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this is where the tinnitus goes away for maybe a minute or more after long periods of masking.
What could cause this?
Thomas even though you told me it is a nervous condition i read that over 90% of tinnitus patient have hearing loss and that hyperacusis is also to do with some damage.
But i am confused because everyone even the experts say something different.
IF you read tinnitus.org it says most patients do NOT have hearing loss and further that it is not related to tinnitus.
and in your own experience you have said that it has improved but is it know whether this is actually a kind of residual inhibition or even habituation or 'getting used to' it?
I am also disheartened because even though I experienced 1 minute silence it could be a form of residual inhibition?
even if it goes away it could come back again and again? what do you think?
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the other question is for those that experience temporary silence or even complete silence. Is the mechanism of silence after residual inhibition related to that of permanent/ temporary silence without residual inhibition?
If so, how?
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No, I don't think they are related. 'Residual inhibition' is merely a reaction to an external sound. I think it is just like going deaf for a while at certain frequencies. I actually used 'residual inhibition' a few times in the beginning by listening to white noise (the background noise between two radio stations). Listening for 15 min gave me about 30 min silence afterwards, but the tinnitus always came back with the old strength. I had even the impression that it got worse through this.
Anyway, I read once that white noise can be quite dangerous. People have become deaf for instance after staying for a while near a waterfall.
On the other hand, the inhibition that I experienced by taking painkillers did not make the tinnitus disappear completely, but suppressed it still enough to be less disturbing at night, and it also improved it in the long term.
Thomas
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but how can it be certain they are not related becuase i read about 1 guy who got inhibition for 30 nights, before he had to go back to be 'treated' with the noise again. This is rare but other people also experience it coming and going even if they arent using white noise.
How can you go deaf if the level of sound is not dangerous? Waterfalls can be loud i guess but even then how can they go deaf suddenly?
your case is also rare. most people only get inhibition after many months of using masking and even then for only minutes or seconds.
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I feel generally very uneasy about the 'masking' and 'inhibition' method. Whatever the mechanism at work here is, using some noise to basically drown out another doesn't seem to be able solve the problem in my view. For some people it can actually aggravate the condition (either the tinnitus gets worse or new tones are added).
The waterfall case is just something I remember having read a while ago. I think a group of people had a picnic near a waterfall for a few hours, and one of them was practically deaf afterwards.
I have never been near a large waterfall, so I don't know how loud they are, but it could be that one underestimates the loudness in case of 'white noise', as it is distributed over such a wide frequency spectrum. Also, I don't know how well the ear and the brain is able to cope with this kind of random noise over a longer period.
Thomas
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