2-Week Tinnitus Spike After Headphone Use (for 2 Hours with Regular Breaks)

Well... I guess I messed up very severely. My tinnitus was getting back to what i would call basically inaudible after having it for 2 years. I would sit in bed at night and it was incredibly quiet, almost like rustling in the wind, I had a lot of hope that it was almost gone.

However, I live in a pretty noisy house and I have to do work at my desk a lot and talk to people and everything so I got some headphones to isolate the noise better so I can talk to people, listen to music a bit etc. Well, I kind of messed up. My volume kept creeping up throughout the day, I was thrilled with how nice they sounded, I was so happy... And then my tinnitus spiked and I realised how loud I had been listening. I immediately switched off my amp and just jumped into bed.

I basically drank myself to sleep, the ringing was unbearably loud and almost like a high static sound that I could hear over everything. I had only listened for around 2 hours total and regularly took breaks but I noticed that my hearing felt muffled and dull.

I'm really praying that this spike will go down but it's been over 2 weeks now.

 

I know this sounds strange, but generally when I hear people talking about acoustic trauma or spikes, they generally describe ear fullness. However, with my recent spike from loud music, I did not get any fullness of ears that I can recall. What I did get was almost like an uncomfortable, slightly painful dull hollow feeling and slightly muffled hearing. The tinnitus was kind of a high pitched TV static sound that reacted to everything. It didn't sound that loud at the time, so I'm beginning to think that my ears were a bit muffled/blocked at the time, causing me to turn the music up.

This is because the night before, I got a kind of cold painful feeling in my ears after being outside in the cold and my hearing was muffled when I came back inside. I also felt a bit dizzy/painful after coming out of the bath the day before and noticed that when listening to music at a quite volume over speakers, I could not hear the higher frequencies properly and it just sounded quieter than usual. I also had to stop listening because it made my tinnitus go crazy after 30 minutes.

I have ETD, but after the event, I got checked by an ENT and they did a tympanogram and apparently, my ears are functioning normally now as far as pressure goes, but I noticed it spiked up a bit again and when I got home, I noticed that there was some thick white discharge from my nose which was white with some solid-ish brown stuff (I'm guessing blood). So it could be a sinus infection? They checked my ears canals for inflammation, but didn't see anything, however, I have been on prednisone after the spike, which may have reduced the redness.

Because the doctor thinks that it is unlikely that the spike is related to the music (I'm not super sure myself, it was pretty loud, but not for long, an hour or two). I have been put on antibiotics for a possible sinus infection and I have been on prednisone just in case because I was desperate, however, I have noticed some pain around my jaw with my left ear which has not gone away, I have also noticed it spike depending on how I move my jaw or sleep. Could it be a bacterial infection of the sinuses/ear?

Is it possible that sinus pressure/infection could be the primary cause of the spike? It has only gone down a little bit with the prednisone.

I realise that this sounds like a crazy set of circumstances but, it's been a very confusing couple of weeks. I would really appreciate some advice on what to do. I'm losing a bit of hope and I'm just very worried.

 

Did your spike ever go away? I am in a similar boat.