Gareth Davies

Months...

Mind if I ask if it was your first ear infection? And whether it was inner or middle infection?
I hope yours settles down.

It was my first ever ear infection. Was initially an outer ear infection and then became an middle ear infection.

The only difference is that the pressure in my right-ear (the one that was infected) is gone and I had a decongestant before going to sleep (I take a nasal spray in the morning.)

Other than that, no loud noise exposure during the day; so I don’t know why it’s happening :(
It’s been okay recently. Now it’s a horrific high-pitch scream.

Apparently “decongestants (pseudoephedrine) can aggravate tinnitus by raising blood pressure” - well, last time I have one.
I took it because I thought it would help my ETD...

He printed off a couple of pieces of paper from the tympanometry machine; one indicated my left ear (which he stated looked normal) and the second my right ear, which had the infection, the reading on that was abnormal. I haven't flown anywhere in more than a month. I also have a weird sticky/crackly feeling whenever I move the right-side of my face.

An extended audiogram tests for hearing loss in the upper high frequencies. Standard audiograms only measure up to 8khz, and do not cover the 8khz-16khz range that is covered by an extended audiogram. Ask for one although not every place will offer one - you may need to call around! I know they sometimes use extended audiograms to test hearing loss in cancer patients, as many cancer drugs are ototoxic.

Alternatively, you could have hidden hearing loss, which is damage to the synapses that connect to the hair cells - this is not measurable on an audiogram and typically manifests as speech in noise difficulties.

However, the good news is that for most people it gets better. There's even a pretty good chance that eventually you will get to the "can hear it only in quiet rooms" stage. You will want to make sure that you don't hurt your ears during this period of vulnerability as your body is healing.

You will want to avoid taking ototoxic drugs, avoid microsuction or syringing (performed when you need to clean wax out of your ears; a manual tool should be used), and not let your dental hygienist use an ultrasonic scaling tool on you (a manual tool should be used).

For more details, see

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/tinnitus-week-2018-what-advice-would-you-give-to-someone-else-who-has-tinnitus.26850/#post-307822