2 Weeks

[Lintho]

Hello Dr. Nagler.

I've had ringing in my ear(s) since the end of August (28th-29th), at least that's when I noticed it. I did go to a concert on the 14th of August at it was very loud. I thought I had brought earplugs but had left them in a purse at home. After I came home and was going to sleep my ears rang. The strange thing is that for the next almost 2 weeks I did not notice any ringing. I read, studied, went to bed at night - in silence. A few days after the onset I went to see an ENT, who checked my ears, said they looked fine and sent me to do a hearing test a few days later. The test went fine, no hearing loss and they didn't think it had anything to do with the concert I went to. The sound in my ears continued and made me a complete wreck, I also had a bit of pain in the ears. On the 8th of September I saw another ENT. I had another hearing test, a bit more extended than the first. That showed I have very good hearing but a dip at around 6000 Hz on my left ear which she said probably is due to damage from the concert (my left ear was closer to the speaker) and that is why I hear this ringing. She said it was chronic and that I would learn to live with it in time. They gave me a prescription of Zoloft. She did not have any idea on why they tinnitus came 2 weeks after the voice exposure.

My questions: Is there any explanation to why I didn't notice the ringing/ there was no ringing for the first two weeks? It just seems strange to me.
Is there any hope of it not being chronic? I think it has lowered in tone the last 2 weeks, it is now a high pitch metallic sound. Daytime if I have things to do I don't hear it very often. It's mostly when I go to bed or if it's silent around me I can here it. Or when I focus on it which I do far to often.

Thank you,
Linda

 

[Dr. Nagler]

Hi @Lintho -

Thank you for your question.

When a person first becomes aware of tinnitus, it is very common for that person to search and search for a possible cause. In your case you noticed tinnitus on August 28th and settled on the concert you attending two weeks earlier as the culprit - because that's what made most sense. But the fact is that you might just as well have developed tinnitus on the 28th even had you not attended the concert. Indeed, that is most likely the case - since it would be very rare for tinnitus to first rear its head a full two weeks after a noise insult.

Is there any hope of it's not being chronic? Of course. The vast majority of tinnitus cases just seem to settle out on their own within a few weeks to a few months. What you have here on this board is very much the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, according to your post it already seems to be lower over the past couple of weeks.

What should you do at this point? Well, I'm going to copy from a response I posted just yesterday to a similar question ...

"If things are going in an overall positive direction for you, and you are satisfied with your progress, I'd do nothing save for making a conscious effort to spend less and less time on tinnitus boards. Why? Because as I see it you spend enough time necessarily attending to your tinnitus as is. Why spend even one minute unnecessarily attending to it? And if things are already going well for you, that's what the net result of being on tinnitus boards is doing: unnecessarily attending to your tinnitus."

Finally, in terms of its being more pronounced in silent environments, like in bed at night, try to keep some soft sound around you to take the edge off a bit. No need to try to mask your tinnitus unless you wish to do so. Just try to avoid total silence. Perhaps look into getting a Tranquil Moments Plus tabletop device at Brookstone. Something like that.

All the best -

Dr. Stephen Nagler