tinnitus. My first encounter with tinnitus was about five years ago, when a pile of earwax caused a constant tone in my right ear. This did not change a bit until the wax got removed by an ENT after three months: boom, instantly gone.

My current tinnitus has an alternate cause (neck trauma), and has degraded over time when fysio started, down to the current baseline. Massive difference compared to the start, but it happened gradually.

 

[Nothisispatrick]

I would like to say it could be a gradual process but I have no idea... I'm in week 5 right now. Tinnitus started randomly, 2 weeks later I ended up having an ear infection/retracted ear drum. Tinnitus is in both ears but seeks to fluctuate between ears. I did have a day of silence...but the next day it gradually came back. I honestly don't know, but hopefully some of the vets on this page can give a better answer than I can. I'm really sorry that everyone on this page is even here.

 

[jacob256]

Hey pal, I'm 25 and I've had it since mid/late February. At first it was really bad but it's gradually gone down and I think taking the current rate into consideration it'll probably be gone in a month or two. At first it would have periods of 9/10 loudness and all sorts of crazy noises were going on but now it's consistently at like a 2/2.5 level. Mine appeared out of no where so I'm assuming it was stress induced. I didn't notice any change on a "daily" basis but maybe on a "weekly" basis. Today I woke up and it was seemingly completely gone for a while but kinda gradually turned back on lol. I think it might be because when I first wake up my brain isn't fully "activated" but I'm not sure.

My theory based on a lot of the posts I've read on here regarding improvement/fluctuations goes something like this:

Imagine a bar graph where the X-axis is "days" and the Y-axis is "overall loudness". Let's say each day gets assigned a numerical value from 1-10. Varying from person to person, I think the total summation of "overall loudness" will decrease over time across periods of "days".

Example:
Day period 1: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
Overall loudness: 8,9,8,7,8,9,7,7,9,8
Sum of loudness across day period 1: 80

Day period 2: 11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20
Overall Loudness: 7,9,8,9,7,7,8,6,7,8
Sum of loudness across day period 2: 76

And so forth lol

 

[ASilverLight]

Oh you're completely right about the daily fluctuations. What matters is an overall improvement. If your so called baseline is getting softer, the louder days don't matter all that much.

 

[Tybs]

Oh you're completely right about the daily fluctuations. What matters is an overall improvement. If your so called baseline is getting softer, the louder days don't matter all that much.

Agreed. These days, my "bad days" are indescribably better than my "good days" on onset, to the point where I hardly care anymore: this actually makes it hard to separate good from bad days

The baseline is all that matters, try not to worry about the large differences between days.