The first year no, it was pretty much the same 24/7....I'm into my second year now and does change from horrible to bad and I'll even get a good day thrown in, which is such a nice surprise. I have not noticed any time frame though, I'm get a surprise each morning as to what it will do.

I have had this for about five months and from the very beginning it is definately on a cycle mine is bad, med, low, Bad with a few more bads thrown in here and there.

Yes on average my T cycles from silent to noisy about every 6-7 days. But sometimes i can have up to 3 days of quiet and other times i can have up to 2 weeks of very loud.

I think there are several things that have to go wrong in the brain for T to be real bad and each of these things (for me at least) are on separate cycles.

I have intermittent t, which has gotten a less frequent over the 3 and half years plus with t. Currently its about 1 bad day for every 3, sometimes I may a fourth decent day until it cycle backs to that loudest day.

I feel that it has improved over the years because I have learned about trigger foods, have taken care in protecting my ears, and make every attempt to keep stress under reasonable control.

So many thoughts on this....many causes for tinnitus and I may never know which one it is. Depression/anxiety, allergies, menopause (which Im in), ototoxic (ear damaging) drugs. To me it doesnt matter at this point. I have good/bad days. Days when it's low and days when its so high I think other people must be able to hear it (LOL) but regardless I get up each day and I give myself 10 min's to focus on it. That's it. Then I ignore it, move on, appreciate the day and the sun shining, and that I am breathing, healthy, and alive. It's called habituation. The more you focus the worse it can make it. I appreciate the good days, and that makes the bad days more tolerable because I know I will have a good day of low ringing. I have a few low days (think mine is cyclical). But one day I had I think about 3 weeks ago (have had good days since then) I had no ringing, I could focus, I was happy, I felt great! That was the me I know and remember. That was truly a wondeful day!

Attester,
It's good news that your tinnitus is abating. I want to know more about this intermittent type of tinnitus.

Do you have any idea what might have cause it?
It's doubtful it's TMJD related.

When you say you have 3-4 good days, does that mean it completely stops you can't hear it in a silent room?

What type of noise is it, a single tone or a hiss? In one ear?

I have cyclic tinnitus for about 4 years. It's on almost a perfect 3 day cycle. Today is torture. Tomorrow I will wake up and within an hour, I am almost noise free. It will be that way for one day and the next day it starts. By the third day, I am screwed again with an unbearable loud hissing noise.

I have intermittent 1 day (usually) up to 5 days (rare) of silence and 1 to 3 days (bad) and anything in between. It seems to go in super cycles that is 3 weeks where the entire cycle is one or two notches down (silences are longer, bad days are not so bad) followed by 1-2 weeks up a notch.

Look, tinnitus is not anxiety, depression, stress. The overall state of your nervous system can perhaps have some overall influence. But, its mostly just gain control on the feedback loop in one of your perceptual systems (hearing). Some people get Charles Bonett sysndrom (tinnitus of the eyes -- non-psychotic hallucinations), some people get crazy itching (tinnitus of skin), people who lose limbs get phantom limb pain. The gain control of your ears goes up to compensate for hearing decline. For some, it finally induces feedback just like a speaker and microphone put together. The cure would be either (1) restore the hearing, (2) damp down the gain (gaba enhancers sometimes work).

Mostly, the hope is habituation: The more you hope it will go away, the more time you will spend in hell. The less you care, the less you hear it. I can be very bothered on quite days (sometimes) and sometimes can ignore it on bad days. Sometime the reverse. I am getting better with tons of setbacks on average. I do think also on average, it has gone down ... but that doesn't mean I still don't get "reminders". For some lucky reason I can sleep regardless. I never use maskers ... can't be bothered. But maybe I'll think about experimenting with Xanax for really bad days. I don't think I have a gene for addiction.

For awhile I got hypersensitive to all sounds "PROTECT YOUR EARS". I got over it. I do protect my ears when it make sense (action movies, loud concerts). After a loud concert, the sound would be bad the next day ... until I stopped worrying about "damage". Now, after a loud movie (I wear ear plugs when db gets above 90) I typically have less T sound. Go figure.

I saw a ray of light when I read mpkelly's response # 7, "Tomorrow I will wake up and within an hour, I am almost noise free."

Why does this happen upon waking? Can anyone tell me what the correlation is with sleeping and tinnitus? When I wake up, I can tell if I am going to have it or not. At first, I was afraid to go to sleep.

Have that off and on and it is just plain weird. Don't know what really causes it either.
Since I got my BP down it got a lot more quiet though. In times of extreme physical duress I will hear it louder again.
I do not hear ringing, only sometimes and when I do hear the ringing it is debilitating and so loud it hurts. But that only lasts a couple of seconds and then it goes away.
Mostly I can hear the heartbeat in my ears but not so much anymore now that the BP is under control.
Now for anyone who has this on a constant basis I would absolutely sympathize with because how could that not drive you to the edge?