You just can’t get away from that ringing in your ears. That high pitched ringing in your ear has been nagging you ever since yesterday morning and it still hasn’t disappeared. You’re aware that the buzzing is tinnitus but your starting to worry about how long it will continue.
Tinnitus can be brought on by injury to the stereocilia in your ears (the air oscillations that your ears convert into sound, are sensed by these tiny hairs). That damage is most often the outcome of overly loud sound. That’s why you observe tinnitus most often after, as an example, going to a concert, spending time in a loud restaurant, or being seated next to a deafening jet engine while you’re taking a trip.
Under Normal Scenarios, How Long Does Tinnitus Last?
There’s no cure for tinnitus. But tinnitus normally doesn’t last indefinitely. How long your tinnitus persists depends on a wide variety of factors, like your general health and the root cause of your tinnitus.
But if you just arrived home from a noisy day of traveling and you notice your ears buzzing, a day or two should be enough for you to observe your tinnitus going away. Normally, tinnitus will last 16 to 48 hours. But it’s also not abnormal for symptoms to linger, sometimes for as much as a couple of weeks. Additional exposure to loud noises could also cause tinnitus to flare up again, effectively resetting the clock.
It’s generally suggested that you see a specialist if your tinnitus continues and specifically if your tinnitus is detracting from your quality of life.
Why is Tinnitus Sometimes Irreversible?
Normally, tinnitus is temporary. But that means it can be permanent. When the cause is not mundane that’s especially true either with respect to origin or in terms of intensity. Some examples are as follows:
- Repeated exposure: If your ears are ringing after attending one rock concert, imagine how they’ll feel after five rock concerts a week or if you’re a musician who plays live shows and practices all day. Continued exposure to loud noises can lead to permanent hearing injury, including tinnitus.
- Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): The brain is where the majority of sound is processed. In certain cases, a traumatic brain injury (such as a concussion) could cause tinnitus because those processors start to misfire.
- Hearing Impairment: Typically, tinnitus and hearing loss are joined at the hip. So you may end up with permanent tinnitus regardless of the cause of your hearing loss.
Permanent tinnitus is significantly less common than its more temporary counterpart. But permanent or chronic tinnitus still effects millions of Us citizens each year.
How Can You Get Your Tinnitus to Subside?
Whether your tinnitus is short term or long term, you may want to find relief as soon as you can. Although there isn’t any cure for tinnitus, there are some things you can do to lessen symptoms (however long they might endure):
- Wear earplugs (or earmuffs): The next option, if you can’t avoid loud situations, is to use hearing protection. (And, really, you should be protecting your hearing whether you have tinnitus or not.)
- Avoid loud noises. Attending another live show, hopping on another airline, or cranking up the volume on your earpods another notch might prolong your symptoms or increase their severity.
- Try to stay calm: perhaps it sounds somewhat… abstract, but higher blood pressure can result in tinnitus episodes so remaining calm can help keep your tinnitus in check.
- Find a way to mask the sound: You can sometimes mask the sound and get a good nights sleep by utilizing some source of white noise such as a humidifier or fan.
Sadly, none of these methods will get rid of long term tinnitus. But it can be equally significant to manage and minimize your symptoms.
When Will Your Tinnitus Subside?
In the majority of cases, though, your tinnitus will subside without you needing to do anything about it. Your hearing should go back to normal within 16 to 48 hours. However, you will want to seek out a solution if your tinnitus persists. The sooner you find a treatment that works, the sooner you can get relief. If you think you have hearing loss (which is often associated with tinnitus) you should have your hearing tested.