Mikki

Hi all, my symptoms started in the first week of 2019 after months of ear wax build up. It started with a very mild hiss in my right ear. Initially, it was a muffled sound as the wall of wax kept it at bay. At this stage, I could manage sleep by pressing my ringing right ear hard against the pillow.


Eventually, I went to my doctors and had both ears irrigated. My left ear cleared completely however my right ear kept ringing constantly. This caused me great anxiety and a certain amount of panic set in and I began to struggle to sleep. At this point, I started to read about the subject on the tinnitus uk site. This gave me hope but still the noise dragged on and on. The tips to control my condition did help. I stopped the booze and started drinking decaf tea and coffee.


As suggested online, I bought a sleep mask with-in built speakers to aid my sleep. These worked a treat for a couple of weeks but eventually the heat generated by my face and forehead disturbed my rest so I pushed the boat out and bought a set of Sleepbuds. These really helped my sleep patterns (in my opinion). Although I tend to wake up briefly every couple of hours during my sleep, I do manage to get a good seven hours or so most nights which is a godsend. Without sleep I really don’t believe I could function.


My next move was to visit my doctor once more to remove excess wax deep inside my ear canal (right ear). The irrigation made me very dizzy so it was stopped before I keeled over. I then paid to visit an ENT Consultant at a local hospital to get the offending wax removed by suction. This was successfully done but my ears and headspace felt full of a kind of electrical field. This lasted for a couple of weeks. Eventually, the sounds scaled down to a point where I could happily ignore for most of the time but not during sleep.


However, around 10 days ago I was lightly sanding a floor in my home and wore over head and over ear noise protectors. After half an hour I removed them and the head and ear blast returned and I was back to square one.


The odd day in seven my symptoms mildly annoy me but for the rest it’s constantly there, affecting everything and anything I do or watch. As I’m retired, I find myself clock-watching all day and really try hard to do the stuff I like to do like walking, diy-ing, gardening and listening to music etc. I’m now a stickler for ear protection measures. I love attending live music events and have bought a set of “Earpeace” devices (Silicon) to filter the sounds. I hope they work.


Finally, I have an appointment at my local hospital this Friday for an audiology test. I’m almost wishing they find a problem so I can take steps to minimise this constant companion.