Tinnitus Spike from Attending a Wedding?

[Simon Czt]

Hi, I'm Simon,

I have had tinnitus since 06/2018 due to an acoustic trauma. It gradually got worse due to earplug problems. The latest problem was in March 2019, my tinnitus had increased but I had gotten used to it.

Two weeks ago, I went to a wedding, although stressed, I still went there, and wore earplugs. I was very careful and I took off my earplugs only when I was outside in a quiet place. I had a few drinks and I know that alcohol exacerbates my tinnitus.

I woke up the next day, my tinnitus had increased quite dramatically. Not really understanding why, knowing that I protected myself most of the wedding, I still took cortisone for 2/3 days to see if the spike could go down. It didn't go down. So I went to see my ENT the next day to see if there was an acoustic trauma, but the results showed that I had not lost any hearing, and that my hearing was normal.

I am still looking for the cause of this tinnitus increase, but I don't understand, I was well protected during the whole wedding.

Do you think it's a spike? Or that it may be due to my pre-wedding stress?

Thank you for your answers

(Sorry for my English which can be approximate, I am French )

 

[Digital Doc]

Sounds like a T spike. The earplugs may not have been fully effective, as there are lots of variables such as the type of earplug, the depth of insertion, and how loud and for how long the noise exposure was. Protect from further damage, and give this some time. Stress can certainly aggravate the situation.

 

[Bill Bauer]

I woke up the next day, my tinnitus had increased quite dramatically. Not really understanding why

Earplugs often provide a false sense of security.

I also got told no ear plugs during normal day sounds by my ENT. He said walking next to traffic and in trains is fine. So I followed his advice. My tinnitues spiked majorly and still hasnt gone down four months later. They then realised my ears were more sensitive then they realized and decided on a process to gradually ween me off them. They screwed big time and soon realized the damage they had done because i became more panicked, more anxious, protecting more and now its a harder time to ween me off them.

My T faded a lot suddenly almost 3 years ago. I had total remission of some trebly sounds in my head. It became only audible in quiet rooms.

Now its back in full force cause Im stupid. Some ENT told me ear plugs are safe. Wrong! T is with me again.

I was told not to wear hearing protection for normal everyday situations but look where it's got me. I had my plugs in my pocket too. Getting on with a normal life hasn't helped for me.

Yes, you are correct. Not only that, but I have experienced firsthand already how avoidance is so much more helpful. Yes, even using earplugs and earmuffs is not a suitable replacement for avoidance.

In the third or fourth week of November I bought earmuffs and started wearing them on the bus, which I would take daily for work. At some point earlier on in this month (December) there was a new bus driver who not only had the bus intercom system turned on, but had the volume incredibly loud. I wore my ear protection and kept shuffling seats in an attempt to not be near one of the speakers. I suppose I must have not seen one of the speakers and ended up getting blasted. Even with ear protection on, it made my tinnitus arguably at its worse and gave me a new tone. Ever since then, I have opted for ridesharing services despite how expensive they are. I have sworn off using the bus.

Now, to my amazement, and in less than a month, not only has my new tone vanished, but my tinnitus has gone from moderate to mild. It is amazing to think that just cutting out a 15 minute bus drive with ear protection could have such benefits.

While I agree some people here go overboard with hearing protection, this increase in noise sensitivity after wearing hearing protection is only a temporary one. It is not the same thing as the brain turning up the auditory gain when there is a permanent loss in hearing.

With regards to noise exposure that isn't dangerous to most people, I developed a new tone in my right ear after a noise exposure at work back in October. I spent about half an hour in an area that I would estimate was at most 90db, but it was probably less than that. I had deeply inserted large foam earplugs at the time, but apparently that was not enough protection. That tone has not gone away, and it's not some psychosomatic spike. Spikes in volume are somewhat relative in my opinion, they can be attributed to stress, lack of sleep, noise exposure, diet, etc., but completely new tones that do not go away are something different.

What is safe for you may not be safe for me. And the fact is there has been no good study done assessing the vulnerability of already damaged auditory systems. The gold standard for dangerous noise levels is based on old data from OSHA where they looked for permanent threshold shifts of 10db or more at 2000, 3000, or 4000 Hz. As we know now, you can have fairly significant auditory damage without having a permanent threshold shift in those three ranges. There is also a lot of industry push-back when OSHA tries to make safety guidelines more strict (I haven't seen this with noise levels, but I have seen it with chemical safety guidelines). Moreover, it's very likely that some people are more genetically predisposed to hearing damage than others.

What I'm getting at here is I agree with you that some people really do go overboard with hearing protection, and obsessing about noise is not healthy, but it irritates me when people adopt this attitude of "well it works for me therefore it must work for you" or "it's safe for me therefore it's safe for you". No one can say that.

Yeah. I am going through the same thing. Got my T to improve and go back to mild and went to a restaurant I have eaten safely at twice post T and have had the loudest spike that has, after a week, not improved at all. And my H got worse too.

Oh go you'll be fine they said. Wear earplugs they said.

So I went to the event with ear plugs. Was there for only a few minutes. Big mistake. Gave me low drone/hum that's worst than the high pitch hiss/eeeee, tea kettle sounds. Never went away. sigh
3 1/2 years ago.

Everyone is different. Every situation is different.
You have to make a decision and live with it.

I can't take it anymore. I don't want to die but at this stage the urge to stop suffering is stronger. Ps. To all members in this forum advising against so called "overprotection". I never exposed myself to sounds even remotely considered as being potentially harmful to healthy people but because of your advice I was exposed to sounds uncomfortable for me which eventually proved to be damaging.

At initial stages i was very weary about sound levels around me and used protection everytime I felt uncomfortable.

Only by reading TRT literature or some posts here I started to expose my self to sounds loud but never louder than 75-80 dB.

Whenever I was feeling like something is not right I was stupid enough to believe you these changes were part of "the natural process of healing".

Is this your healing? Every time you feel like giving this sort of advice have my case in mind.

Also, check out the advice in

I didn't read all the above comments, but did peruse a fair amount of it, and ran across many good points on both sides of the argument. What strikes me is there seems to be an underlying assumption (of course I may be wrong on this) that all brains and neurological systems are created equal. The way I see it, that's simply not the case, so everybody's way of dealing with tinnitus and/or hyperacusis is going to have to be highly individualized.

I read a book many years ago called "Adrenal Syndrome". A lot of the book touched on the residual resiliency of people's adrenal glands as they respond to life's stresses. Very low resiliency often resulted in months/years of chronic debilitating exhaustion following a stressful event(s) in their lives. Very high resiliency indicated essentially the opposite. The author broke this down into some rough numbers:

25% of people have low resiliency, meaning normal life stressors will often send them into some degree of a tailspin.
25% of people have high resiliency, meaning that no matter how severe a stressor comes into their lives, they will be able to cope without becoming debilitated to any degree.
50% of people fall somewhere inbetween.

I believe there are some kind of corresponding numbers for a person's brain and neurological resiliency as well, which can greatly affect the ability to cope with tinnitus. (I believe adrenal resiliency also plays a major role in our ability to cope). -- Based on these assumptions, it's pretty easy for me to conclude that what may be overprotection for one person will be underprotection for another, and vice versa.

I think the main point to understand for someone new to tinnitus is that their path forward is going to be a lot of "testing the waters". Generally, IMHO, it's going to take a few weeks or months to get important insights that will help us achieve a healthy balance. In all likelihood, most people are going to learn from experience when their over-protecting or under-protecting.

I've come to believe however, that in those early months, if one is going to err in either direction, it should be toward overprotection. It just seems to me the consequences of underprotection (which could result in permanent injury) in those early times are much more dire than the consequences of overprotection--which as I understand, generally results in temporary setbacks.

Doing a number of things to better support the brain and neurological system and the body's stress response (adrenal glands) is quite high on my list of recommendations I would make to anybody with tinnitus. Doing so might even prevent phonophobia or OCD, etc., as we go through our learning curves -- Just my 2 cents worth.

Relative newbies to tinnitus are likely to find all the information/opinions above quite confusing. So here are a few common-sense rules to follow:

1. The best protection of all is avoidance. Even the best earplugs can't guarantee complete hearing protection so those relatively new to tinnitus are best advised to avoid prolonged loud noise exposure - especially amplified sound at for example live concerts and sports events. This may involve lifestyle changes.

2. When in doubt, use hearing protection. In the many tasks we all do through the week, some will inevitably involve exposure to noise - which may be at higher levels than we at first realise - so using hearing protection for many of these is only sensible.

3. Build quiet into your day. It's not a good idea to be wearing hearing protection all the time - so you need to give your ears a break by ensuring that there will be quieter times during your day when hearing protection isn't necessary.This may involve changing your routine. Use soft masking noise and light music (not using headphones) to avoid "silence" where tinnitus is most noticeable.

4. Don't stress about stress. Tinnitus newbies are forever being told that the thing which makes tinnitus worse is stress. But while it's true that how you are feeling at a particular moment can make tinnitus temporarily louder, it won't have a lasting effect. But prolonged loud noise exposure can make tinnitus permanently louder. So don't stress about stress - but do be concerned about noise.

The idea is to wear earplugs when you can't avoid being around noise. If you can, staying away from the noise is the safest choice.

There is still a good chance that this is a temporary spike (they can last over three months, but should begin fading after about a month).

 

[Simon Czt]

Sounds like a T spike. The earplugs may not have been fully effective, as there are lots of variables such as the type of earplug, the depth of insertion, and how loud and for how long the noise exposure was. Protect from further damage, and give this some time. Stress can certainly aggravate the situation.

Thank you for your answer!
I had several pairs of earplugs that I changed according to the sound level!

I have another question, when our tinnitus spikes, we have to act as if it was an acoustic trauma, and wear earplugs even on the street, or we have to keep not wearing them, just in loud places ?

 

[Bill Bauer]

I have another question, when our tinnitus spikes, we have to act as if it was an acoustic trauma, and wear earplugs even on the street, or we have to keep not wearing them, just in loud places ?

You will want to protect your ears from all of the noises that feel too loud or that give you ear fullness or louder T.

 

[Striveon]

Did your spike subside?