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

I get this periodically as does my wife. Someone once told me that it's somewhat normal, but that we notice it more because of the tinnitus.

 

Does getting fleeting tinnitus mean that your tinnitus is going to get worse? Anybody have experiences with it? Or is it truly random?

I just hope it doesn’t mean it’s worsening.

 

Not usually. I get them all the time and my tinnitus is VERY stable in pitch and volume.

 

I've had this 3x since onset of my tinnitus - never before this.

 

Sometimes after getting fleeting tinnitus, it leaves a "residue". When I have that residue, and I block my ears, it intensifies for a second or so. The residue and this thing usually fades away within a few hours, or the next morning at the latest.

However, this time I started getting this pure tone which intensifies for a second when I block my ears yesterday evening, and it's still not gone by the next morning (though it's faded a lot). Interestingly I don't even remember getting fleeting tinnitus yesterday evening! Though I've been gaming with some friends (without headphones, of course!) and I might have missed it in the excitement & noise of the laptop fan.

What's the longest you've had fleeting tinnitus residue for?

 

I've had this often since developing tinnitus a few months ago, normally 2-3 times a week. However it came on suddenly today and I'm freaking out because the sound hasn't disappeared.

 

Did it fade from its peak? If it did, don't worry. It's normal for fleeting tinnitus to have a "residue" for a few hours sometimes. It'll go away completely.

 

Thankfully it did fade from its peak. I feel like I still have a low static sound in both ears though. Maybe I've always had this sound and never noticed it until now.

 

I think it's quite random. However, when it happens I usually hear better, more balanced. I don't really know why...

 

Hi everyone! Just thought I’d try and get some advice on what’s happening.

A couple of months ago I posted that my tinnitus has gone but in the meantime I’ve been experiencing regular episodes of fleeting tinnitus, some are as quick as less than 5 seconds but this can happen 3 times a day sometimes.

I’m stressed because of it and I also have TMJ which maybe could cause it? I just hope that the permanent sort doesn’t stick around at the volume of the fleeting sort.

 

Take it as a reminder to be careful around loud noises! I carry some high fidelity earplugs on my keyring just incase I end up somewhere especially loud.

I'd empty my bank account to only have tinnitus for a few seconds a day.

 

I’ve always been super careful with loud noises, never liked fireworks or parties as a kid even. My right ear rang because I had a problem wisdom tooth that irritated my TMJ and the left ear hissed because I was popping ibuprofen like they were sweets

 

Lately I've been experiencing changes in both types of my fleeting tinnitus. I think that the episodes are getting rarer and each individual episode is somehow much lower in volume. Duration is mostly the same 1-3 minutes long.

Does it have any correlation with the state of the regular tinnitus or is it absolutely irrelevant?

 

Hello everybody! So I'm having a legit panic attack over this and could use some guidance. Yesterday, I was sitting at my computer doing some work when in the span of just a few seconds, my left ear suddenly developed this unusual fullness feeling accompanied by a brief but huge spike in my tinnitus. This is not that strange. I get these little random episodes from time to time, but they typically only last for anywhere from a few seconds to a minute, and then everything goes back to normal. I believe some people refer to them as "fleeting tinnitus" or something similar.

Anyways, this time around, that "full ear" feeling didn't dissipate right away. In fact it hung around for several hours. What's more, it made my left ear sound almost like a tin can. Whenever my roommate spoke to me, the sound of his voice would generate a whistling sound in my ear. I eventually decided to go to bed in the hopes that it would fade overnight. Instead, when I woke just a few minutes ago, not only did I discover that the ear still feels full, but that my tinnitus in that one ear is about 2-3 times as bad as it was when I went to bed. I'm terrified now and plan on calling my ENT just as soon as they open, but I could really use any advice I can get about how to deal with this. My ear doctor is very nice and I like her, but like many ENTs, she isn't exactly up to speed on tinnitus.

Have any of you ever experienced anything like this? And if so, how did you address it?

Please help me if you can. If this is a permanent change, I don't think I can live with it.

 

I had something similar a couple of years ago during allergy season. Ear literally filled up while I was laying down - it was like a tap went on. In the end, I think it's more than likely related to ETD. Doctor prescribed a steroid nose spray. I didn't use it that often to be honest because things eventually calmed down.

I would advise getting the doctor to look into your ears first (she will probably say, everything looks fine!) Perhaps suggest the ETD and spray and see what she thinks. As I say, it did settle down for me but took a while, so just be prepared for that and try not panic too much.

 

Thank you for responding so quickly! If you don't mind me asking, did your tinnitus get a lot worse when this happened? And how long did it take to go back to baseline after you got checked out?

 

To be honest, I can't recall. It was a couple of years ago and my tinnitus levels fluctuate quite a lot both before and since the ear filled up. FWIW I try and not focus on how long things are going to last - they usually settle down over time. I just try and take each day as it comes.

 

I get it where my hearing will fade down to almost nothing in my left ear (and tinnitus will spike) over a period of several seconds, then everything is back to normal within a minute or two. Anyone else experience this or any idea why it occurs? My neurototologist doesn't seem to concerned so I've just shrugged it off as one of those strange things. Seems to happen about once every other week, and it's always my left ear where my high frequency hearing is very slightly worse.

Also anyone get several days long headaches as a sign that a tinnitus spike that can last several weeks is coming? I had an MRI that turned up nothing significant.

 

I believe this phenomenon is what people refer to as fleeting tinnitus. I experience this myself and usually happens almost daily. The general notion is that it's harmless but the reason behind it is unknown. Mine tend to happen more when I keep a poor posture so it could be due to strained muscles or something.

 

This happened to me two minutes ago for 1-2 seconds. I think it has to do with blood circulation or nerves, because it presents itself based on my neck movement. Nerves on the neck do not really go up to the ear unless it’s an issue on the c1 and c2 (correct me if I’m wrong). So I would say maybe a vascular issue? Maybe a muscle spasm? When it happens, it gives me a brief feeling of slight ear pain under my lobe and a sensation in the muscle, it’s weird to explain. Also, before tinnitus, when it occurred, if memory serves me right, it gave me a feeling of one-second warmth around the area and the ring reminded me of when you open a soda (sort of tingling sensation / sound that dissipates). Don’t know how else to explain it.

 

I'm 16 years into the tinnitus business. First 8 years a very mild ringing.

Now 5-6 permanent sounds, all gotten louder over the years, both ears, three times sudden hearing loss, first one bilateral, never got better, so hearing is bad now too.

But the fleeting Tinnitus thingy is quite new to me. My sounds got a lot worse the last few months and I now have these fleeting Tinnitus attacks almost every day, multiple times. Max was 3 times in 45 mins. It's always different, sometimes with muffled hearing (that scares me a lot because it reminds me of my sudden hearing losses) sometimes without, ringing, humming, wrooming, all kinds of sounds and of course very very very loud. Louder than my already damn loud unmaskable reactive sounds. left, right. I can't find a pattern or anything.

Not comparable to usual Tinnitus spikes, those are different from fleeting Tinnitus or subbt or tst or whatever the name is

 

Hi all,

I just had my third bout of fleeting tinnitus in the last 15 minutes. I'm not worried about them as I've got plenty of them when the weather is changing (that's, in my case, a verified fact).

But I somehow realized one thing and I would like to ask you if it's the same for you.

Does a fleeting tinnitus, in your case, create a new temporary tinnitus sound on top of your "normal" tinnitus or a fluctuation in tone and/or volume of your actual tinnitus?

It appears that, in my case, it's not a new sound in my ears but my regular one's fluctuating.

 

My fleeting tinnitus sounds completely different than my regular tinnitus. When the fleeting tinnitus kicks in all my other sounds go away and the fleeting tinnitus takes over, dissipates and my normal tones return.

 

I am fairly certain the only reason I knew what the word "tinnitus" meant before I started experiencing it a couple weeks ago is due to these moments of fleeting / transient / spontaneous acts.

I often like to call them 'flashbangs' because, for me, they make a sound similar to them, and only last for a few seconds. I never knew why I got them before, and it never came off as anything serious.

Since the onset of my current, persistent symptom, I've had these occur every once in a while. As some others have mentioned above, it sounds more like a new tone, one that's much louder and more pronounced. In fact, when people talk about hearing "pure tones" and such, I don't really hear that with my current problem. It's only these fleeting ones that sound as if you're playing something specific.

My most recent one is last night, but I hadn't had any for many days before that. I have no idea what these means, nor do I know if they're related to the other noise. It's just more questions on top of questions.

 

So I’ve always had short 5-6 kHz fleeting tinnitus spikes in both ears over my life as many of you. From memory it always had the muffledness accompaniment.
As with most, you learn not to worry.

Recently I’ve been having longer and louder episodes at the craziest lower pitches, 1 kHz, 2 kHz, many without the muffledness, suddenly appear instead of fade in and many wake me up in the night.

I’ve read others have the same thing happen where it can linger slightly for an hour and is often corrected by going back to sleep.

After a big one I tend to have short ones that follow.

Would you still consider these fleeting tinnitus? Or are they simply some kind of spike?

It arguably feels like it’s some different mechanism to the normal fleeting tinnitus of days gone by.

Anyone have any info?

 

I was just doing some work on the computer in my office room while the TV was on in the living room (next door). For a second there I felt like one side was a bit distorted or something, but I can't describe it.

Not quite like the usual fleeting tinnitus, but somehow weird. It lasted like 5 seconds, so I couldn't really reproduce it because it was gone when I went to plug/unplug the ear to check.

I can't be 100% sure it wasn't the TV although it was the side away from the door, so... Is this also fleeting tinnitus? Has this happened to you before?

Afterwards, the other side got a fleeting raise in tinnitus volume that lasted some 10 seconds.

I noticed I didn't sleep too well last night and I'm a bit tired. I feel tense - can it be caused by tense muscles in the shoulder/neck?

Do you have any tips on what to do? I have anxiety issues.
I'm worried now and I'm super scared so I was hoping some of the people here could help me by talking about it.

 

Recently I started to experience short tinnitus in my left ear. For no specific reason my left ear would start to feel full and loose some hearing (like someone put wool over the ear), and this is accompanied by a tone. The tone usually fades in about 30s or so and ear goes back to normal.

I read that this is fairly common and can happen to anyone. It used to happen maybe one every few weeks but now it happens almost every day.

I was wondering if anyone has similar condition and if they received an advice on how to address it. It could be an external cause like stress, lack of sleep, lack of some vitamin, or something in the diet.

 

I had this today and almost lost my mind, it was so loud that I thought if this is going to be the new tinnitus then I will not be able to get used to it. I had never experienced this before.

 

Do you guys who have unilateral tinnitus get fleeting tinnitus only on the ear with permanent tinnitus?

I get fleeting tinnitus on my other, healthy ear.

 

That is normal.