Tinnitus from Using Headphones at the Gym: What Can I Do for Some Relief?

Hello,

I've had tinnitus in my left ear for almost 6 days triggered by using headphones at a loud volume at the gym (the tinnitus started immediately.)

I started on 90 mg of Deflazacort 3.5 days after the onset of symptoms. I also supplement with:

• Magnesium 400 mg,
• Dry extract of Ginkgo Biloba 24% ginkgoflavones <5 ppm gingkolic acid 90 mg,
• Ubiquinone coenzyme Q10 50 mg,
• Melatonin 1 mg,
• Dry extract of Zinciber officinalis (5% essential ac.) rhizome 30 mg.

My audiogram showed slight/moderate hearing impairment (-40-50 dB) at 8 kHz. Other frequencies were fine.

I tried to get Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy but my GP says I don't qualify. I've had trouble finding a private place to do this in my county, but there seems to be some available in a neighbouring country a few hours away by car.

Is there anything else I can do? I am decently comfortable during the day but at night it is still very hard to deal with.

How much external sound should I avoid? I've been using earplugs for any sound that I deem loud.

 

Best advice I can give is to stop wasting money on those supplements and get your hearing adjusted with a hearing aid. Ditch the idea of hyperbaric oxygen therapy as I have not seen a single study showing its effectiveness. I have seen lots of advertisements and columns written about it, often by people paid to market it. Save your money for a hearing aid and CBT. That's about it.

 

I recommend sound enrichment during the night. Use a fan or sound machine; these will distract your brain from focusing on the tinnitus.

You can't avoid external sound altogether, especially when it is unexpected. But do take precautions while out and about by using either earplugs or good quality earmuffs.

 

Is there any hope of recovery 6 days in?

 

We've all been there.

There's always hope! In terms of the tinnitus going away, it gets less and less likely over time. Once you're 2 years in or so (up for debate on the "cutoff"), the odds get slimmer and slimmer but it can happen even then!

My best advice is to not put a timeline on anything, quit wearing headphones, wear reasonable hearing protection only when needed, enrich your sound environment, and get on with life as best you can. As you habituate, great! If it goes away, great!

Oh, and don't forget to support the tinnitus community!

 

Agree with everything Watasha said. Solid advice.

 

Thank you everyone for your help. It is the hardest thing I've ever dealt with so far.

I'll report back if I have any significant updates.

I took a benzodiazepine last night and it really helped with sleep. Is it okay to do this?

 

Only take benzos if/when absolutely necessary as a triage of sorts (for some people it is sometimes). There is the thought that benzos can delay/inhibit habituation. They also are very habit forming, so it's not something you want to get in the habit of taking regularly anyways. They're good to know you have if you need them but I would stay away unless you're having the absolute meltdown of meltdowns or cannot sleep.

 

24 days update:

Things have gotten a bit better.

I had great improvement 7 days ago but in the last 2 days things have gotten worse again.

Maybe due to a 4 hour car drive even though I wore earmuffs and took about 3 breaks.

Could also be lack of sleep as I slept very poorly in the days before the spike, for unrelated reasons.

Could also be because I just finished my Deflazacort cycle.

I've been staying away from loud noises but have been going to restaurants with friends and family as I am on vacation. Never to what I perceive as loud places but there's always some noise, and if there is, I usually use earplugs. Unsure about if I should do this even though it doesn't seem to spike my tinnitus, immediately after at least.

Also, I visited an ENT. My hearing is now within normal ranges (until 8 kHz). Just some small hearing loss on 2 kHz (-10 dB), and 4 kHz (-5 dB), but the doctor assured me this is considered normal. He was also more positive the previously but I visited during the "good" days I had last week. He also told me to get back to life as normal, only avoiding loud music and very loud places. He didn't like me wearing earplugs.

This week I'll probably return to the gym.

I've been struggling with appetite due to stress and lost a lot of weight, which is not good as I am not overweight.

Any advice is appreciated.

 

BS. You can wear hearing protection wherever you feel things are (or about to be) loud. With time and caution, you will learn by yourself, if or how external sounds affect your tinnitus. There are people around here who listened to that advice and got screwed up.

Until you find out and you're confident about your limits (if any, it's also quite possible you don't worsen with external sounds), you need to have earplugs with you. You can get musician's earplugs that reduce all frequencies (almost) equally, and not lose much of the clarity.

 

Your tinnitus might get permanently worse if you are accidentally exposed to police sirens, fire alarms, car alarms, popping balloons, kids playing with fireworks et cetera.

Using earplugs too much is not where the danger lies.

 

Thank you! I'll definitely keep using them!

For social occasions, is it better to invest in custom earplugs from an audiologist or a pair of musician earplugs?

 

Get custom ones. They fit better and are easy to put in and take out. Musician earplugs that stick out from your ear I think are unsafe in car. A side airbag could push them in and maybe rupture the eardrum. Aside from the fact that they may not provide enough protection from the bang of airbag. Driving is for sure a much riskier activity for us for that reason.

 

Both can do I guess. I personally used musician's earplugs for ages (even before tinnitus) at playing concerts, bars, clubs etc, and they were just fine - no damage whatsoever. When I first got tinnitus, I went and built custom earplugs, they didn't quite fit when they delivered them to me, and caused me pain (and wasted 200 euros lol). It is quite a scary procedure to get custom ones built for you, so I didn't want to go though it again...

However, I nowadays believe my tinnitus is 100% idiopathic/neurological, because it isn't affected by noise at all, so maybe even if I didn't ever use earplugs, it wouldn't make a difference.

So, everyone is different and it has a lot to do with your ears' natural resilience. If yours was from noise, then you must be extra careful.

 

What do you mean by scary? Is it noisy to do?

 

Here's how they do it:

How Custom Earplugs Are Made | Beauty Insider

They push stuff inside the ear canal, and if you have sensitive ears, you can get a lot of pain and irritation. Also, the feeling that something might get stuck there and cause even more damage. Maybe it was just me or the guy who did them for me sucked, but the whole experience sucked lol.

 

Don't fear, live life to the best of your ability for now, and only use hearing protection where noises are dangerous, otherwise you may (I say may because there is a good chance) make everything worse. See what works and what doesn't for you while being careful with your hearing. I have been there and made everything worse by silence therapy but there are other people who made everything f* worse by noise exposure so unfortunately you have to find out your own road.

 

I had it done and was apprehensive about it and asked the audiologist to be careful. It went without a hitch, although I think by her being extra careful I ended up with earplugs that are shorter than they could have been, so the occlusion effect is a bit more than I'd like and they do not seal perfectly.

There is a place near me that uses a 3D scanner in the ear canal so it is I supposed "touchless". I don't know if this is common, perhaps not given they claim they invented the device. Actually I've been thinking about getting another pair done using this method.

 

At least your custom earplugs fit right? For some reason, my guy told me to bite my hand while he was doing it. I haven't seen that in any of the custom earplugs videos. I think that was the reason that the model sucked and I can't put them without pain (so I don't use them at all). I should have returned them and get my money back.

That 3D thing sounds way less "invasive" at least. Maybe it's just me that has very sensitive ear canals. I'm also hurt and get irritated a lot when I go for ear wax removal with a curette, so yeah.

But anyway, I nowadays believe that you don't get a much stronger protection with custom earplugs than with musicians'. If things are really loud and you get spikes from noise, then you need to get out of there because no earplug can help you lol.

 

29 days update:

Tinnitus itself has gone down to the volume it was before the 2-day spike which is good I think. Have not yet mustered up the courage to return to the gym though.


Just got prescribed Gabapentin 300 mg x 2 per day and Clonazepam 0.5 mg before sleep by another ENT.

Questions:
- I don't want to use the Clonazepam everyday like prescribed as I am scared of addiction to benzos. What do you think?
- Should I try Gabapentin in this stage of tinnitus onset?

 

Day 30 update:

I had a talk with another ENT doctor. Got prescribed Mexazolam and Flunarizine.

I’ll probably give Flunarizine a try.

I had a busy day today, had lunch with friends and a visit to the mall. My tinnitus is very bad as a consequence. This is so depressing.

 

Day 32 update:

I actually woke up with very low tinnitus yesterday after going to bed with higher than usual tinnitus as I mentioned in the Day 30 update.

Yesterday I also went to a house party. The music was outside at the garden so I stayed alone inside where the noise was never above 65 dB, LA_eq was around 61-62 dB according to the NIOSH app on iPhone. I also wore 3M 1100 earplugs the whole time. Overall I was there 4.5 hours.

This morning I had a crazy spike. Guess I should have stayed home...

 

Being outside at this volume with the earplugs shouldn't have caused any damage, so the spike should go down.

 

Day 60 update:

I was going to wait for the full 2 months, but I was having a bit of a rough day so I decided to do this update now.

My tinnitus is still there and it is still annoying, but I feel like I've improved a bit further. And it is still much better than at the onset.

I decided against taking Gabapentin or Flunarizine. Couldn't find evidence that it would help healing, so I want to hold off on medication that just works on tinnitus perception. Also, I went to another ENT (must have gone to like 6 or 7 in total...) trying to get an audiogram for the higher frequencies (above 8 kHz) and she recommended against the drugs.

She also recommended against the audiogram as it would have made no difference in the treatment as she said that the limit for hearing loss recovery is 1 month. I would be interested to hear if people here agree.

My sleep is better. I started playing noise during all night, and have had no problem falling asleep, I just wake up a lot more than I used to before the tinnitus. Not sure if this is due to anxiety or the tinnitus itself. Weirdly enough there's been quite a few times where I wake up without tinnitus (or it being very low at least). This happens mostly during nightly wake ups, but has happened in the morning a couple times as well. Other times I wake up and it is screaming, so it is really hard to say if I'm actually improving.

I've also got back to exercising and it has been great. I use earplugs at the gym, just to be extra careful. It is usually around 65 dB with music, so nothing too major, but sometimes people drop heavy plates on the floor, so I rather use the earplugs for now. When I leave, I feel much more relaxed so my tinnitus feels lower. I was really worried because in the beginning exercise would increase my tinnitus, thankfully no longer.

What has been really annoying is that my tinnitus oscillates with movement. So, sometimes, in each step I take, I get a 20% spike that immediately subsides to baseline. Chewing and turning my head also does the same. I guess it is the somatic component.

Work has also been better, I've been able to focus better lately, most of the days at least. I live near a busy street, so If I open my window and focus on work I am sometimes able to forget about it. Other times I still hear this pulsating whooshing sound, I guess a bit like pulsatile tinnitus.

Still having a hard time with watching movies, reading or napping during the day, but that is also a bit better.

The oscillations make it hard to put the tinnitus into a number, but If I had to do it I would say I am oscillating between a 1 and a 4; it usually increases during the day.

Apologies for making this too long, I would just prefer to keep it detailed in case it helps anyone going through the same. Again, any feedback is greatly appreciated.

 

Try to move your legs in the same pattern while sitting. Is the oscillation still there? If not, it could be caused by the sound of steps transmitted through your bones. Same with chewing.

 

When walking, it's hard to say. It usually happens when I'm in the street, not so much at home; I can't pinpoint why. Maybe more masking outside makes me notice only these temporary spikes. When chewing, it's definitely somatic as I can just clench my jaw and get an instant increase.

 

3 months update:

My tinnitus has overall lowered a bit. I rarely get the static sound I used to get in the end of the afternoon that was the most annoying.

My sleep is getting better. But weirdly, despite the other improvements, I no longer have days where I wake up nearly without tinnitus. Still, it is low. Also, I have been able to nap lately, which is nice.

I'm no longer using earplugs at the gym. Unless they have the music louder then usual (65-70 dB).

I'm still getting those "spikes" when walking but less so I'd say.

I decided against HBOT. It seemed late and risks outweighed benefits.

I will probably skip LLLT, would love opinions about it though.

I've been to a couple loud events (not too much) and business travels (no plane yet) and my tinnitus was worse when I went to sleep. I woke up just fine though.

Feels like my only option is to give it time and keep trying to stay off loud places. Again, any feedback is greatly appreciated.

 

You have the right approach @Michael_ which is to give it time. You are still in the very early stages of noise-induced tinnitus, one of the worst things that you can do is to start any invasive tinnitus treatment because you risk making your symptoms worse. I don't recommend HBOT or wearing of ear sound generators. Your tinnitus and hyperacusis will fluctuate but this is normal. Use low-level sound enrichment, particularly at night, by placing a sound machine by your bedside. Set the volume just below your tinnitus.

Go to my started threads and read my posts: New to Tinnitus, What to Do?, Tinnitus, A Personal View, Hyperacusis, As I See It. I advise you not to listen to audio through any type of headphones, even at low volume.

All the best,
Michael

 

4 months update:

I'm maybe another 5% better. Progress has definitely slowed down albeit it is still there I think.

I've had 3-4 days this month with very little tinnitus. When I had the flu, it was almost gone (no idea why).

At the moment I'm able to work in a 33 dB (NIOSH app) room with the windows closed without much disturbance. Although I often choose to keep some kind of low ambient music.

I'm sleeping well, especially with nature sounds.

The somatic component is a lot less noticeable most of the time. Clinching my jaw used to give me a much higher spike.

I've been losing hope of remission despite improvements.

Let's see what happens... I might finally pop some of the Gabapentin I was prescribed If I get too down on myself.

Let me know what you think.

 

I understand how you feel @Michael_ but you need to relax and not expect too much of yourself, as you risk making the habituation process more difficult. Although each person is different, recovering from a noise trauma can take 12 to 18 months, sometimes longer, which means you're still in the early stages.

You are doing the right thing using sound enrichment at night. However, I think it would be best to stop using the NIOSH app or any kind of sound level meter, as this often makes a person focus more on the tinnitus which you don't want to do. During the day, play low-level music in the background, or use a sound machine. Try to take up a new interest or hobby anything to take your focus away from the tinnitus.

Print my threads: Tinnitus and the Negative Mindset, Acquiring a Positive Mindset. Refer to them often as this will help to reinforce positive thinking.

All the best,
Michael