Sometimes Earplugs Make My Tinnitus Worse — Other Times Not — Why?

[James Brown]

Brief story, for those who don't know me. I have had tinnitus for 22 years, first accompanied by just with a very light hyperacusis. I lead a regular life for 15 years listening to music and so on. In 2013 a balloon exploded next to my ear and my tinnitus increased a lot and I got hyperacusis at the same time.

From that moment onward I was unable to listen to music in a HI-FI stereo set. I just used earplugs in planes and trains, but only after 2016.

In 2018, near Christmas, I was was caught by a siren and I was taking antibiotics at the same time. My tinnitus became worse and I began to feel that certain sounds like water from a faucet, people speaking too close to me and others like paper were uncomfortable. To my bad luck I had a trip planned to Brazil and I was there for a month. After this my tinnitus + hyperacusis became really bad and I had to start using earplugs almost every time I left home, it's the one thing that I had avoided for almost 20 years.


So one thing that I've noticed and is confusing me is the fact that sometimes I use earplugs and the tinnitus doesn't change, it's more or less the same with or without earplugs, just with the difference when I wear earplugs the external sounds are lower so I hear my tinnitus a little louder.

However, sometimes I put earplugs and it's like all hell breaks loose, with the tinnitus noise going over the roof and hundreds of cicadas singing inside my head.

What I really want to know is if anyone of you have had the same experience?

One day you wear earplugs and the tinnitus stays more or less the same and other times it increases the perception of your tinnitus to levels out of this world.

 

[TheDanishGirl]

Ear plugs also spike my tinnitus a bit... Usually only a little and it will fade in a short while, when I have removed them.

I think it is a mix of anxiety and depriving the ear of natural sound enrichment that spikes mine. I hate the felling of having ear plugs in... With ear plugs in, I feel I come face to face with tinnitus, plus the tinnitus gets louder with ear plugs in, which raises my anxiety. Ear muffs with even higher noise reduction does not have this effect on me, which is odd.