I have bouts of BPPV like this, an extremely common condition which is vertigo and/or tinnitus due to calcium crystals in the ear interacting with either hearing and/or balance.

I get bouts of this from wearing sealed headphones for too long (not specifically noise cancelling headphones but pretty relevant since noise cancelling headphones almost always form an airtight seal with the ear to work so they too fall into this category).

I think for myself there's certain atmospheric conditions that lead to the otoconia (the crystals that cause it) irritating my hearing and sealed over the ear headphones are a huge cause for me.

Might be worth looking into. The treatment for BPPV is to move your head in specific ways to shake the crystals out which is damn simple to do too so if it is the cause it's actually quite treatable.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-t...

No, the opposite. If I take a long-haul flight (intercontinental) without using noise-cancelling headphones I'll have increased tinnitus for the next month. That problem is greatly reduced if I use the headphones. When that's said, the newer planes like e.g. the Airbus A350, if your're sitting in a reasonably good spot, has vastly less noise than the ones I used to fly in the past (747, for example).

I get that feeling too. I have the Samsung Galaxy buds3 pro. They seem to be worse than my Bose 700. After wearing them for a while with NC, I feel like I have to take them off or turn the sound louder. I defaulted to using them with NC off unless I'm in a very loud environment.

Yes! I love my Airpods Max more than any other headphone ever but I wear them all the time and mt tinnitus is crazy. Should stop wearing them, at least reduce.

Absolutely. They probably 10X the intensity of my every-day tinnitus.

Yep, even when they have sound going through them 100% of the time as to not hear my tinnitus. I would expect sudden quiet making me pay attention to it again causing it to be worse but nope, doesn't matter.

Not really but I really only use them for about 30 minutes per day as I go on a walk, so it's not prolonged exposure.