After Somewhat Loud Relatives, Video Games and Music, Tinnitus Changed and Pressure/Ache in Ears

Spent a few hours today caring for my smaller cousins, wore ear protection as they played video games at a moderate sound level. Spent a bit of time afterwards talking with relatives, my aunt in particular is a bit loud and they played a bit of music that wasn’t too loud. I wore foam earplugs throughout the whole thing and when I got home I was worried my tinnitus would be a lot louder. The tone in my right ear had changed a bit and I woke up at 5 am with this slight pressure/ache in both of my ears and its a bit louder. I am worried that I may have caused some acoustic trauma despite wearing foam earplugs. I do have reactive tinnitus and am still recovering from a spike

I feel that I made a really bad mistake despite trying to be as careful as possible. Please help, does this sound like it can lead to worsening tinnitus? I took 1800 mg of NAC and 200 mg of Magnesium. I am still awake and can’t go back to sleep since I am so worried. I’ll be staying home awhile to rest my ears.

The earplugs were foam btw so they should’ve had a 32 dB noise reduction.

 

Were they inserted properly? (All the way?)

 

There's a proper way to insert foam plugs, which not many people know of. You have to roll them so they are thin enough to go all the way, while putting pressure on them when they are inserted until they reach their full size and pulling up the top part of your ear to empty air.

Yet I'm pretty much convinced your issue is anxiety related. You keep monitoring your tinnitus, which is the best way to make it appear louder.

 

This is just my opinion, of course, but I really don't think you should be using hearing protection for the scenario you described, and there's absolutely no way that it could have resulted in an acoustic trauma. If you continue to wear earplugs for everyday noise, your ears will continue to be overly sensitive to even moderate sounds, and you'll never habituate to any level of tinnitus.

I used to be the way you are now, beating myself up for not being more careful around noise that I perceived as loud. It wasn't until I stopped overprotecting that I was able to let go of all that. This is the reality of my situation: when I was trying to control every sound I heard, I had good and bad tinnitus days. As of today, I haven't worn earplugs or earmuffs in almost 7 months, and I still have good and bad tinnitus days. So, I've decided that I'd much rather just live my life, with reasonable precautions, than give in to the anxiety. Today, my tinnitus is worse than yesterday, but instead of worrying that it'll never go down again, I just assume it will. That small attitude adjustment makes a huge difference in how I approach the day.

 

Did your pressure ever go down? Personally I am experiencing a weird pressure / fullness myself today which is quite annoying. I'm pretty much unable to relax.

 

Hey, yeah it did eventually resolve. I was still in the middle of a pretty bad spike so my ears were still very sensitive. I'm so sorry you are going through that as well, sometimes that ache/pressure feeling is more concerning than the tinnitus itself.

Hope you get better, sleeping it off after taking 300-600 mcg Melatonin usually helps me!