39/M. Have had Tinnitus since July 2018. After months of stress, depression and anxiety that had me go through not just a baseline T level but other noises throughout my skull (Pulsating T, electrical buzz brain noise), somehow, someway eventually things leveled off to where I was left with just baseline T. After what I think may have been a year if not more, I habituated to it the best I could. Over time, years really, I actually got a lot better. I even threw out my white noise machine that I occasionally used to sleep early on as it only reminded me of this rough time of my life. My Tinnitus was noise induced after a night on a chaotically loud wedding dance floor. I already had some genetic hearing loss in one ear.

Fast forward to 2024 and I barely ever thought about my Tinnitus anymore. Occasionally it would seem to go higher in tone and make me upset, but overall things were night and day from that early 2018/2019 era after onset. Over the years I battled several "Spikes" that were caused after loud noises. On one occasion the spike I clearly remember lasted quite some time, well over a month. On August 31st 2024 however I made the monumental mistake of hanging around a DJ dance floor with friends at a local restaurant. Long story short- spike city. At first it didn't really hit me. I figured it was something that would fade away after a few days or a week. Then as I approached one month I started to go into the infamous fight or flight mode, realizing that I had not slept well in all that time, constantly being woken up by the noise and going to work as a zombie most days. It was at this point where I feel like the stress of it all was actually making the spike worse. Just to note- the spike actually is NOT my regular baseline T at a higher tone. Instead it is a head buzz/electrical type tone inside of my entire head. I can actually hear my regular T beneath it. This is the head buzz noise I experienced after my onset as well which eventually went away, so through this all, I did have optimism.

Finally, about one month into my spike, on September 30th or so, things began calming down and I even experienced a few hours here and there back at baseline. It was incredible. Then, in what I can only describe as an ironic twist, a few days later on Thursday October 3rd, I was invited to a bar by a woman I'm newly dating where a band was scheduled to play. After a month of hell, yes, you'd think I would stay as far away as I could from a scene like that, but being the moron that I am and someone who liked this woman very much, I went, earplugs in hand. I had the earplug in my bad ear the entire time, and honestly, things did not seem that bad. I had a great time with her, too. My T was acting up as I left the place, but it did not seem like anything terrible. The next morning however, I woke up with the electrical head buzz spike back full throttle. It is now October 12th, nearly 10 days later, and the spike has not gone down at all and I have slept like sh-t every single night. My depression over this has now reached an all time high and although still optimistic I will get out of this again, right now I am struggling like it's 2018 again.

One thing is for certain and that is that no matter who invites me or what circumstances there are, outside of a stadium show with a more quiet music scene, I 100% cannot be around loud noises ever again for the rest of my life. It is simply not worth what I've been going through in my life the last 1-1.5 months now. Sleep deprived, anxious, depressed and really just broken at this point. It will be a very difficult thing to have to explain to someone I'm dating how I can't go "because of my ear", but that is just my reality in life at this point. I guess right now I'm just looking for support while also trying to understand when and how this spike may subside. Every morning like clockwork the spike wakes me up and then I'm unable to fall back asleep for the last few hours of my night like a normal person.

I realized three main things that help calm Tinnitus/a spike down:

1- Low stress levels (easier said than done at this moment, vicious cycle)

2- A good nights sleep (again, easier said than done, vicious cycle)

3- Being in more quiet areas and not around any kinds of loudness at all, even something like walking through a busy mall is triggering to my spike