Another Distressed Tinnitus Sufferer Here

Hello - I am new to this forum.

I have had some kind of mild tinnitus for much of my adult life and have lived with it, chalked it up to too many loud rock concerts when I was younger. I would listen to white noise type sounds if it is bothering me at night.

I am 44 now, and recently have started experiencing pulsatile tinnitus, which at first I didn't even associate or realize could be tinnitus. It is in my left ear. I had problems in the past with this ear becoming plugged up with wax, so I thought maybe that could be a factor and put some ear drops in a few times and let the shower run in my ear in an attempt to irrigate it a bit.

After two days or so of that, we left town for a family trip and in the car I started experiencing noise distortion while listening to music. It was awful and scary, especially because I have always used singing and dancing to help me cope with my anxiety and depression.

As soon as we got home I went to an urgent care doctor and they removed lot of wax from my ear, and said they could see moisture behind the eardrum, and assured me that as soon as that evaporated it would go away.

The doctor said if it didn't resolve on its own in 24 hours to use Afrin nasal spray to try and help dry out the moisture. I have used Afrin 2x day for 3 days without results.

Waiting to hear back from the doctor on what to do next, but meanwhile I am struggling - higher pitched voices sound robotic, certain frequencies or tones in music sound completely off key and distorted. At night I used to be able to use white noise to mask the regular ringing tinnitus but it doesn't help with the pulsing heartbeat sound.

My "regular" tinnitus is also much worse and louder now. And during the day I can better ignore both of those sounds with ambient noise but the distortion of voices and music is extremely upsetting. It is hard to imagine going through life like this. This is causing me a lot of despair.

I'm here to help explore what steps to take next...

 

I'm new to this (2.5 weeks!) but would probably see an ENT vs an urgent care doc. My audiology friend said never to let anyone irrigate my ear (what my GP had done once) but always to go to an audiologist or ENT for wax removal. Others will know better, but in your shoes I'd probably go to a specialist.