2 Weeks In, This Sucks, Would Love Your Thoughts

Hey guys,

So wanted to introduce myself. My name's Edwin and I'm not sure what's going on with me, but yeah, I have tinnitus right now.

Here's what happened...

2 weeks ago I was listening to music at work on my earbuds, and when I pulled them out I heard this static sound out of my left ear. When I moved my jaw around the static frequency would change and get louder or quieter. This went away after 5 minutes. But I was left with a ringing sound in my left ear a day later sounded like it was coming out of both ears or inside my head--hard to tell.

The ringing sounds at about a 3. During the day I can hear it faintly if I pay attention, but it does get drowned out by normal everyday sounds. I went to urgent care and the doctor said it should probably go away in a few days. But days went by and the more I googled around the more I started to panic. Reading how tinnitus is incurable and listening to some of the horror stories freaked me out.

I've haven't really had anxiety before outside of normal things like social events or presentations, stuff like that. But I was flooded by anxiety and panic. I felt deep dread for the first time. I had dark thoughts about how this would be with me my whole life. How I would get married with tinnitus in my ear, see my child born with tinnitus in my ear, grow old with tinnitus in my ear--you get the picture. I even thought about suicide briefly. Something I never thought I'd ponder, but just a momentary thought, thankfully.

I was angry at myself. And just sad. Really sad.

My dad suffers from anxiety attacks and this made me relate to him so deeply. I talk to him about it and in an effort to help him I had read up on anxiety so I was lucky that I already knew some ways to cope which helped me out a lot.

Anyways...

So I go to my primary doctor and he says it may go away, but he ends up looking up my nose and says I have allergies. Puts me on claritin and nasal steroid spray. He says something about how sound escapes through the nose and it should probably get rid of it.

The next two days it seemed to make my tinnitus quieter, maybe a 1 or 2 and sometimes I swear I couldn't hear it at all. I felt pure relief and joy. But a couple days later it came back at about a 3 again.

Got referred to an ENT (that never answers his phone) so I'm trying to get an appointment at the moment. I've got allergies, congestion, and has some slight damage from an accident a couple years ago where i landed on my nose and cut it open (never went to the doc for it).

I'm hoping to finally get answers so I can figure out how to proceed.

Funny enough, I talked to my dad and he said he has tinnitus too, and has had it for years after working with loud drills. He said it gets better and it doesn't bug him at all. Says he can't hear it unless he focuses on it.

My dad and people's stories here give me hope that it gets better. And for that I thank you. But I wake up wishing every day that it just goes away.

I've made a promise to take care of myself. And so far I have. I've lost like 6 pounds because I'm walking and exercising daily to help with the anxiety, and I'm eating super clean. Also gave up vaping, alcohol, and caffeine.

 

Sounds like noise induced tinnitus.

Throw the earbuds away, and protect from any further noise exposure.

Give it 3 to 12 months and it should reduce or go away. This problem will definitely test your patience.

 

Sinusitis can partly or completely block airways and lead to sinus-induced ringing in the ears.

The pressing of the swollen sinus cavity or the increase of pressure caused as you start to blow your nose can exert pressure on the ear drum, which then reacts through ear ringing. Additionally, when your nasal pathway is blocked (sometimes with the addition of side of nose injury), the ear canal also gets blocked, causing a disruption of the flow of sound into the ears. The ear then concentrates on the internal noise, which creates a ringing noise. From any pressure to your eardrum, nerves and muscles can react to certain noise and levels of that noise. This is more common when ear air pressure is being blocked (headphones - earbuds) as it's already probably at least somewhat blocked from nasal tube areas. Some people may hear the blood flowing and heartbeat in their ear.

 

Welcome to the forum. Your dad's experience and approach to tinnitus is something you can learn from. He has habituated to his tinnitus so the brain can fade it out of his consciousness. Some members here have loud T, myself included. But when we don't focused on it, we may not be aware that it is there. So you can learn from your dad how he has reached the state of habituation. Your description of you T points to a mild T and that means you have a very good chance to fade it out and habituate to it like you dad. But you must be patient that during the new stage, your brain will pay attention to it because you think it is something serious enough to consider suicide, even for a while. That is not the signal you want to send to your brain. When the brain doesn't think T is that important, then it will gradually learn to ignore the T, and this takes time. So give yourself and your body time to heal and be very patient with the current state. I encourage you read up as many success stories as you can so you will have more hope for the future. Good luck. God bless.

 

It ought to either go away within 3-12 months, or you will get used to it after about 12-18 months. Just make sure to not hurt your ears again - they might be more vulnerable now than they used to be before they got compromised.

 

it's noise induced dude