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Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

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Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#41

Post by bluescrn »

epolanski wrote: post #5

I've got tinnitus, 38 male. Got it randomly one day this summer. It's impossible to describe how depressing it is to hear a sound non stop in your ears, night and day, wherever I go or whatever I do, it just never stops. The brain started filtering it out a bit after months, but it's always there and you're often reminded of it when you're in a slightly more silent environment. There are days where it becomes especia…

Avoid complete silence (a bit of white noise or other background sound helps to mask it for some people), and try to avoid threads like this. Anything that makes me actively think about tinnitus is the absolute worst trigger, suddenly making it seem really loud after barely noticing it for weeks/months.

The brain definitely seems to get better at filtering it out over months/years though, at least until something makes you focus on it

Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#42

Post by nabbed »

In my 20s and 30s, I used to turn on the TV to cover up my tinnitus so I could fall asleep. The TV probably didn't help the quality of my sleep, so maybe that's why my tinnitus got progressively worse (especially in my right ear). Once I got a TV with a sleep timer, I would set it so the TV wouldn't be on all night.

My tinnitus is much worse now, but I don't have a TV in my room anymore, so I just play a podcast on my iPad. That tiny built-in speaker doesn't really cover up the tinnitus, but the voices lull me to sleep (which is probably what the TV was doing all along).

Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#43

Post by microtonal »

nozzlegear wrote: post #34
epolanski wrote: post #5

I've got tinnitus, 38 male. Got it randomly one day this summer. It's impossible to describe how depressing it is to hear a sound non stop in your ears, night and day, wherever I go or whatever I do, it just never stops. The brain started filtering it out a bit after months, but it's always there and you're often reminded of it when you're in a slightly more silent environment. There are days where it becomes especia…

I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember, so I've never had any negative feelings associated with it. As a kid I just thought it was natural that everyone's ears would ring all the time and would get louder when it was quiet. My ears are ringing right now as I write this. Then I developed pulsatile tinnitus in my early 30s, which means I can hear my heartbeat in my (right) ear at all hours of the day as well.…

I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember, so I've never had any negative feelings associated with it. As a kid I just thought it was natural that everyone's ears would ring all the time and would get louder when it was quiet. My ears are ringing right now as I write this.

I don't know if I have tinnitus. I had strong ringing in my ears every now and then as a kid. I once told a classmate about this, who said I should see a doctor, but I've had it as come up every now and then as long as I can remember.

I now have a continuous beep, but only really hear it when I intentionally tune into it. E.g. I can hear it now because I'm writing about it, but most of the day I simply don't hear it, because I don't tune in to it. Not sure if it was always there or just starting at some age. It is sometimes more present when I'm e.g. sick.

I have no idea if other people have this kind of permanent beep as well, because I never asked anyone.

(I just asked my wife and she doesn't have it.)

Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#44

Post by Agingcoder »

epolanski wrote: post #5

I've got tinnitus, 38 male. Got it randomly one day this summer. It's impossible to describe how depressing it is to hear a sound non stop in your ears, night and day, wherever I go or whatever I do, it just never stops. The brain started filtering it out a bit after months, but it's always there and you're often reminded of it when you're in a slightly more silent environment. There are days where it becomes especia…

Same thing here , but triggered by tiredness/stress. If I sleep a lot and well, then it somehow fades until I’m tired again.

I assume my brain is somehow able to filter it out, unless it’s too tired/busy.

Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#45

Post by magnetic »

wcoenen wrote: post #17
jmclnx wrote: post #2

I remember reading somewhere a Doctor found a way to 'cure' ringing in the ears temporarily for almost a year in some people by doing something with a tuning-fork. But after that article I heard nothing more. I just looked it up and seems it may not be a reliable method.

I can play a pure sine wave tone with a tone generator app, and dial the frequency up until it precisely matches my tinnitus. I originally did this just to determine that frequency. But I noticed a side-effect: if I then turn off the tone generator, my tinnitus would disappear! Unfortunately that effect only lasts for a minute or less, so it is not really practical to get relief this way.

That's called "residual inhibition".

Note that I would be careful about using pure tones for too long. Pure tones end up focusing the energy in your cochlea towards a small area of hair cells. Since these cells don't regenerate, it may be wise to avoid overstressing them.

Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#46

Post by tomwojcik »

nozzlegear wrote: post #34
epolanski wrote: post #5

I've got tinnitus, 38 male. Got it randomly one day this summer. It's impossible to describe how depressing it is to hear a sound non stop in your ears, night and day, wherever I go or whatever I do, it just never stops. The brain started filtering it out a bit after months, but it's always there and you're often reminded of it when you're in a slightly more silent environment. There are days where it becomes especia…

I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember, so I've never had any negative feelings associated with it. As a kid I just thought it was natural that everyone's ears would ring all the time and would get louder when it was quiet. My ears are ringing right now as I write this. Then I developed pulsatile tinnitus in my early 30s, which means I can hear my heartbeat in my (right) ear at all hours of the day as well.…

I always had problems with sinuses. I've had a few surgeries and while it's better, it's not good either. I literally had a drill up my nose, in my forehead. They still hurt and pop on their own, many times a day.

One day my kid brought a nasty flu from the kindergarten. My otolaryngologist recommended the strongest irrigation stream I can find to clean my sinuses.

Not only did it not help, but it also pushed some goo to the end of my sinuses, which resulted in pulsatile tinnitus.

After about 6 months my kid got sick again, so we all got sick, and I got rid of this tinnitus where I was hearing my heartbeat, by casually blowing my nose. The trick was having a stiff blockage, I guess, so the pressure builds up.

It sounds stupid and probably won't help you, but I wanted to share my story. I had no support from the people close to me and the heartbeat was driving me insane.

I'm sorry you have to go through this. Even though it's not a life-treating condition, it might be a life changing condition (QoL).

Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#47

Post by [deleted] »

epolanski wrote: post #5

I've got tinnitus, 38 male. Got it randomly one day this summer. It's impossible to describe how depressing it is to hear a sound non stop in your ears, night and day, wherever I go or whatever I do, it just never stops. The brain started filtering it out a bit after months, but it's always there and you're often reminded of it when you're in a slightly more silent environment. There are days where it becomes especia…

[deleted]

Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#49

Post by BOSIG »

epolanski wrote: post #5

I've got tinnitus, 38 male. Got it randomly one day this summer. It's impossible to describe how depressing it is to hear a sound non stop in your ears, night and day, wherever I go or whatever I do, it just never stops. The brain started filtering it out a bit after months, but it's always there and you're often reminded of it when you're in a slightly more silent environment. There are days where it becomes especia…

I got a high-pitch ringing tinnitus when I was about 18-20. I went from being a person that falls asleep in But no matter how cliché it sounds, it does get better with time. The brain does get better and better with filtering it. I also discovered that my tinnitus gets worse with caffeine, stress and lack of sleep. In periods when I live a overall "healthy" lifestyle in respect to sleep, stress, food, working out etc. I forget that I have tinnitus. When I sleep to little and/or when I'm stressed, it comes back full force. I have totally cut out caffeine, which also happened to help with my migraine.

Now ~15 years later I'm in my early thirties and I rarely think about it tbh. However, after a bad cold about 5 years ago I got a secondary tinnitus which is a low-frequency humming. This set me back and cased me some sleepless nights but I have adapted to this as well.

The thing I miss the most is the concept of "total silence". I do envy my fiancé sometimes if we're out in the woods or whatever and I know that she can just relax while "hearing nothing".

Let time do its work and experiment with your body/health to find what makes it lessen. Chances are that de-stressing, sleeping well and eating and working out does make it better.

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