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Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

sciencealert.com

81–90 of 262 posts

Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#81

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 do hear my heartbeat from my left ear. The ear doctor said that the ear can be sensitive to the blood flowing from nearby arteries, and that there's nothing to do. Stress affects the heartbeat volume. I just got used to it, but it can be annoying sometimes, especially when you're trying to enjoy the silence.

The doctor also told me that it's not an ear problem, but rather a brain problem. The brain is supposed to filter out this noise, in the same sense that it filters out the sounds from a (normal) digestion, our breathing, etc. I do have some (undiagnosed) hypersensitivity, so that sounds consistent to me.

nozzlegear: it gets better with time, the less you think about it. I know it's not a great consolation, but trust me, train yourself not to think about it, and it will go away for extended periods of time (and will come back from time to time)

Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#82
post #78

As somebody with tinnitus, forgive me, this seemed instinctively obvious. A very bad night of sleep raises the volume of the tinnitus substantially. Stress does the same.

So perhaps the connection is sleep -> stress -> tinnitus?

it's really hard to say though, because stress = poor sleep in my case, so there is a chicken-egg problem

Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#83

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 it late Feb 2020. Wasn't great to have that sound haunt me through the rest of the isolation.

Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#84

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 it about ten years ago and it drove me absolutely insane for a few months until I just accepted that I would have it. Then a weird thing happened: my brain stopped paying attention to it. Now I mostly only hear it when I think to myself, “do I still have tinnitus?” and try to listen for it. It’s still there, I just don’t care anymore. I had no idea that even what you hear can be such a subjective experience unt…

This is my experience. It normally doesn't bother me, and I didn't think about it until I read this article, so now it is driving me crazy. Please let's stop posting articles about Tinnitus unless the article describes a CURE. Thanks.

Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#85
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it feels like I got it from ANC. Might not "be a thing", just coincided with my ANC use. It is my data point.

Did it start around the covid/ WFH time? There are a few theories 1. Airpods or ANC 2. WFH ->. Less movement -> stiff muscles around neck and head -> head trasnfer frequencies changing 3. Covid vaccine

I know some people blame the covid vaccine. I had tinnitus before the vaccine and it got louder when I took the vaccine and then got quieter later. But it gets louder with other medications too. I suspect anything that causes inflammation can increase tinnitus symptoms, and the covid vaccine does temporarily increase inflammation. This could easily push someone who hasn’t noticed their developing tinnitus over the edge and suddenly they notice it and associate it with the vaccine. What they don’t know is that they might have noticed their tinnitus 2 months later if they hadn’t taken the vaccine. Statistically, I would expect there to be lots of people, like maybe as much as one or two percent of the population (which amounts to a few million people in the US) who might legitimately associate their tinnitus with the covid vaccine, even if the vaccine actually had nothing to do with it.

The same explanation goes for ANC - when you cut out all the noise, suddenly it’s way easier to notice the tinnitus you already had.

There might be something with the neck stiffness idea. I do get the feeling my tinnitus lessens when I’m using cervical traction and doing neck stretching regularly.

Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#87
post #10
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got it similarly. 7-8 years ago. Probably from ANC. It used to feel loud, now I have to remind myself to hear it. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

From ANC? Active Noise Cancelling? Doesn't seem to be a thing?

I developed tinnitus a year ago (I'm in my early 30s). I was living in an environment where it was noisy in the morning so I took to wearing sound cancelling headphones and earplugs to sleep.

A few weeks into it I noticed a persistent ringing and I thought it was some sort of electrical wine in an old house. A week later I realized it was permanent so I cut out my sound cancelling sleep routine, but the tinnitus has stayed.

Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#88
I got tinnitus from a failing Toshiba notebook hard drive. I can not sleep without masking noises. A real washing machine or dishwasher is S-tier, but more often than not the C-tier fallback has to be monotone Youtube autoplay lectures.

Re: Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep

#89

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 since I was maybe 5 years old, maybe from my frequent ear infections at the time? I remember discovering it during nap time and noting that silence had a high-pitched, discordant set of tones to it. But I thought it receded when normal sounds, like people talking, tv or music, or wind occurred. It was just the sound of silence.

I still have it, and now I know what it is. I think it’s worse now, but I can still unconsciously ignore it most of the time, although knowing what it is and that it’s aberrant and not something everyone hears has made it psychologically more irritating than when I was young.

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