Yeah, sometimes my tinnitus changes pitch, sometimes it gets super loud out of nowhere then slowly goes back to normal volume. Sometimes, I can barely hear it. Apparently that’s our brains exciting or inhibiting different neuronal pathways in an attempt to fix the issue, like flipping breakers on and off until the kitchen lights turn back on.
yooo. that's wicked you express it like this about flipping breakers on and off until the lights turn back on. There are rare moments when my tinnitus, which is generally a steady electric whine, begins ramping up as if the electrical connection is going to blow. It almost feels like everything else around me is going away, like i'm in a tunnel or almost like huffing nitrous balloons/whippets, or what I've been told a crack bell ringer is like. Incredibly loud with a diminishing pitch during the few seconds it occurs and the whine almost goes away for just a few moments. Every single time I saying to myself "maybe this is it. Maybe it won't come back," because it feels like somethings going to give or reconnect or something like that.
Susan Shore, Ph.D. appears to have the best tool to potentially get this shit under control, but she mentions it works best (only?) on people who have somatic tinnitus, which apparently is two thirds of people with tinnitus. However, I'd bet most young people don't have this version of tinnitus, I'd imagine older people are more likely to have this version.
"Approximately two-thirds of individuals with tinnitus can modulate the loudness or pitch of their tinnitus by voluntary or external manipulations of the jaw, movements of the eyes, or pressure applied to head and neck regions"
I can't make my tinnitus get quieter, ever, but with certain movements of the jaw I can increase the noise a fair amount. cranial sacral massage work offers some temporary relief.
You guyses ever change to like a weird high pitch kinda whistling sound? Like someone's playing a flute far away. Going crazy the other night thinking I can hear the electricity in the wall lol.
when mine first came on, or when I first started noticing it, I was living in a janky cabin in the woods with genuinely bad electrical connections. Man, for the first week honest to goodness, I thought the shitty refrigerator was going haywire and started unplugging at night because it was soooo quiet that all I could hear was this electrical whine. My girl was worried I was losing my shit.