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Comment by jader201 | Hacker News Reader

I don’t know if this is a clue, but I can do muscle movements in my head/face/jaw to make the tinnitus worse (only as I make the movements, immediately reverting back to “normal” tinnitus as soon as I relax).

Some examples:

- jutting my jaw forwards

- moving my ears back with my face muscles

- pushing downward on the top of my head with my hands

Another possible clue: this has been true since I can remember — even as a child, well before I developed tinnitus. I always thought this was normal, until mentioning it to others, and it seems no one I know shares this experience.

This, to me, suggests that (my flavor of tinnitus, at least) may be due to physical/muscle related causes, and not necessarily associated with hearing damage or neurological. Or that I was “destined” to get tinnitus at some point, as if I was born with some defect that others weren’t.

Or, it could just be that there is something else unrelated with how my muscles are connected to my hearing that cause the same tinnitus (e.g. same frequency), and that the persistent tinnitus actually is hearing damage.

I’ve not looked into it much, and have really only mentioned this to my doctor (who mostly blew it off as irrelevant), and others in my family. But thought I’d share here in case anybody experienced something similar, and may have insight into what causes this “muscle-related tinnitus”, and if it’s somehow connected or unrelated to the persistent tinnitus.

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Yes, this is called somatic tinnitus and is actually quite common. Like you, I had this since I was a little child and thought this was normal. Only when I first heard of tinnitus as a juvenile, I realized that this is what I had.

There have been small studies regarding somatic tinnitus, see for instance

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2633109/

For modifying tinnitus loudness, the most common is that it increases when clenching the jaw. In the above paper, the cerebral blood flow was measured with PET, and for people with somatic tinnitus, when clenching their jaw, in addition to the sensory-motor areas, the auditory cortex became activated as well. However, the underlying reason is unknown.

In my case, I had pretty severe hearing loss as a little child because of liquid in my middle ear. Due to that, I continuously had my mouth open so that I could hear at least a little bit through the eustachian tubes, and I guess this might have influenced the interactions between these brain regions. But who knows. In the end, my parents realized what's going on and I got tympanostomy tubes, and I'm hearing fine now. Of course I don't know if the tinnitus really comes from that, because I cannot remember (I must have been around 3 years old).

It seems like some cases of tinnitus may be due to tight muscles, too. I don't usually suffer it, but when I do, I've noticed that sometimes massaging the back of the head or jaw can make it just go away. I doubt this works for everyone or for every cause, but it's simple enough to be worth trying to see if it does anything helpful.

Can confirm, I once had an annoying episode of tinnitus for a couple days in a row and it went away once my physiotherapist addressed my neck pain.

This sounds like the tmj type. Probably most common type I've heard for muscular related, and even some ENTs will know about it

Grinding teeth at night is a common influencing factor, many other causes for tight tmj muscle

Scm area and neck-shoulder is a slightly lesser known but common category I've heard of where muscle s can influence tinnitus. I've heard forward neck posture and less developed core / & core breathing can be common influence for this kind, but similarly there many are other causes/influences. It also iirc stretches more than one muscle in the neck to shoulder that's common.

When learning more about these things, I liked a lot 1) "A multidisciplinary European guideline for tinnitus: diagnostics, assessment, and treatment" 2) Tufts eye and ear tinnitus seminar (video series from several years back)

Probably a few other resources, but those seem like the best to advertise on HN. There is extensive information elsewhere but more filtering required. E.g, some of the forums have great posts, but also a lot of other posts less great for general topic intro.

Sympathy and love, though, if anyone reading is having a hard time right now w/tinnitus. It can be difficult at times and in some circumstances. Id also like to note if you do have tinnitus and don't want to read more, that's ok too! For some people reading is the last thing they really need, and that's ok

Interesting. I can “play my eardrums”, which I describe as the ability to consciously control something in my ears that causes a loud fluttering, ringing sound that is something like wind entering my ear canals combined with a bell.

After some research I’ve found some people can control something called the “tensor tympani” and generate sounds described as a “roar” but being a subjective experience I am not certain this is exactly what I am doing.

That is interesting. I assumed everyone could hear that. I can hear the sound (roar, ocean, wind) when I move my jaw forward but I can also just directly control it without moving anything else. It’s a muscle I can feel myself controlling and contracting in my inner ear.

I think that is the experience of _everyone_

It’s not. I have no idea what you all are talking about.

yeah i think i do the same thing as you with my ears. a flutter is probably the best description of it i had thought of it as clapping or clicking my ears but that is to sharp a sound to really describe it

I can do this too. It also does the same thing as yawning when your ears get blocked on a plane or driving up a steep hill. It unblocks them.

I’m wondering if this is something different, or if it’s a more intense level of the other thing. I’m able to pop my ears without any apparent tensioning of my jaw or a yawn reflex. But I can do it while also making the rushing sound or not.

Yeah okay, that must be something different (that I can't do) then.

Yeah, it's two different muscles for the rumbling vs clicking. Tensor veli palatini opens the eustachian tube and makes a click. The rumbling is from the tympani.

Stapedius reflex? Some can control this muscle volintarily (me as well), it dampens incoming noise by a few dB to protect the ears.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_reflex

I can do that too.

I'm pretty sure that's the tensor tympani. I also think your description sounds closer to what I do. For me it sounds like wind, but only lower frequencies.

Ditto! Very useful for relieving ear pressure at altitude.

Yeah, I also use it for that. I've asked people the question, "can you click your ears"? Of course, they don't understand me, because it's such a vague question. I started asking, "can you relieve your ear pressure without moving anything else", and most people answer no. One person who dived, answered "yes, of course!" like it's something all people can.

If someone doesn't know how to do it, they could still learn it

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valsalva_maneuver

That’s not the same thing, I believe.

It's not the same thing, but it would allow them to

> "[...] relieve your ear pressure without moving anything else"

And I just realized that I meant the Frenzel Maneuver, which I always forget the name of. OK you need a nose clip, but besides that it's hands free.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frenzel_maneuver

Frenzel is not done by controlling the muscles in the ear. It's done by controlling your epiglottis and your tongue and push air against a blocked nose. So while it's hands free, it's not the same.[1]

With controlling the muscles in the ear, one can do it without a nose clip. It's called BTV (or VTO sometimes in English)[2], and instead of forcing air in to open the eustachian tube, you just open it by muscles.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear_clearing [2]: https://www.freedivinginstructors.com/article/204

I used to scuba dive, and yes - can "click my ears" while breathing freely through my nose and/or mouth. We were taught to use Valsalva when feeling pressure during ascent/descent, and after a while I found I was able to just use the right muscles voluntarily instead.

BTV or Jan Dow sound closest to what's being described in this thread.

To me, it "feels" kind of like moving the base of my tongue sideways and tensing my bottom jaw (in the same way I would pre-yawn).

That second link is a gold mine. Thank you so much for sharing.

I've known how to do the basic BTV/VTO for many years, but it wasn't quite enough for me to equalize pressure while diving (without descending very slowly, I suppose). Just a few minutes with the techniques on that page has already improved my ability dramatically.

Cool, hope it will be of use! I freedived for years before trying scuba, so for scuba I have no issues. With the head up and all air going there, my VTO is good enough.

But for freediving with the air going towards the stomach and much faster descent it's still a bit tricky. One thing is if I'm not equalizing quickly enough, no amount of force I can muster will open the tubes again without actually doing a more classic pinch nose technique. Doing a classic equalize you will often "overblow" air in and can descend a bit before needing to equalize again. But with VTO you're only equalizing to a perfect balance so will need to make sure to keep equalizing to not get under pressure. But of course not as much hassle hands free, I try to just do click-click-click continuously, almost every kick down to remind myself to keep it open. But yeah, if I get too much under-pressure I'm not able to open it again hands free.

I also feel head angle matters a lot, so trying to not bend the neck too much to look down, but instead swim down while looking "straight ahead" instead of where you're actually going helps for me.

That only allows you to increase the pressure in your inner ear, but not decrease like opening them does. For example, it would be useful while an airplane is descending, but it wouldn't help while ascending.

There is, however, a simple trick anyone can do to equalize the pressure both ways: swallow. Works wonders with babies and toddlers.

valsalva involves moving your hands

I can do that, as well, and it has a practical purpose when going hiking in the mountains or scuba diving. But nobody I've talked to about it understand what I mean, and I can't even explain what the technique is; I'm tensing of some muscles, certainly, but I can't explain how and which ones they are.

I learned to do it by isolating what made my ears pop when I yawn. I explain it as “kinda like yawning without opening your mouth” which seems to work.

This is how I explain it. When I first started scuba diving and explained to the instructor that it wasn't an issue to pop my ears, he was kind of horrified and was like no don't yawn underwater to do that. He didn't seem to understand, no matter how many times I explained it, that I can do it without actually yawning. You just like... mimic the start of a yawn. And then can continue it into a full actual yawn if you want to.

If it helps, I'm reasonably sure it's the soft palate muscles. To cause the effect you're describing, I visualize tensing a muscle that runs directly from one ear to the other, through the middle of my skull.

It's one of those things where trying to describe it to someone who physically can't do it or doesn't know how to may make them question your judgment and/or sanity.

I don't have tinnitus nor "ear rumble", and I can't visibly wiggle my ears -- but I can reliably equalize air pressure (eg in airplanes or car rides with altitude changes) by inducing a yawn (via swallowing-like action in my upper throat) and/or moving my jaw side to side.

I think it's two different things. When using it to equalize ears hands free, it's the tensor veli palatini (tvp) you're contracting to open the eustachian tube.

Of course, one might not be able to distinguish what muscles one is contracting, so it might be that most people actually tense both the tvp and the tympani at the same time, getting both the roaring sound from the tympani and the clicking sound from the tvp when the tubes open. Hence it's two different, but connected, things.

This is the correct answer.

tensor tympani rumble = deep continuous rumbling sound you may hear when yawning

Eustachian tube clicking = a single slightly wet click you hear when you move your soft palate to block off your nasal cavity from your throat (via the tensor veli palatini muscle)

Oh Internet, so maybe I can do that, thought we all could! Sounds like roaring wind...

There’s a whole subreddit dedicated to this, which they call “ear rumbling”:

https://www.reddit.com/r/earrumblersassemble/

Ear rumbling is not the same as tinnitus. I can make my ear rumble, and I also have tinnitus (constant ringing or high pitched frequency sound). At least I assume, I have never bothered getting it diagnosed by a doctor because I can easily ignore it and have for many years, I only notice it when not focusing on anything else and I happen to pay attention to it.

I assumed tinnitus was mostly caused by damaging the little hairs that sense sound becoming damaged from loud sounds and not working anymore, which I would have done with headphone use in my teens/early 20s.

wow there's a word for my useless ability!

Not everyone can do this? That's wild.

I can't.

I can do that and have tinnitus and they aren't remotely the same. I usually use the ear rumble as a real world mute option. Someone talking tome and IDK? ear rumble. The tinnitus is always there.

To add another personal experience to that: I can do that as well, and for me it will make my tinnitus louder. It is very low pitched but more or less stable around 340Hz, and thus actually musically relevant to me as it gives me some kind of active, makeshift absolute pitch.

I'm not sure if it's the same, but if I listen to pure noise (to sleep or something) I can somewhat adjust my hearing to focus on certain frequency bands in the uniform noise making me to hear a ringing sound in the noise. I can adjust the pitch and it will stay at the pitch until I change it.

So with this I can play a melody with the ringing noise. Sometimes I do this until I fall asleep. :-)

Not the same thing at all. Try squeezing your eyelids really tight, you might hear a noise. That's what he's talking about.

I am genuinely shocked I can do it...

I went from, "What's this guy even talking about?" straight to inducing roaring after vaguely recall doing it as a child over 30 years ago.

Right. I can do it too - I can make them click/crunch and roar - which I'm sure is due to the sound muscles make when tensed.

Squeeze your fist and hold it up to your ear. It's audible.

Click is from pressure gradient when opening/tightening the eustachian tube. If I switch to open I can hear myself breathing.

Partially covering the outer ear makes the flow of blood audible.

That's not tinnitus-related.

I've been able to do it my whole life, chatgpt tells me it's this:

Hearing a crackling sound when you flex your ears is quite common. This noise typically results from the movement of small muscles around your ear, particularly the tensor tympani muscle in your middle ear. These muscles contract to dampen certain sounds, like chewing, but can also be voluntarily or involuntarily activated when you move your ears. This action can cause a vibration or movement of the eardrum, leading to the crackling sound. It's usually harmless, but if you experience pain, discomfort, or any other symptoms, it's advisable to consult a healthcare professional.

Another example why you shouldn't take ChatGPT at face value.

The clicking sound is the opening of the Eustachian tube. Flexing the tensor tympani sounds like a deep rumbling.

A long time ago I would sometimes amuse myself by opening the tubes and humming some melody - would sound really loud.

This actually relieves my tinnitus for a short period of time. Humming as loud as I can with my Eustachian tubes open would cause my tinnitus to either disappear or be imperceptible for about 3-5 seconds. It's such a relief that when my tinnitus gets really bad, I'll find I need to do it several times.

I always just assumed this was a normal thing that everyone had and never bothered to look it up. Sounds exactly like the roar of a high wind to me.

I've always been able to do this, and I've always assumed that it's not unusual. It does not seem to be at all related to my tinnitus.

I can do that. It is like a roar at the loudest point I can manage. A light effort sounds a lot like the ship thruster sound in Asteroids.

I find I can clench the muscle, but can only and occasionally relax the thing.

When I do clench, my ear response curve in the midrange, say 800Hz to a few KHz, is improved.

Have a fan handy? Try it and listen. You may hear a lot more from that fan.

I have had the same thing my whole life that I can remember but no tinnitus. If I clench my jaw enough I get that roaring rumble. I assumed it was normal.

Wait, not everyone can do that?

It took me a long while to figure out that I can make my tinnitus better by pushing by jaw backwards (using my hands).

As I understood it, the ear and the jaw muscle are delicately close. "Pressure" on the ear can somehow cause the nerves to send such signals.

I got prescribed some special training to relax the muscles in the neck and jaw area; still need to start it.

I read that being able to modulate the tinnitus to also be quieter somehow is a good indicator of being able to improve it with therapy.

My symptoms started along with my jaw crackling. So it seems they are related.

Putting my symptoms here:

- Constant noise in ear

- Also seems like noise / tingling sensation in the brain

- Is higher just when I wake up

- Started along with an infection that went to the ear. Infection cleared up. Tinnitus didn't.

- Been on for a year and a half.

- Its terribly unbearable. Not suicidal level but very close to it.

> - Its terribly unbearable. Not suicidal level but very close to it.

I feel that, it sucks. For me it started with like a "blocked" feeling, now I'm at the point where it's constant static which makes it impossible to sleep on my side, sometimes my left ear goes "deaf" momentarily and a sharp ring starts and it makes me "zone out" but ends after 15-30s

It's living hell.

I have the same shit, it sucks.

I bet you have a tongue tie. Go get a frenectomy. Do tongue stretches. Get some facial massages.

mind elaborating more? I also have horrible sleep apnea that is related to a lazy tongue

Lemme guess, somewhat narrow palate, slightly recessed jaw. Unable to breathe exclusively through the nose during high intensity workout. Possible indications of sleep apnea.

If they're detecting nerve damage, it's happening from nerve compression. Tinnitus being a manifestation of the compressed nerve.

I would bet money rapid palatal expansion with a proper midpalatal suture split would cure you.

Had braces for years, they removed 4 molars, was horrible, now my smile is too narrow, breathing bad, got TMJ, tongue too big for mouth, recessed chin look worse etc.

Why is it that orthodontics used this method? I can see locally it's still only some dentists that seem to use palate expansion when it's seemingly easier, prettier, quicker, healthier etc. than teeth removal + braces?

Thinking about removing my retainers and having a palate expansion done instead as you recommend as i seriously feel like i'm never really getting enough air during sports, sleep etc.

EDIT: This whole reddit thread is quite crazy, full of people having all sorts of issues cured by various methods that classic ortho wont approve: https://www.reddit.com/r/orthotropics/comments/11ow1yb/expan...

You're on the right track

That's some internet

how does nerve damage relate to sleep apnea? doctors have recommended tonsil removal to expand my palate space.

also have tinnitus bte

It doesn't. If you have tinnitus caused by any one or more of the other issues, you likely have sleep apnea on top of it.

Enlarged tonsils themselves are indicative of poor nasal breathing. If you have them completely removed you'll suffer from greatly reduced immune response. You have a fighting chance with intracapsular. Palate expansion through a good Ortho is still probably way better.

> If you have them completely removed you'll suffer from greatly reduced immune response

Citation needed. Every doctor I've talked to said the exact opposite.

Exact same experience here! particularly, if I move my jaw backwards with my jaw muscles, the tinnitus would get worse. Never better, though. I do feel the same sometimes, that doctors are not listening hard enough to what we are saying. I've been suffering tinnitus for 20 years now, and it seems to be getting even worse. I really hope a viable treatment is found in my lifetime. It would improve my quality of life so much!

  Some examples:
  - jutting my jaw forwards
  - moving my ears back with my face muscles
  - pushing downward on the top of my head with my hands

That's wild. Never tried that before but just did and I can 100% repro.

Only the first and third do anything for me, but both seem to add the same high pitch tone to the mix.

Same here, what the hell? Luckily it goes away as soon as I stop doing it.

I get more buzzing with the first and third as well. I like the go biting doesn’t seem to change it for me.

To this list I'd add pulling the jaw backward/inward.

Moving the jaw forward and then to the right has the biggest effect for me, causing the ringing on the left ear to increase. It's asymmetric in that moving the jaw to the front left has only a very small effect on the right ear.

Moving the ears backwards has no effect for me.

I have tinnitus I mean my ears ring constantly but I've never been diagnosed officially. It seems to be a middle C tone.

For years I clenched my jaw and grind my teeth mostly at night to the point of damaging my teeth. I wore a guard and then didn't now again back at it due to jaw pain. The guard helps a bit mainly from damage when asleep and seems to protect my jaw joints.

My point being even if my jaw is totally relaxed there is a hum from the muscles in my jaw. It's like a 60Hz hum musicians hear from AC interference in speakers. I have to wonder if it's part of the constant noise I hear in my ears.

I also get BPPV too it's severe sudden vertigo it may be related to my clench and tinnitus. It's just random no clue what causes it. I can't even walk and have to lay down and not even close my eyes just pick a spot and stare. I had to do that for 12 hours one time my worst time.

Interesting, I have issues with jaw clenching and a damaged TMJ. I seem to always notice the (incorrect) position of my jaw, and when this is in a worse position the clenching increases and with that my tinnitus.

I always assumed the softer bones around my ears get deformed because of this which in turn causes me to be affected by tinnitus.

Honestly the thing that helped best was meditation. I tried guards, even a specialized one to realign my jaw slowly, but I feel those are just symptom relievers.

I also should have added as a child I had constant ear aches. This was before the time of tubes being inserted for drainage. But also my Dad smoked so it may have been partly due to that. Once the bars here banned smoking and overall smoking in public was more controlled I noticed a big drop in any sinus and ear issues, finally! I never smoked but it was the 1970s and 1980s I got more than enough just second hand. Many factors I think can cause ear and hearing problems smoke, sinus, jaw clench, stress.

Very relatable. Have always been able to do this.

I have quite significant hearing loss these days, which has been tied back to having Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, relating to connective tissue development, which in part could impact areas that result in certain types of tinnitus developing.

Worse thing about tinnitus and hearing loss is that the more your hearing goes, the louder the tinnitus gets. Haven't heard proper silence in over a decade. Bit of a nightmare sometimes!

> pushing downward on the top of my head with my hands

Have you tried pulling up to make it less noticeable? I’ve long suspected my neck muscles had something to do with making tinnitus worse. Or, like you said, maybe there is a correlation or interaction with head & neck muscles that isn’t causal but nonetheless seems to affect the symptoms. Cervical traction, i.e. a device that pulls up on your head, sometimes seems to help me, as does neck stretching & relaxation. Make sure to consult a doctor or physical therapist about cervical traction, it’s easy to overdo it without guidance.

Interesting, that may help but if so only slightly. I wonder if an inversion table would help identify whether this helps/is a factor.

I think an inversion table might help my tinnitus slightly maybe but not much… it mostly helps and puts tension on the lower back, and a lot less on the neck. Inversion, or lumbar traction, seem to help with sciatica. (And yeah, that’s another one where it seems like there’s an interaction between muscles and nerves.)

I've seen this called Somatosensory Tinnitus [0], and it's what I have as well. Stretching my neck & clearing my ears of wax pretty much resolves it every time, or at least helps a lot.

I only have it on the left side, and my TMJ lines up marginally worse on that side, so it's probably related.

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S180759322...

I have exactly the same thing. Most tinnitus is caused damage to the hair cells in the cochlea from loud noises for extended periods of time (as is mine). My theory is that the brain basically turns up the gain to compensate for the poor performance of the sensor. I think tinnitus is basically interference, or cross-talk from other nervous processes that normally are low level background.

Last time I went for a hearing test the doctor asked me if I had been in an explosion (not to my knowledge).

It sounds like mine is the same flavor. And it's getting worse in the last couple of years. I even did MRI scan at some point, but it didn't reveal anything.

Recently a neurologist recommend transcranial electrical stimulation. Seems that it helps in some cases. Have to look around if someone is performing that here.

Very interesting. Jutting my jaw forward makes a very obvious loud squeal at what sounds like a lower frequency than my normal background tinnitus. I never noticed that before.

I do clench my teeth a lot from anxiety and get muscle pain in the sides of my face on occasion. I wonder if that’s related.

Exactly the same for me.

Mine is due to hearing damage from being stupid.

I can modulate it as well using my jaw muscles.

What I’ve always found interesting is that I can’t describe the sound. It’s high pitched, but I’ve never found a frequency of tone that matches or even comes close to the tinnitus.

I would imagine the signals my brain receives from the damaged nerves is very complex. Not white noise, but probably the equivalent of a tone with lots of specific harmonics.

As for my experience, it’s been an issue for so long it doesn’t generally affect me. It’s always there and I can’t ignore it, but it doesn’t disrupt my life, other than having generally not great hearing.

> - jutting my jaw forward

Works for me too. Never noticed it would do it before though. I’ve had very mild tinnitus for as long as I can remember. But I mostly only hear it when it’s quiet around so I’m lucky in that sense I guess.

I have this too, and in fact I can recall that tinnitus first came to me after it felt like something in my ear physically shifted, in a period of my life where I was not listening to loud music or going to loud concerts or otherwise being around loud noise. I should note I've had numerous ear problems in the past (including multiple colestiatomas), and I used to be able to manipulate it with a q-tip or popping my ears. (Don't do that! I regret it)

The head massage technique I've had some friends send me to temporarily alleviate symptoms never worked.

This is exactly the same as mine. I never found any with this situation. Even if someone claims to have tinnitus, it's a different variation.

My feeling is, for a lack of better word, grateful, (definitely not a good thing for your or me) that I finally found someone the same as mine.

Next time I ever want to see a doctor again for this (not helpful btw, they don't really have cure or seem to understand my situation), I will just show your comment!

if it helps you or your doctor, my experience is exactly the same. I can amplify the tinnitus with jaw movements

I have found that if I meditate and “focus” on the area where my inner ear/behind my ear is eventually I can quiet the tinnitus some or even completely. I’ve been able to reproduce it three or four different times. I imagine the nerve endings shrinking, receding, or calming down, and it causes some relief. Could be psychosomatic but it is repeatable and the effect lasts

I can only make it louder, not quieter :(

Yes, there are reports of trigger points in the jaw muscles being at least partially responsible for tinnitus (see e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Trigger-Point-Therapy-Workbook-Self-T... which, if you have any muscle related pains, will likely blow your mind.) I have exactly the same experience as you. I also get jaw induced headaches from biting my nails etc and my impression is that it is associated with an increase in my tinnitus.

Probably a related mechanism, but I can also sometimes hear my eye muscles working. It only happens if I'm sick or otherwise feeling under the weather, but moving my eyes rapidly is then associated with a swoosh-like auditory impression. I haven't heard anyone else experiencing this so far.

That's a peculiarly specific sort of autophony.

Interesting. I don't have tinnitus but when I jut my jaw forward I hear really low white noise.

interesting, I've just tried it and I get the same

It's fascinating how many people have various versions of these problems and a bunch of their own theories about it. And how many of them are frustrated by orthodontistry for not helping or causing it or making it worse.

For me, with tinnitus in one ear (buzzing), what helps is moving (and stretching) the jaw downwards and sideways away from that ear. The jaw bone on the side with tinnitus also makes a low cracking noise every time I make this move. Keeping my jaw in that weird position (downwards and sideways) turns off the buzzing many a times. But it’s temporary. It’s also not easy to keep the jaw in that tensed position for a long time. On the other hand, keeping my jaws relaxed does not make it better or worse.

I’d love to know if there are any videos of exercises that could help reduce or cure this form of tinnitus.

have you tried this

https://youtu.be/2yDCox-qKbk?si=eEjtlP97v8UiubX4

> suggests that (my flavor of tinnitus, at least) may be due to physical/muscle related causes

I have explosion-related tinnitus/hearing damage and it also reacts to muscle movements. So, it seems like they are the same.

I was curious and tried 'jutting my jaw forwards' and got a very loud whine in my ears. I've had ringing in my ears before but never diagnosed with tinnitus, now I'm worried...

As a child my teeth were corrected by pulling my lower jaw back with elastic bands. Not only do I have a weak chin because of this, but in hindsight I think my tinnitus might be related to this as well.

I have major distrust of orthodontics as a practice. I see it as chiropractic for teeth. I have permanent damage to one side of my jaw (TMJ) as a result of braces. They not only put unlevel bite blocks in, they did an extraction before putting my braces on. There is literature pointing to this as a common cause of TMJ issues.

I was told that the clicking sounds are just due to gas in the joint by a TMJ specialist, but I can literally feel my jaw jut to one side, so I'm convinced the bone is damaged.

Same!

I had braces as a kid and something always seemed off intuitively about how they "fixed" my teeth.

Also got TMJ, recessed chin, and i've never felt my breathing has been very good afterwards, like my whole face became too narrow after removing 4 molars making me just a bit less attractive.

And after deep diving orthodontics i'm pretty fucking mad. It seems there are way better methods that keep both aesthetics and a more natural breathing - ie. a little palate expansion to make space for your teeth instead of removing teeth and having braces for years.

It's even quicker, like what the actual!

I still have retainers on, and i'm considering having them removed and having rapid palate expansion done as others in this thread recommends. As they also point out, i also have a hard time breathing correctly during sports, and have been worrying over sleep apnea.

My breathing is impaired as well, there is simply not enough space in my mouth as a result of the fix.

Exactly, my tongue also seems like it's too big for my mouth afterwards.

I wonder if rapid palate expansion would fix this also.

Yes, me too. An ENT also told me that my tinnitus was muslce-related and I got huge relief (low tones totally disappeared) from some good physiotherapy and osteopathy. (See my other comment)

I've had the unfortunate "superpower" of living with central sensitization and hyperalgesia - a hypersensitivity to pain - for the last ~10 years.

Not everyone's nervous system works this way but for a significant portion of the population there is the capacity of the nerves to refer pain to other parts of the body, whether in the nerves themselves or signalling in the brain region itself cascading or both.

There also seems to be a lack of understanding or consideration that merely normal pressures on nerves, with subtle levels of additional pressure, will actually cause a pain signal or sensitization of that nerve line (either or both directions) to occur.

What you state could be a clue to pain somewhere in your body. It could be tooth pain, it could be jaw pain, it could be bite-alignment pain, e.g. where your jaw position and bite with teeth is causing pressure on nerves that it doesn't expect or want.

It could also instead be a hypersensitivity to sound you have, and so those nerve line(s) are amped up - so then anything connected or in close proximity to it will then

From my experience with pain, 99.999% of doctors have no real understanding of pain, and there's a whole body of work waiting to be written and to start being taught closer to properly; and the rest of them still only have a fairly niche but not holistic understanding.

There is a book called "Hearing Equals Behaviour: Updated and Expanded" that dives into a sound therapy developed 70+ years ago in France, called Berard AIT [Auditory Integration Training], for where you can do a non-standard audiogram to check for imbalances in the hearing - for which at certain frequencies you can with accuracy predict a set of behaviours that person will likely have. If such imbalances show up in these special audiograms then it's either a sign of damage or a sign of how the brain is processing audio-sensory signals, and which may been interfered with - proper development disrupted - if say you had painful ear infections as a child who's brain is rapidly developing, and now where your brain is abnormally associating sound as pain. Berard AIT can get rid of tinnitus, depending on its cause, essentially giving the brain an opportunity to recalibrate.

Did you ever have ear infections as a child, and do you remember if they were painful at all?

Same here. Mine is basically directly correlated with bite pressure. When I'm chewing sometimes I can literally hear the ringing going "wah, wah, wah" in time with my chewing. And if I grit my teeth I can make it get much louder than its baseline. Same if I open my jaw quite wide (sometimes this helps?). I've ground my teeth my whole life. And I can definitely point at one or two concerts that probably did some significant damage.

I’ve an issue similar to yours, playing with my jaws especially yawning seems to increase the whistle while I’m doing it, then it come back to normal. I can hear it almost onyl at night and only in the right ear. Sometimes when I yawn a lot I can dismiss it totally (at least for that night) What the hell is this? I also did a hearing test and I’ve no problem.

I have the exact same experience. I believe it's called "somatic tinnitus" and I've had it for as long as I can remember.

Every now and then I get ringing in my ears that fade out quickly, which is normal. I always thought that was the sort of constant ringing people had when they talk about tinnitus, and the one you describe is a different class of tinnitus.

Yes it's somatic tinnitus. I can make mine go away for a few hours, sometimes a whole day by loosening up my SCM muscles and popping my neck. Other times it backfires and gets worse. Very annoying, but the ability to have SOME control over it makes things less depressing at least.

Same here! Mine is in one ear, mild, started with a sinus infection and changes depending on whether I have a cold or not.

I initially assumed it was caused by babies / children - we have three and they are loud. Plus my kids have screamed directly into my ears on occasion (and been punished for it).

This is interesting in terms of tinnitus that can be brought on after a car accident, or a concussion. And maybe as a derivative of the former, TMJ.

A muscle related tinnitus seems entirely plausible to me in addition to any potential nerve related tinnitus tied to, for example, listening to loud music.

Interesting.. moving muscles does nothing for me. But then again I was born with tinnitus. I actually didn't know until much later in life that a constant multi-tone ringing in your ears is NOT normal - that was simply my reality so I assumed it was the same for everyone.

> I don’t know if this is a clue, but I can do muscle movements in my head/face/jaw to make the tinnitus worse (only as I make the movements, immediately reverting back to “normal” tinnitus as soon as I relax).

I can do that as well.

> pushing downward on the top of my head with my hands

I've never tried or noticed this before until you mentioned it, but this makes my tinitus noticeably worse. It's not really louder, but seems to add "harmonics".

same. wow this really lends to the "it's physical" theory

Try putting your fingers in your ears and massaging around. I've found it gives me complete relief for about 10 seconds.

I think mine might be related to stress, hypertension, and an all-around lack of relaxation.

I have had tinnitus for about 7 or 8 years now in varying intensities and somehow have never thought to do this as an extended exercise (a good 30 seconds of massaging just now).

I'm not gonna say I heard silence for the first time in years or anything, but I just heard something relatively close, for just a short little while.

The audiologist I saw when this all first started also assumed it was stress and/or blood pressure and/or modern way of life issues, as she couldn't find anything physically wrong with my ears.

You're onto something here.

I've just discovered, thanks to this, that my tinnitus stops for a brief moment if I move my jaw forward. Thanks for the moment of relief.

Same here. Head and neck movement can make my tinnitus worse. If I sleep poorly on my neck then I can wake up with my tinnitus being much louder.

Could be TMJ. Look up TMJ massage by Bob and Brad. Could also be high cranial pressure. Look up IIH for that.

Where are you based, and would you want to troubleshoot with a friend who notices similar things? :)

Jutting my jaw forwards has the same effect on me. But not the other two.

Makes me curious!

Tinnitus was one of the reasons I stopped cracking my neck - would trigger it shortly after.

Could it be that those movements are pinching a nerve somewhere and causing the tinnitus?

Yup. Pushing jaw forward is the most prominent one. Goes up a lot.

My ears ring when I yawn. Does anyone else get that?

Yep same here, and I don’t have tinnitus. Sometimes I seem to get it temporarily though, for unclear reasons.

It can have to do with allergies. However, it might be something else if it has recently worsened or become more noticeable. Has it always been the same?

Do you have TMJ?

> moving my ears back with my face muscles

Uh, this has always made me hear a high-pitched whirr. Like a tiny buzzer with a dirty power supply. Huh.

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