What Caused Your Tinnitus? Mine Began After Waking Up from a Nightmare

In my case, it started on 29 August this year, I was playing a retro game (Star Wars X-wing alliance) the evening before, I never use headphones for gaming and I was just playing it on a 2.1 speaker system and it wasn't loud at all. In fact, since I got a problem in my left ear I was avoiding loud sounds ever since, that was 2 years ago (it makes a hushing sound at a specific loud frequencies but it's not tinnitus, ENT told me to avoid loud sounds ever since).

On 29 August at around 6 AM I woke up from a very intense nightmare about brother dying, this is WHEN my unilateral tinnitus (right ear) first started; I was aware of the tinnitus condition before I got it myself because my brother had it as well since last year so. I guess I am one of the very few who knew of that condition before getting it. So I quickly rushed to the ENT and he cleaned the wax buildup but the tinnitus remained.

My story is very strange, could the nightmare really have been the main trigger, or the Star Wars game's laser sounds; could it be because I was overprotective for my left ear before? The hell I know In fact my tinnitus spikes all day every time I get a nightmare.

ps. Oh btw, I get vertigo every time I stand up quickly, all ENTs whom I visited didn't give this symptom much importance and since they found only a very very mild hearing loss in right ear, none prescribed a MRI or scan :-/

 

I am so sorry you are going through this :/ Perhaps a medication you are taking? For now take very good care of your ears, exercise, distract your mind, don't use headphones, I hope you feel better I know it's hard, but it's important to remain distracted.

 

Headphone use is one of the most common causes of tinnitus and exposure to other types of loud noise/sounds. If you are still experiencing vertigo, I advise you to get a full medical check up as you may have another problem within your auditory system or your blood pressure may need to be checked. I advise you to never use headphones again even at low volume.

All the best.
Michael

PS: Your tinnitus is probably spiking due to "sound" If you are using headphones this is the likely cause or being exposed to loud audio through speakers. Although the sound may not seem high it is probably irritating your auditory system. If this is the case then you probably have hyperacusis and this needs to be treated. Click on the link below and read my post: Hyperacusis, As I see it.

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/hyperacusis-as-i-see-it.19174/

 

I don't use headphones.

I only used it rarely for some phone calls.

But whenever you talk to doctor about something you read on the internet, they tell you "Google is not a doctor" , that all what they just say.

You surely realize that some doctors think as Gods of themselves, and they think themselves they're smarter than the researchers in the studies we read (and whom apparently they never read).


I told all ENTs that my tinnitus sounds reactive, and none even mentioned hyperacusis to me, hell none even tried to check whether it's subjective or objective, no stethoscope at all, it is as if they didn't studied about tinnitus in their medical school.

 

June 2015, a normal fleeting tinnitus that usually lasts a few seconds that never went away before going to sleep.

 

What did you do this evening or the day before? You went to a party or something?

 

that so called very very mild hearing loss is enough to generate tinnitus.

 

Doesn’t matter much IMO bc the point of his story is that this began DIRECTLY after a terrible nightmare. I can relate as my T spiked to Pulsatile T after an intense nightmare. As we all know anxiety can trigger T but for it to be permanent bc of that? ?

 

Yes, a day before I wasn't having any T..... it started Directly after the nightmare exactly.

 

hearing loss + poorly understood neurological gateway mechanisms = tinnitus

 

November 2009, Alice in Chains, The Opera House, Toronto.

Forgot my earplugs but back then I had just started to think about hearing protection at concerts. I knew it would be loud, which is why it was on my mind to have them.

I was standing too near the speaker stacks, I should have left but it was my first time seeing them. I had horrid after-concert hearing with all the whoosing, no doubt it was 125dB+

Anyway, about four days later once all the post-concert hearing effects subsided, there was this tiny little very high pitched (14kHz) whine in my left ear.

FF to today and I'm aware it wasn't just that one show, it was years of attending concerts and listening to music too loudly through headphones throughout the 80s with my WalkMan and 90s with my DiscMan as well as several Formula One races in the early 00s when it was still very loud (V8s). But that was the final straw and that's what started what would never go away.

It is still louder in the left than in the right and it's mainly around 12~12.5kHz now. I use custom fitted earplugs for all concerts with -25 filters. I have -15s for something a bit more classical / jazz type stuff and for IMAX screenings but use the -25s for concerts and use silicone SPeedo swimmer's plugs for F1 races where fidelity isn't important.

I'll do my best to ensure it doesn't get worse but it helps understand that it's largely, with the exception of a gun going off by your ear or something traumatic like that, cumulative.

I have a hearing test from 2005 that shows no hearing loss up to 8kHz. Now I have a -10dB right around 6kHz in the left ear where the tinnitus is the worst and it goes back up so 4kHz and 8kHz are fine. Low all good. I use the SPL meter on my phone to ensure when I'm watchign a movie at home or listening to tunes that I"m not going above 85dB. Very occasionally I'll crank it up a little but that is still not going to average higher than 95 and we're talking like maybe one or two songs a couple times a year.

I still hope for a cure within my lifetime, would love to cue up a song that's quiet like Peter Gabriel's Mercy St and not have the first thing I hear as the song begins be WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

 

I don’t really follow

 

I am living proof of this.

 

Most who get it in one ear will have it migrate to the other in time. Mine started in the left and migrated to the right

 

No man, I guess just excessive ear phone use on full volume.

 

Says who? Lol. Never heard such a thing no offense.

 

The dentist examined my brother today who had tinnitus for one year (but he got so used to it and careless abt it, he still goes to cinemas); and he finally discovered this “you have bruxism” he said; my bro was feeling also pain in his jaws since a couple of weeks ago; he may have developed TMJ.


He examined my teeth and saw no clear signs of bruxism but he suspects it is at early stage since i have a wrongly aligned bite; bruxism signs don’t appear unless after years of years clenching, I told him of the tinnitus and nightmare and said bruxism happens most violatently during intense dreams - he will make a sleep guard for each of us.

 

Take time to read most of the threads on this forum, you will see a correlation with newcomers who had it in 1 ear and then had it migrate to the other after a few weeks/months. It is common though not guaranteed.

 

It’s bloody annoying being louder in 1 ear, mines louder in my right ear tonight makes you feel lop sided, better off being the same in both kind of wierd one spikes for a few days for no apparent reason.. mind you man flu at mo might be why

 

@coffee_girl was the hug for man flu or tinnitus worse in one ear? I get no sympathy for man flu here lol

 

man flu made me smile =]

 

For the record, I am another case of waking up with tinnitus right after a nightmare while my acoustic trauma happened days before. The acoustic trauma was absolutely terrible. The nightmare was like the drop that filled the glass. It is as if the brain was keeping the damage after the acoustic trauma in control, but after the nightmare it was too much and the tinnitus escaped the control and surfaced. Before the nightmare, before falling asleep I had great anxiety.

So i find my story somewhat similar.

Stress increases the tinnitus during daytime, why wouldn't it do the same thing during a nightmare? The stress felt because of the "action" of the nightmare triggers the same reactions as if the person was really involved in that action, as if the nightmare was reality. You can perspire and your heart beat rate can increase a lot during the nightmare because stress is stress (triggers the same reactions) regardless of the cause of the stress (a real problem in real life or a problem that the person only believes that he has during a nightmare. We do not know during a nightmare that the problem and the situation is not real, we experience it and go through it just as if it were real.

A nightmare is equivalent to a big stress during the day, or maybe bigger.
Before my tinnitus onset the worst situation I faced were in my sleep, no stress in my life compared with the stress I had during nightmares, but unfortunately, because of the tinnitus, my whole real life turned into a nightmare.

 

So you're saying your T increased after a nightmare and has never gone back down? When was this nightmare? This all seems like more evidence that anxiety/stress can absolutely trigger the brain to go haywire and make a persons T worse.

 

I have never experienced any acoustic trauma though.

 

Mine also began while waking up from a nightmare, but I have other possible factors that caused tinnitus.

 

My tinnitus started after a horrible nightmare about possession.
There was no exposure to loud noises or trauma beforehand that I know of. Now I have had a cold that has turned into a sinus infection and it sounds like the low hum of a distant car every once in awhile and then stops. ItsI actually more annoying than the ringing.

 

Heavy slap to left ear in November 2016. I now have full brain tinnitus and mild hypercausis.I hate it so much.

 

I got mine for exposing to too much music. I swear to God (just a way of saying) if I survive this I will love my ears forever and take care of them.

I am exhausted.