It does happen that the audiogram improves, even though this doesn't tell us much..My tinnitus is better than one year ago. No I have short times where the tinnitus is low level.
I have tinnitus after noise damage. This damage (hair cell loss) is clearly reflected in my audiogram.
If the tinnitus improved because of hair cells getting back to normal this should be noticeable in better hearing (audiogram). This is not happening.
Perhaps that is because "bent" hair cells recover. I don't know. I heard something else too.It does happen that the audiogram improves
Tinnitus is very complex. A person's tinnitus can be caused by one thing, or by overlapping factors.Or maybe the brain just found a way to heal the noise and overcome the abnormal noise of tinnitus? Or even both!
Everyone alive has hair cell damage to a certain extent. It's call normal life - ageing. Hair cells can recover, yes. But like any cells in your body, some will die for whatever reason and hair cells aren't replaced as they are in birds. In other words, no matter what, you won't have all the hair cells you had when you were a foetus.Good question!
It is not even clear whether the majority of tinnitus sufferers have hair cell damage...
Damaged hair cells in the ear don't regenerate. However, many people that have tinnitus are able to live a fulfilling life doing most of the things they want to, because eventually the brain learns to habituate to the tinnitus. This process will be different for each person but usually this takes up to 18 months, sometimes longer, from the date of onset, with or without specialist treatment.I was thinking about this exact thing today. There are reports of people who gets better or their tinnitus fades to silence after noise damage (hair cell damage), infection (where bacterial/viral toxins damage hair cells) etc. Why is that? Why do they improve or their tinnitus completely fades away if hair cells don't regenerate?
The simple answer is no one knows.Why is that? Why do they improve or their tinnitus completely fades away if hair cells don't regenerate?
It's safe to assume that tinnitus severity is by no means a 1:1 correlation to present hair cell damage, there are likely many variables at play, the brain with its complex pathways being one of them, and hearing loss being another - and likely more.Why do they improve or their tinnitus completely fades away if hair cells don't regenerate?