Acoustic Shock Stinks

Hi All

I am new to this site so I figured this would be a good time to introduce myself and explain how I got Tinnitus.
I, being a young person am a big fan of music, however I am not a fan of paying for music, fortunately youtube offers music for free. For the last several years I have been listening to music on my phone with ear buds, even at max volume my ears never hurt and I never felt uncomfortable because of the music. Back in December I bought a Turtlebeach headset for my Xbox One, the standard headset they give you is a piece of junk and broke constantly; in the two years that I have owned my Xbox One I had gone through five headsets, all at thirty dollars a pop.

So with this in mind, I shelled out the money for a nice Turtlebeach headset the 420x for those who are curious. Now originally I only used the headset for talking to my friends, but being able to play out game and video audio I eventually started using it for listening to music. Well one day I was extremely bored house sitting for my grandmother who had went to visit her grand children, I had just watched a movie and nothing was recently posted to my favorite youtuber channels so I decided to listen to some music before joining my friend's Xbox Live game, I started listening to some songs and saw a thumbnail for a song I hadn't listened to in a long time. The previous songs were mixed in such a way that even at max volume they were only loud enough to be enjoyable, however like a moron I forgot to lower the audio before clicking on the next song and I had completely forgotten that this song was mixed really REALLY loudly.

The song nearly blew out my ears instantly, I tossed off the headset and shouted in pain as my ears throbbed. I went to the quietest room in the house and didn't hear anything so I figured I was safe just in pain. I waited a week and the pain hadn't gone away so I went to the doctor, now I was in a lot of pain and the ENT was closed, living out in the middle of nowhere Nevada I had to go to Walmart to see the doctor, who told me she saw clear fluid in my ears and noticed some swelling, she then gave me Ibprohin and an anti-histamine I believe and told me to follow the instructions for a few days and then stop taking the medicine.

I followed the instructions and the pain went down, then after a few days of stopping the pain returned so I scheduled a visit to an actual ENT. At the time I didn't have any ringing in my ears during the day but at night I noticed some always around 1:00am strangely enough so I figured it was something going on in the environment. Anyways I saw the ENT and he told me he had seen things like this before and that it was Acoustic Shock and that in a few months the pain should go away and that I should be fine. He also told me he didn't see any fluid in my ears and that I should only take the pain killers when I was in pain. Well I did and around mid April I noticed what I can only describe as a wooshing in my ears similar to the sound you hear in your ears when you are straining if that makes sense, later on about the start of May or so it seems to have escalated to a quiet hiss in my ears, only really noticeable when it is totally quiet or mostly quiet. The only thing I think might have escalated my ear issue is I had to travel over the mountains to the Bay Area for a job interview and maybe the change in air pressure further damaged my ears.

today is June 1st so it has been nearly three long months since this debacle began, I still have pain periodically in my ears and a hissing in my ears. I know that in some rare lucky cases that people who haven't had T in their ears for long it goes away, but being someone who has some seriously rotten luck in his life that I am not holding my breath.

So a few questions for the hardcore vets and admins of this forum. 1) How long should I wait to confirm that my T will be permanent? I have another ENT apt, on Friday but I was wondering from vets on this site what is the longest period of time you guys and gals have seen before someone's temporary T goes away? I did see the other day in the forum that one guy had T for about 4.5 months and it went away, congrats to him btw.

2) For those who had pain in their ears before or during their T, did the pain ever go away and if not how do you manage the pain? I really don't want to be popping painkillers my whole life.

Now for somethings that I have learned over the last few months. My dad and grandmother both have bad hearing problems, they don't have T but they have pretty noticeable hearing loss. According to my dad with some of the recent advances in Stem Cells that perhaps in five to ten years we may have a way to regrow the hairs in your inner ears, this would cure hearing loss but it is a 50/50 chance that it can cure T so fingers cross on that one.

One of the only good things to come out of the war in Iraq is that more soldiers were coming down with hearing loss and T, and the advances in medical science these days are astounding so it is nice to know that people are taking T seriously now.

However if T really is brain damage which hopefully it isn't, a cure for T if possible is probably not going to come out in the near future maybe a few decades down the line if ever .

And if that fails hopefully we can have some cool sci-fi technology to cure T, can I get a whoop whoop for a Ghost in The Shell style Cyber Brain lol! (hell even if my T goes away I would volunteer for that procedure, because who wouldn't want to be an awesome cyborg, super hacker XD)

Anyways in all seriousness I am doing my best to adjust to this condition and joining this forum is one of my steps to do that is to join this forum. I am a friendly guy and I am very sympathetic to people with this condition, especially ones who have it worse than I do; mine is driving me nuts and I only have mine at a low volume, I can't imagine what it would be like for people who have it like a jet engine in their ears.

 

A warm welcome to Tinnitus Talk Derek D.
I have just read your story and will answer your questions.
As a rough guide six months is about the time limit for tinnitus to go and after that it cound be more perminant but sill has a chance to go.

The pain might be from pressure build up if have fluid in your ears and should settle down but get your ears checked in a few weeks if still the same.
You might want to get a hearing test to check your hearing is ok too....lots of love glynis

 

Thanks Glynis; I am going to the ENT tomorrow afternoon he will look if it's fluid in my ears, I will probably have a hearing test as well.

 

Hi @Derek D so you find your pain management ok with those two drugs? Do you react to sound with more pain?

 

Hey @Blackbrid26 well I have not taken any pain killers in a few weeks however I have been resetting the pressure in my ears. Anyways still have the hissing in my ears probably going to be permanent but I am trying not to be to down about it. Hopefully soon there will be a cure for hearing loss and tinnitus in the semi near future.