Loud Tone for a Few Seconds — Fleeting / Transient Spontaneous Tinnitus

[juliob]

Ya, mine went back to baseline the next day.

You provided me a great relief with this answer lol.

Mine is back to the baseline also, I wonder how common this is streak is in other people with tinnitus.

 

[Jack Straw]

You provided me a great relief with this answer lol.

Mine is back to the baseline also, I wonder how common this is streak is in other people with tinnitus.

This def freaked me out the first time it happened too. lol

 

[Sarah200]

Hi all

really need your help.

Is this fleeting tinnitus?

OK so ever since I got tinnitus I have been getting this weird experience which I think is fleeting tinnitus, basically for a few seconds I get a new sound that goes really loud then after like 30 seconds goes away again, it's like someone playing one key on a piano constantly for a few seconds, it goes so loud that I can't hear my baseline tinnitus. But it always has lasted only a few seconds from a quick search on here I have found others experience this and it's called fleeting tinnitus.

What scared me was last night I had what at first seemed like a fleeter but lasted longer than a few seconds and I am hoping you can all help tell me if I was experiencing fleeting tinnitus or not last night.

I was sat down watching TV which was not loud, it was low, anyways it came on out of nowhere like fleeting tinnitus but I had this weird feeling in one ear, the ear that the loud fleeting was in, the best thing I can think of to describe is it was like my right ear had an earplug in it and then the loud noise came. It went really loud, then it was like it got stuck. When it started to go down again it just stopped and I was left with this new tone in my ear all night, I could not hear my baseline tinnitus all night, I could hear it over the TV and could not mask it.

After about 2 hours of this happening the earplug feeling went and I was left with just the new loud sound, then another 2 hours passed when I was going to bed and it was still loud but it had gone down a bit so I could mask it. When I woke up this morning it was gone and I can hear my normal baseline tinnitus.

Was this fleeting tinnitus that just stayed longer then a few seconds or was it something else?

Can fleeting become permanent as that is my biggest fear if it happened again and it did not go?

 

[Codeflowd]

Hey all,

Yesterday something atypical happened to me. I had kinda 10 episodes of fleeting tinnitus in the same interval of one hour. It was on my left ear (my good ear, tinnitus free), fading away after few seconds, but keeping this strange sensation that my tinnitus was redistributed after the episodes, in the sense that it lessened the sound in the right ear but sent a part of the sound to the left ear, hard to say.

I woke up today with my usual level and distribution of tinnitus: right ear, usual volume. Was the streak episode of yesterday something to worry about?

I guess it's important to state that I am one month at 100mg of Zoloft after 5 weeks of 50mg (the dosage increase didn't seem to change my tinnitus) and I take 0.625mg of Xanax everyday.

Only 'different stuff' I did yesterday was to take a cup of chamomile tea 4 or 5 hours before, but I don't know if this can influence.

Is this kind of episode normal? Should I be worried?

I have this today.. its so weird. I don't know what to do?

How is your today? Did you try something ?

 

[coffee_girl]

I had fleeting tinnitus only after my noise exposure and not before, it happened almost daily for the first year and then gradually tapered off. At first i thought they were permanent spikes but they always disappeared after a few seconds, it always happened after a shower.

Now I have them very rarely, perhaps once every 4th month.

 

[Jason37]

Same here. I had it daily, now maybe once or twice a week.

 

[Lilah]

I just experienced fleeting tinnitus for the first time and it was kinda scary. My regular high-pitched tinnitus was slowly increasing in volume, then all of a sudden I heard a low pitch new tone in my right ear for a few seconds. Should I be worried? Does this mean my tinnitus is getting worse?

 

[billie48]

Fleeting tinnitus is quite common and have been talked about many times in prior threads. If you need more info than you may want to search the forum with 'fleeting tinnitus' and you will see many prior discussions. Good luck. God bless.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Does this mean my tinnitus is getting worse?

Some people think that fleeing tinnitus is your body trying to recalibrate and to get rid of tinnitus.

 

[Fally]

Some people think that fleeing tinnitus is your body trying to recalibrate and to get rid of T.

Is this why for a second when you get it there's that moment of silence before it goes back to ringing again?

 

[Lilah]

Is this why for a second when you get it there's that moment of silence before it goes back to ringing again?

I don't think I heard a moment of silence. Is it still fleeting tinnitus then?

 

[GregCA]

Some people think that fleeing tinnitus is your body trying to recalibrate and to get rid of tinnitus.

Who thinks that?

 

[hans799]

I just experienced fleeting tinnitus for the first time and it was kinda scary. My regular high-pitched tinnitus was slowly increasing in volume, then all of a sudden I heard a low pitch new tone in my right ear for a few seconds. Should I be worried? Does this mean my tinnitus is getting worse?

Fleeting tinnitus is entirely normal, even people without chronic T get it.
Usually it is described as a high, pure tone.

However the following occurrences are also normal and temporary:
- a low-frequency tone
- a tone that is not pure, but a static
- a quieter "residue" that often remains for minutes, even hours after the fleeting T occurred.

So if you get a moment of sudden deafness on one side, then a very loud sound that fades out rapidly over a few seconds, you can be quite certain that it is just harmless fleeting T and it will go away completely - even if the tone isn't high, or not pure, or it lingers for a while. (I've experienced all of these personally and seen several reports when searching through this forum. Thought I'd list them because not knowing that these variants are also normal caused me a lot of fear.)

 

[Bill Bauer]

Who thinks that?

Has anybody noticed a correlation between frequency of occuring and muscle tension in the neck and jaw? I read that one doctor believes it may be some chewing muscle which causes fleeting tinnitus. Others say its a recalibration kind of thing. It's so scary. Can you modulate it? Some say it goes away with yawning!

The "beep" before it fades is exactly like this fleeting T I have had in the past. But since it fades, doesnt that suggest that the nerves are now firing the way it should? And the fact that the headaches went away when lying in this position, I would think that something started to work properly at that time. Maybe fleeting T happens if for some reason there is a lack of lets say a small portion of somatosensory information or whatever is sent to the dorsal cochlear nucleus and when this usually is resolved in a split second the auditory system recalibrates and the signal is no longer treated as an extarnal sound as the auditory processing part is now recognizing those signals being something else. I have really no idea, but its interesting that the fleeting T happens before it fades.

Then what is it a sign of according to you? I've seen many fantastic proposals of what this phenomena might be. Among them:

• Recalibration of the inner-ear sensory cells by the brain in one way or another.
• Recalibration of the inner-ear fluids.
• The death of hair cells.

Personally, if for example failing interaction between a still living hair cell and a damaged synapse turns out to be one of the etiologies of Tinnitus, I'd rather have those hair cells killed off ASAP. If that is the case fleeting Tinnitus would be good news in my book. It's not exactly "healing" in that case, but getting rid of or reducing Tinnitus would be the next best thing. Assuming the fleeting Tinnitus is associated with loss of hair cells and you consider that bad news of course...

But hey, what do we really know about fleeting Tinnitus and whether it is good or bad? All we have is theories and speculation.

 

[Bill Bauer]

What do you mean by something bad?

Personally, I have had ear fullness for 10 days, and then I developed T.

The post you are quoting is from 2017. It suffers from a poor choice of words. Nowadays, I would say that ear fullness is a sign that your ear was hurt. Ear fullness usually goes away after 3-6-12 months. Just be easy on your ears and try to not get a second acoustic trauma, and you should be ok.

 

[Fally]

I don't think I heard a moment of silence. Is it still fleeting tinnitus then?

My t goes silent right before the fleeting tinnitus hits. Maybe its just the deafness i am referring to.

 

[Bill Bauer]

I don't think I heard a moment of silence. Is it still fleeting tinnitus then?

It is. A lot of people's fleeing T is not accompanied by momentary deafness/moments of silence.

 

[HanaK]

I keep reading that fleeting tinnitus is the ear's "swan song" and that it's the last sound a hair cell makes before it finally dies... Is this true?

I sure hope not because I can literally be doing nothing at all in complete silence and still get fleeting tinnitus or sudden deafness (I can still hear out of the ear but it's like my tinnitus completely stops and everything quiets down for a few seconds). But sometimes I also get fleeting tinnitus after being stressed/hearing loud noises for a while. It's so worrisome because I don't think I'm doing anything that is causing more hearing loss.

I keep reading things like this:

"You know that ringing in your ears? That 'eeeeeeeeee'?
That's the sound of the ear cells dying, like their swan song. Once it's gone you'll never hear that frequency again.
Enjoy it while it lasts."

or

"Your ears ring when you lose hearing. Every time you hear that ringing, you have lost a little bit more of your hearing."

 

[Contrast]

This is not true, laymen tails.

Tinnitus is a neurological response to a loss of hearing, it's coming from the brain not the ear.

 

[GregCA]

I keep reading that fleeting tinnitus is the ear's "swan song" and that it's the last sound a hair cell makes before it finally dies...

Where do you keep reading this?

"You know that ringing in your ears? That 'eeeeeeeeee'?
That's the sound of the ear cells dying, like their swan song. Once it's gone you'll never hear that frequency again.
Enjoy it while it lasts."

That is a (verbatim) quote from the movie "Children of Men": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206634/characters/nm0000194

 

[HanaK]

Where do you keep reading this?

That is a (verbatim) quote from the movie "Children of Men": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206634/characters/nm0000194

On websites about fleeting tinnitus hahaha or reddit. Ooh it's a movie quote LOL. I hope it's not true then!

 

[HanaK]

This is not true, laymen tails.

Tinnitus is a neurological response to a loss of hearing, it's coming from the brain not the ear.

So I should or shouldn't be worried about fleeting tinnitus or sudden deafness for a few seconds? I read a lot of people on this forum say that it's a normal occurrence and not to worry, but that swan song thing has me on the edge. LOL. Good to know it's just a movie quote though.

 

[gorzakus]

75 percent of the population have fleeting tinnitus episodes.
Is still not exactly clear what causes them but has probably something to do with muscle spasms.
It seems people with tinnitus have more episodes probably because we are so focused on our ears.
So no reason to worry.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/21970850/

 

[gorzakus]

Some say it's the ear resetting and trying to get rid of the tinnitus so if you want to believe something, you could believe that version. It's probably better for your anxiety.

 

[HanaK]

Some say it's the ear resetting and trying to get rid of the tinnitus so if you want to believe something, you could believe that version. It's probably better for your anxiety.

Will definitely believe this version instead haha. Thank you! and yeah, I definitely notice my fleeting tinnitus episodes increases the more I'm anxious about something regarding my ears.

 

[Audiophile_bg]

Holy freaking shit, I just got this, it got SO loud, my entire life flashed in before my eyes.

It disappeared but my day is ruined from the anxiety.

 

[KennethS]

This has been happening for a few months now, wasn't very often when I was taking B12 injections but now I've taken a break and my baseline is constantly at a ten and my left or right ear quite frequently goes from a 7 to a 50 back down to a 7-8.

When I was taking b-12 baseline was constantly a 5.
When I'm off, its un-noticable in the morning but a 8-9 throughout the same times in the evening and night like clockwork.

This 'deafening' and unbearable temporary spike used to happen maybe 1-2 times every few days
now it occurs 3-4 times a day and it's terrible.

I'm actually afraid that getting off B12 basically permanently ruined my baseline and is killing my ears, but I'm not sure. is this discomfort the regeneration of my hearing cells or is it them dying.
I'm not even sure if anyone else has this weird spike issue.

Anyone else experience this? I'm also afraid that unknowingly B12 was preventing my ears from doing this and now that I've been off the B12 I've done permanent damage.

What should I do if so?

 

[Nick M]

I believe this is the ear resetting where by it does a frequency sweep as that's what it sounds like. I've had them a handful of time before T but the frequency of them has increased after T. Most of the time it knocks out my T for several seconds giving me the false hope that maybe my ear finally decided it had enough of T and fixed itself but nope

 

[cj5suzy]

For a short time (can't remember exactly how long) before I got tinnitus I was fine but was having this kind of like a second or so of this buzzing "zap " sound in my head. I didn't know what it was, the only way I can describe it now would be a fleeting second of full blown loud tinnitus.

This happened a few times during the day, then one morning I woke up with the tinnitus followed by hyperacusis a month or so later.

Here's my question. Lately I have been getting more of these "zaps" - a fleeting second of even louder tinnitus which is startling and frightening. My tinnitus is already loud (I can still hear it in the shower) --- does anyone else get this? Does this mean my tinnitus will take it to the next level and be even worse??

I'm already dealing with crazy multiple tones - high pitched crickets - the works!!! It will be two years of this in October.

I'm still here so for anyone else reading this you can somehow learn to live with it but I am wondering if anyone can relate to my newest problem.

Any reply would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Strife_84]

Has anyone ever had this symptom that you wake up middle of the night because tinnitus feels so loud it will
explode your head?

Few days ago, I woke up to this very LOUD high-pitch sound, I could not hear anything else. It lasted about 3-5 seconds and it suddenly turned into lower volume. It was like my brain turned itself on and realized "whoa, that sound is too loud. Let's turn it down a bit"

It was very strange feeling....