r/TinnitusTalk

Just struggling between ENT and Neuro for my IIH. I had a lumbar puncture last week with opening pressure 17, and struggling with low pressure headache after two days by that time my Pulsatile tinnitus was not there. For few days it is like I have either one of them pulsatile tinnitus or low pressure headache. Currently taking 750 mg acetazolamide. For my pulsatile tinnitus neuro says check with ENT and ENT says check with neuro. Does anyone have pulsatile tinnitus even after remission?

(I’m sorry for my bad english)

So I’m 19 and i’ve never gone to a concert or something but i always listen to music with my airpods 2 to 3 hours a day everyday. Last Friday i got a tinnitus in my right ear and it never has stopped (we’re Tuesday night) and i cannot sleep. I never had a situation like this. Since yesterday a new tinnitus comes in my left ear but not chronically like the rights one. Do you know someone who had tinnitus for life after this situation ? Does it disappear ?

I don’t hear it when i’m out and when people talk to me but when i’m in the silence i hear it loud and i cannot sleep with songs (i heard that that helps the brain to focus on something else)

i’m scared i cannot continue my life like this please help me… I’ll never put a earphone in my ear for the rest of my life i promise, just keep away from me the idea that i should keep living with that handicap.

i just want someone to told me that all will be fine , i’m kinda anxious and im scared that my anxiety pushes my tinnitus worst

I have unilateral low frequency tinnitus in just my right ear since approximately 2020. It’s 130HZ hyper-reactive with residual inhibition. Right ear feels plugged and full and never pops.

I journaled every day for nearly five years with no ability to affect it in anyway. On a 0 to 5 scale, it was between 3, 4, and 5 almost 24 / 7 and never completely quiet. I went to half a dozen ear nose and throat doctors, I had three MRIs, and an MRA, and even saw awesome audiologists.

Once, I noticed it was quiet in a hotel after on a road trip driving and eating almost nothing for three days, but I didn’t know why.

Then I realized that after swimming, I would get about a half an hour of quiet about a half an hour later.

Then I learned about diaphragmatic breathing and relaxing the sympathetic nervous system into a parasympathetic state.

Right now I can get between silent, or zero, and a one, meaning almost inaudible, for much of the day, with the following regimen: (it often, comes back a little bit in the evening and especially at night, especially if I have stressful dreams, and then I repeat)

-wake up immediately do deep, slow, relaxed diaphragmatic breathing
-swim at least 30 minutes with the last 10 minutes being very extremely relaxed and slow breaststroke with rhythmic relaxed, breathing, as slow, and as relaxed as I could possibly swim
-intermittent fast until the evening, having only water or herbal tea
-drive with the windows in my car open at least slightly
-don’t allow any stressful thoughts and do diaphragmatic breathing immediately after stressful thoughts - relax mind, body, and soul
-repeat diaphragmatic breathing three more sessions throughout the day and evening
-gently massage the muscles of the jaw where I might be clenching, and keep the neck, muscles loose and relaxed
-eat a diet that is extremely clean and healthy, meaning like baked salmon and spinach, or grilled chicken and broccoli. No sugar. No alcohol. No gluten. No processed foods. No artificial anything. Minimal non-glutenous carbs like a small amount of rice or potato.(If I eat out one time, Asian food or whatever, or had one drink of alcohol in my tinnitus would spike.)
-activate parasympathetic nervous system/splash cold water on face/sing to relax
-avoid listening to electronic devices as much as possible
-reduce or better yet eliminate caffeine
-good posture / sitting upright, makes the difference between breathing shallow and deep chest and belly breathing

Sometimes my ear even pops now where as it never did before. My underlying condition is still there, I’ve just alleviated the symptom.

I hope this helps somebody else out there. If you try this, be strict about it for a few weeks at least. Best of luck!

(of course I’m not a doctor and this is not medical advice, consult your own)

Hi my name's Nat and I'm a young fighter.

I'm about to compete again but just found out getting a good kick to the jaw can permanently worsen tinnitus.

It's a long stretch but I was wondering if anyone out there has the same thing and what you do to protect further permanent ear damage.

Thanks 😊

I want to share something positive before saying goodbye to this space. I've had somatosensory tinnitus (linked to my jaw, neck, and teeth grinding) for 5 years, and I want to leave you with information that helped me a lot to understand and cope with this.

About current management options, already available:

Lenire: a bimodal neuromodulation device approved by the FDA in 2023, with studies showing 79-91% clinically significant improvement across different analyses, and the effect lasting at least 12 months after treatment.

TRT (Tinnitus Retraining Therapy) and CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy): still among the most well-supported tools for habituation and managing the distress that comes with tinnitus.

Hearing aids: for those with associated hearing loss (80-90% of cases), most studies show symptom reduction when using them.

If your tinnitus changes with jaw/neck movement, sleeping position, stress, or clenching your teeth: it's likely somatosensory, which has one of the best prognoses out there, because the cause is usually mechanical and treatable (TMJ, physical therapy, bruxism management).

About active research looking toward the future:

Gene therapy already restoring hearing in specific cases of genetic deafness.

Recent advances in hair cell regeneration, still in early stages but promising.

New implants and devices in development specifically targeting severe tinnitus.

Growing investment in drugs and neuroscience specifically for tinnitus, with the treatment market projected to grow strongly over the next decade.

The future is looking better and better for all of us. Science is moving faster than many people think, and every year that passes brings more real options, not just empty promises.

What helped me the most:

Understanding the mechanism (why it happens, not just that it happens) lowered my anxiety a lot. And finding other people with my same profile (normal hearing, tinnitus linked to muscular tension) who managed to reduce it drastically with neck/jaw stretches, massage, posture correction, and stress management gave me real proof that improvement is possible, not just theory.

One piece of advice that also helped me a lot: stop searching for and reading the most catastrophic stories online. I know it's tempting to want to know everything, but filling yourself up with the worst cases only feeds fear without giving you anything useful in return. Look for real, quality information, stories of improvement like this one, and then step away from the screen. You are not a lost cause just because someone else online is.

Not everyone will have the same path or the same timeline, but I wanted to leave this here in case it helps someone else the way reading similar stories helped me when I needed it most.

I know it's a hard fight, it's uncomfortable, it's sad, and it's exhausting, but we have one life, and we can't let this great opportunity to live slip away because of this discomfort. There is real hope for the future, and there's a lot you can do right now. We just have to hold on a little longer. You can do this, you are strong, trust yourself.

What also helped me was seeing it as something that simply happened — this is what I got dealt, and now I see it as something that's only stressful if I give it more attention than it deserves. One thing that helped me was thinking of it as "nearsightedness" of the ears.

Have faith and live as happily as you can, because one day we'll all be gone, and we should try to live the best we can before that.

Thank you all, and take care.

I know you can do this.

Sorry for the english, im speak spanish xd

I’ve been on Mirtazapine since April 2017 after experiencing very sudden sleep problems. Started off with 15mg a night, which went up to 30mg in 2019. Dropped back down to 15mg in 2022 and stayed that way since. I’ve also been taking 100mg Pregabalin with the Mirtazapine since 2023. I was also prescribed 10mg of Propranolol four times a day, which i gradually tapered off and now no longer take.

Last October, i went to my first ever rock concert. No one warned me beforehand that i should take some form of ear protection, and i don’t recall seeing anyone else in the audience wearing anything. I had ringing in my ears when i got back to my hotel, but didn’t think anything of it as i always had tinnitus for a few hours after being around loud music in clubs and that, but it was always gone when i woke up. I thought the same had happened the next day, as i didn’t hear anything when i woke up and headed home, but when i got home that night, i noticed a dogwhistle sound that i knew immediately was tinnitus. I went to the GP for a checkup and they found my left eardrum had burst, so they prescribed me antibiotics. I asked if the burst eardrum caused the tinnitus and if it would go away when the eardrum healed, but the GP said it was unlikely. I realised i had to make peace with it, and to be fair it didn’t bother me that much until this May, when an additional ringing that sounded like a distant siren outside came on, accompanied by my ears popping every time i swallowed and a bad sinus headache. I consulted a pharmacist, ANP and private ENT who all agreed it was most likely ETD and would go away in a few weeks. We’re on week 13 now and there’s been no change. In fact, the ringing had got worse. On Sunday night i had five different types of ringing all going on at once, and i’ve not slept more than an hour or so each night since as my brain just can’t seem to adjust to the new ringing.

I’ve told my story to another tinnitus community on here and one of them suggested i bring it to this one to see if any of you have had a similar experience. The user in question suggested the concert may not have been the root cause of all this after all and that it’s most likely a side effect of the meds i’ve been on, as Mirtazapine in particular has been known to cause tinnitus. The pharmacist at the GP i spoke to a few weeks back said tinnitus was a known withdrawal symptom for Mirtazapine but not that Mirtazapine itself causes tinnitus. So my question is, has anyone on here developed tinnitus whilst on these meds, and if you have and have come off the pills, did it make a difference?

Thank you.

No closer to a treatment/cure, but it is good that what exactly is going on in the brain is becoming less of a mystery.

19M here. I've had my tinnitus for 2.5 years now. I suspect how I got was from abuse of my Sony Earbuds (WF1000 XM4s) over a 1.5 year period when I was 17ish. Wasn't aware of hearing problems back then unfortunately. Mine is very mild such that I can't hear it as long as there is a fan in my room or something humming. When I'm in a completely silent environment it becomes very prominent but it doesn't bother me unless im in an tinnitus anxiety period that usually comes once a year and lasts about a month as well. Also I can change the pitch and loudness of my tinnitus when I move my neck, clench my jaw or move my jaw to extreme positions. (Basically making the neck and jaw muscles tense) I've heard this is related to our trigeminal never and TMJ so I've started a 2 week day and night course of tizadine 2mg. Also I'll appreciate it if someone can help with telling me what I should do about this jaw thing as maybe my tinnitus isn't noise induced. I haven't visited the ENT yet because of financial issues but will as soon as my father gets a job again. I'm already 1 week in with tizadine and see no difference yet. As for the loudness of my tinnitus it has remained pretty constant over the years tho 10 days ago I did go to get an MRI and the hearing protection they gave me was very flimsy. This was my first time getting an MRI so I didn't know it would be loud. I've strictly protected my hearing since I found out about my tinnitus. I wanted to press the emergency button and ask for more protection but was scared that that would incur additional charges. The good thing is that it last only for 15-20 minutes and there were breaks between the thudding sounds but still. Now I'm not sure if my tinnitus got worse or am I just being paranoid as I can't tell the difference. I just don't want it to get worse. I can live like this but can't if it gets any worse. This is about it. Sorry for the yap. Also I don't use earbuds or handsfree any longer.