Tinnitus, Deafness and Ear Problems Support Group
This group is for those coping with Tinnitus (ringing ears or ear noise), hearing loss, and all ear issues. Join to find support and get advice from others.
My lord, I am always afraid of sharing stuff and jinxing my own self but what the hell, it's been over a week with such a lower volume and reduction i never thought possible and i know what i've done:
- MOUTHGUARD! I through the first one away, this time i stuck it out a few weeks and voila, a huge volume reduction, i think the bone conducts sound, less contact/friction, less sound.
- SLEEPING ON MY BACK: it's the hardest thing in the world, but i was noticing my ear was being suctioned when i slept, the pressure was all night like that off and on for years, now i have trained myself to wake up if i end up on my ear and force myself in a non-ear constricting position.
- NO SLEEPING ON MY COUCH... i think this T is a neck thing, even if i lost it through sound... when i massaged my neck a few days i ended up with T in my second ear permanently.. so now i just don't go lying on my couch with my neck against the side-rest.. it has harmed my progress once so i can say it certainly has an effect.
- OPENING MY CHEST - for lack of a better phrase.. i noticed my T reducing when i push my shoulders back hard and lift them, like i was walking like a girl trying to show of her rear end or something... i guess it's called arching? Very hard.. the harder i do it, sometime my T would dissapear... so i keep exercising that way making sure my center of gravity is not too 'inward'.
Which one did the trick the most, my guess is the nightguard... and not just any only tooth-grinding night guard, this one also re-aligns the jaw.. it keeps the jaw way open all night... and i put it on the highest setting so my mouth is being stretched all night.
I am of the opinion it's nerve damage, but with all nerves it's so long to heal... and if we don't do things to reverse the damage it never will.... the same nerve that is our auditory nerve also is responsible for moving our neck.. that is a fact i found out... so me, i'm focussing on the neck/mouth/jaw/teeth/ear bones/skull balance.... my hypothesis is unique... loud sound did not give us T, rather our nerve reacting to the sound with such a shock damaged itself.. ... i have listened to music a trillion decibals but i think it was shock of slamming doors that gave me T... hardly louder at all.. but much more of a psychological/physical 'shock' to my auditory and nervous system...ie loud musical never made me jump/recoil... it's that reaction i believe causes something in the neck to spasm and the nerve to damage, once damaged it's inflamed slightly enough to touch our other nerve than travels alongside it, i forget that one but google 8th cranial nerve and look there's one more central nerve right next to it crunched close to the cochlear.
All i know is you deserve to try a mouth aligning night-guard for a few weeks and sleep on your back.... i still have tingling and the odd EEEE but it's not always there (!!!!) sometime actually 100% gone for a few hours.. other times it's more of a very low 'static' that sounds like nothing anybody has described (tiny crickets).. when it does EEEE.. it's only for an hour or so at a time, and with much higher-frequency and fainter noise overall... basically my good friends, i don't have 'super tinnitus' anymore. No more loud whining.. just faint high tone sometimes.. and much less 'noise' within that tone, sometime none, just a pure tiny tone.
it's much much much better, i only pray it stays this way or gets better BUT i noticed even one night forgetting my mouth guard i went backwards.. and hey, this thing started when i was sick with a virus and had loud noises all day.. nothing to do with the jaw, so it's all very surprising... i figured my jaw would have no effect, that's why like i said i had thrown away my first night guard after a few nights.
The brand of nightguard is called sleepright..... no affiliation.. i see some other guards don't have the self-adjusted sizes.. with this one we can experiment by different levels of open-jaw.
Please us know if anybody else has had or does have a good reaction like me.... and make sure you aren't suctioning your ears at night!!! That couldn't help either.
- MOUTHGUARD! I through the first one away, this time i stuck it out a few weeks and voila, a huge volume reduction, i think the bone conducts sound, less contact/friction, less sound.
- SLEEPING ON MY BACK: it's the hardest thing in the world, but i was noticing my ear was being suctioned when i slept, the pressure was all night like that off and on for years, now i have trained myself to wake up if i end up on my ear and force myself in a non-ear constricting position.
- NO SLEEPING ON MY COUCH... i think this T is a neck thing, even if i lost it through sound... when i massaged my neck a few days i ended up with T in my second ear permanently.. so now i just don't go lying on my couch with my neck against the side-rest.. it has harmed my progress once so i can say it certainly has an effect.
- OPENING MY CHEST - for lack of a better phrase.. i noticed my T reducing when i push my shoulders back hard and lift them, like i was walking like a girl trying to show of her rear end or something... i guess it's called arching? Very hard.. the harder i do it, sometime my T would dissapear... so i keep exercising that way making sure my center of gravity is not too 'inward'.
Which one did the trick the most, my guess is the nightguard... and not just any only tooth-grinding night guard, this one also re-aligns the jaw.. it keeps the jaw way open all night... and i put it on the highest setting so my mouth is being stretched all night.
I am of the opinion it's nerve damage, but with all nerves it's so long to heal... and if we don't do things to reverse the damage it never will.... the same nerve that is our auditory nerve also is responsible for moving our neck.. that is a fact i found out... so me, i'm focussing on the neck/mouth/jaw/teeth/ear bones/skull balance.... my hypothesis is unique... loud sound did not give us T, rather our nerve reacting to the sound with such a shock damaged itself.. ... i have listened to music a trillion decibals but i think it was shock of slamming doors that gave me T... hardly louder at all.. but much more of a psychological/physical 'shock' to my auditory and nervous system...ie loud musical never made me jump/recoil... it's that reaction i believe causes something in the neck to spasm and the nerve to damage, once damaged it's inflamed slightly enough to touch our other nerve than travels alongside it, i forget that one but google 8th cranial nerve and look there's one more central nerve right next to it crunched close to the cochlear.
All i know is you deserve to try a mouth aligning night-guard for a few weeks and sleep on your back.... i still have tingling and the odd EEEE but it's not always there (!!!!) sometime actually 100% gone for a few hours.. other times it's more of a very low 'static' that sounds like nothing anybody has described (tiny crickets).. when it does EEEE.. it's only for an hour or so at a time, and with much higher-frequency and fainter noise overall... basically my good friends, i don't have 'super tinnitus' anymore. No more loud whining.. just faint high tone sometimes.. and much less 'noise' within that tone, sometime none, just a pure tiny tone.
it's much much much better, i only pray it stays this way or gets better BUT i noticed even one night forgetting my mouth guard i went backwards.. and hey, this thing started when i was sick with a virus and had loud noises all day.. nothing to do with the jaw, so it's all very surprising... i figured my jaw would have no effect, that's why like i said i had thrown away my first night guard after a few nights.
The brand of nightguard is called sleepright..... no affiliation.. i see some other guards don't have the self-adjusted sizes.. with this one we can experiment by different levels of open-jaw.
Please us know if anybody else has had or does have a good reaction like me.... and make sure you aren't suctioning your ears at night!!! That couldn't help either.
Sue
but i did more uhh 'testing'... i kept in the mouthguard but slept on my side like i normally do and sure enough 2 or 3 days later my ringing was loud and clear again... one night on my back and it's back quieter to almost gone.. so there is definitely something there..
of course you have to understand i sleep with my face plastered on the side with my (big) jaw against it at weird angle....plus i sleep on the floor (don't ask) so it's pressing even more into me.
(i sleep on the floor because i live alone in a small apartment where a bed would take up 1/3rd of it and everytime i have a bed it ends up covered in crap and i sleep on the floor with my cat anyways)
but i think i will be getting a bed.. i read somewhere a doctor with a theory of tinnitus (some) being caused by pressure within the head... and he mentioned the jaw against the mandible or something like that.... i grind my teeth, my jaw is pressed all night, my posture is pretty bad, i'm finding all these things can make a different in the sound of my T... even lightly touching my cheek can make it change... but this is only once i have it quieter.. when it's normal/loud i can't change much it just drones and i learn nothing.. when its low like today i can see how much my t is related to my physical body somehow.
basically my skull, jaw, neck, spine...
i sometime get this -really weird sensation where i can hear the T one minute but then it sort of 'finds its place' or 'tunes to my normal vibration' ?? and even though it's there i can't hear it until i try again... again.. only when it's a low day recently not when its been screeching the past few months. I don't think it's the same as conditioning, it feels more like putting the quieter sound back where it came from where i don't hear it.
i really think this ringing is -always- in -everybody's- head but very very very low or imperceptible completely and we just sort of screwed up our alignment and/or our hearing and/or fattened the nerve through shock/illness so it's closer to our aural neurons so we perceive it louder. When it's low like today it feel like a smidgeon more and i'd have no idea it was there at all ever.. it's so close from being 'loud' to 'almost nill' in real terms this is not car stereo to pocket recorder... it's more like plucking a guitar string lightly or very lightly...one rings slightly louder and also longer and makes a big difference overall to the decibel level.
i'm hoping but not expecting to cure my T, i'm seeing that it's a conductive thing though that can at least be reduced my reducing pressure/contact in the head...
trust me, i hope it's not psychosomatic... so far so good but i would not be surprised if along the way these things stop working... but man i hope not... all i can tell you is mine was getting worse too, moved to ear #2, thats when i freaked and bought the night guard and stayed up all night 1/2 awake forcing myself off my ^*& side and back onto my back with my head even on the pillow... before it reached ear #2 i wasn't so fearful.. now its in both ears (still) but so much lower i would have traded for this anyhow... its like a baby buzz, not an EEEEE like i had for months.
Could you ever shift the pitch or volume of your T by clenching your jaw or tilting your head a certain way?