Poll: Is Your Tinnitus Better or Worse in the Morning? And Do You Listen to Sounds Overnight?

[MattS]

Study results suggest:

* 2 out of 3 tinnitus sufferers do not use sound enrichment at night.

* 3 out of 4 tinnitus sufferers tend to have lower tinnitus volumes when they wake.

* There appears to be very little relationship between sound enrichment and morning tinnitus levels, though perhaps a slight relationship between no enrichment and worse morning tinnitus.

 

[Tinniger]

Exactly the same with me. Sweet dreams = milder tinnitus (last night for example...lasting into the day)
Nightmares which I seem to remember more often = tinnitus from hell which I can wake from in the middle of the night with tinnitus raging.

I once had the impression that not the kind of dream, but rather waking up during a dream (REM sleep) is rather connected with tinnitus.

 

[HeavyMantra]

Mine is always pretty intrusive when I wake up lately. Most days however, it goes back to "only hear with earplugs" after 5-30 minutes and stays that way the whole day

I listen to sound enrichment every night

It would be interesting to know if tinnitus is affected by REM sleep since cannabis supresses REM sleep

 

[MattS]

So the poll has changed slightly - there's now a statistical trend forming that suggests that sound enrichment at night may in fact relate slightly to better mornings (p = .13). It's just a trend - hasn't yet reached full statistical significance. And of course correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation. But only 13% (2 out of 14) who use sound enrichment report worse mornings, compared to 33% (10 out of 30) who do not.

 

[Melanie1019]

Before I go to sleep, my tinnitus is much lower. But when I wake up, it's loud again. Sometimes it's so low that I don't need to mask it. Other times, like last night it needed masking. Night time is usually the best for me.

 

[all to gain]

Haven't completed the poll as I don't seem to fit any of them, but surely whether the tinnitus is better of worse in the morning is largely/partly to do with one's perception of it at that particular time? Or am U talking nonsense?

I've tried sound enrichment but find it really distracting. I always used to sleep in silence, and any sound is hard to sleep with for me. So I often just sleep with my tinnitus so to speak. Not ideal by no means.

 

[MattS]

Haven't completed the poll as I don't seem to fit any of them.

.
What option could possibly be missing from the poll, other than "it's completely random"?

but surely whether the tinnitus is better of worse in the morning is largely/partly to do with one's perception of it at that particular time? Or am U talking nonsense?

With tinnitus *everything* is largely/partly due to one's perception. But few on this site would suggest that it's all about perception (ie. that there isn't actually a troubling sound that varies in frequency). And so, sure, we could just throw our hands up in the air and say there's no point in trying to measure tinnitus volume because it's all subjective...but a) that's probably not true, and b) where would that get us?

Regarding the higher in morning/evening: Tinnitus is almost certainly not a homogenous disorder, and noise-induced versus drug-induced, versus stress-induced forms of tinnitus could very well take on different forms. One of the things I'm interested in doing is figuring out how to differentiate these subtypes of tinnitus, towards a more personalized medicine model. Not that this one poll is going to get us there, but it's a starting point, perhaps.

 

[Lilah]

Mine is probably the same all day but it usually bothers me less as the day goes on. It really bothers me to hear it when I wake up.

 

[all to gain]

.
What option could possibly be missing from the poll, other than "it's completely random"?

With tinnitus *everything* is largely/partly due to one's perception. But few on this site would suggest that it's all about perception (ie. that there isn't actually a troubling sound that varies in frequency). And so, sure, we could just throw our hands up in the air and say there's no point in trying to measure tinnitus volume because it's all subjective...but a) that's probably not true, and b) where would that get us?

Regarding the higher in morning/evening: Tinnitus is almost certainly not a homogenous disorder, and noise-induced versus drug-induced, versus stress-induced forms of tinnitus could very well take on different forms. One of the things I'm interested in doing is figuring out how to differentiate these subtypes of tinnitus, towards a more personalized medicine model. Not that this one poll is going to get us there, but it's a starting point, perhaps.

OK, got you.

Yeah, mine is pretty much completely random. I could have picked all the options, as sometimes I sleep with noise, and others I don't.

My tinnitus was, I feel, drug induced. Considering how many drugs are ototoxic in the wider sense, it seems like it will be hard to pinpoint the exact reason for the onset of tinnitus. Or maybe there are many reasons; it seems many chemicals are dangerous for the ear.

 

[MattS]

OK, got you.

Yeah, mine is pretty much completely random. I could have picked all the options, as sometimes I sleep with noise, and others I don't.

My tinnitus was, I feel, drug induced. Considering how many drugs are ototoxic in the wider sense, it seems like it will be hard to pinpoint the exact reason for the onset of tinnitus. Or maybe there are many reasons; it seems many chemicals are dangerous for the ear.

Yeah, it may be that subtyping based on cause will not be the most productive method.

But there are other possibilities: maybe those who have louder morning tinnitus differ in some important way from those who have quieter morning tinnitus. Maybe those helped by sound enrichment will show better results from something like Lenire than those who find it aggravates their tinnitus. Hard to know at this point because it's such early days...but there's a lot of potential in these directions.

 

[pinklights98]

Hey everyone,

Everyday, I wake up with a pretty bad tinnitus spike. I have several tones, but the tone that spikes is the most somatic one. This tone will spike after a shower (weirdly enough), or if I do anything where I move my neck or jaw or head.

It typically calms down about 30 minutes after I wake up and move my jaw around. For instance, if I eat something or relax or shift positions in my jaw it'll eventually calm down. What could be causing this? I don't grind my teeth, according to my roommates(my roommate is a very light sleeper and is familiar with teeth grinding). What could be causing this?

 

[Deniseh]

Most of the time mine's is better in the morning. When I wake up if I lie the right way then I can eliminate the sound totally, I've done this many times for hours lying in bed. It also fluctuates multiple times throughout the day with periods so low that everything masks it.

However my tinnitus tends to be a low hum, sometimes more like
a vibration than a noise, I only get the high pitched sound intermittently.

 

[Kriszti]

I chose the "no change" option earlier, but then my tinnitus changed. I gained a new, rhythmic sound which tends to be the worst upon awakening, but my older, ultra high frequency sound is much better in the morning, worst late in the afternoon and quietens down a bit during the night. Sounds still fluctuate a lot 6 months in.

 

[Tybs]

I chose the "no change" option earlier, but then my tinnitus changed. I gained a new, rhythmic sound which tends to be the worst upon awakening, but my older, ultra high frequency sound is much better in the morning, worst late in the afternoon and quietens down a bit during the night. Sounds still fluctuate a lot 6 months in.

My sounds finally stabilized after roughly nine months: meaning they still fluctuate, but always in the same predictable pattern. At this point, I hear them only in a (relatively) quiet room and when I go to bed or wake up. Knowing the horror it was on T onset, this doesn't bother me anymore. I don't use sound enrichment either, quit doing that a few months in.

Hopefully your sounds will settle down as well

 

[Gman45]

Mine seems better very first thing in the morning. The longer and deeper I sleep the better it is. It ramps back up to its typical volume pretty quickly though. Sleep, more than any supplement, seems to have the most positive effect on my tinnitus. The irony of course it that tinnitus likes to try and prevent me from good, long sleep.

I think either it's some sort of hormone difference first thing in the morning, or something I'm doing or eating each day that ramps it back up.

 

[Ryan Jones]

My tinnitus is definitely better in the morning. I currently sleep with white noise, but for a long time I didn't and it was still quieter in the am.