Cold (or Injury?) and Tinnitus

For the past week, I had a pretty bad cold, i'm fine now, and my ears were fine until about 2 or 3 days ago. I had gotten sick about a month early (I know, my luck) and my right ear's Eustachian tube was pretty swollen and I had a full ear feeling for a while. This clogged feeling has come back and now there is a pretty significant ringing sound with it and i'm pretty scared that this might not diminish with time.

I'm scared because 2 days ago when I was really mad, I pretty much slammed my hand over my right ear (not full force, but pretty hard). Really stupid, I know. After the hit, I felt some pretty significant pain in the ear, but i'm not sure if this caused the ringing as I have ear infection and I read that this can also cause a ringing problem. I went to a doctor yesterday and i'm taking antibiotics for the infection and decongestants and flonase to try and drain the fluid in my ear.

My main concern is with the ringing. I'm scared that when I was mad and hit myself, I might have caused some permanent damage to my ear (because it did hurt after, but I can't tell if it was from the ear infection or not). My right ear is pretty full and clogged right now, so I don't know if this is the cause of my ringing or if there is any damage from that slap, or whether or not it will diminish in time. I've been growing more and more depressed thinking that I might have to live with this ringing because of a really stupid impulse since i've been reading from various forums that permanent damage never heals; any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

Hi Tyler,
I think its the ear infection and mucous in your tubes.
Tinnitus can hang around for a few weeks after the infection has gone !
Steam inhalation can help clear your tubes.
Try not stress yourself wondering if you caused the ringing etc as stress can feed your tinnitus making it spike .
Do what you can to relax over the weekend and keep relaxing music on to help and mask the tinnitus.

Keep posting as we are here around the clock to support you....lots of love glynis

 

I've mentioned this in a couple of other threads, but I took Sudafed for the same thing a few weeks ago, and my ears cleared up very quickly.

 

@glynis Thank you for your encouraging words. Hopefully this will pass.

@racerfish I have been taking a sudafed decongestant and a steroid nose spray for the past 4 days, maybe slight improvement, but definitely hard to tell with the ringing.

Bad news is that last night was probably the worst sleep I've gotten since this has began. I drove back up to college and last night was my first night and the ringing was horrible;I got maybe 3 hours of sleep. I did drink some caffeine for the road trip so hopefully tonight will be better if I don't take any caffeine. Also went to the doctors today and he said that there is still some inflammation on the ear drum and this could be preventing the ear drum from vibrating normally. He couldn't tell if there was any fluid in the ear still though, but my Eustachian tube keeps crackling and popping when I eat or sallow and he said this is also a sign of inflammation that will pass with time. He also suggested Benadryl. He also referred me to an ENT specialist which I may book an appointment with soon.

I'm praying there is some improvement in the near future, the idea of this ringing for life really scares me. I never really thought about my ear health until now and this definitely has made me aware to take more careful care of it, as you only got one set of ears. I wish everyone else out there good luck as well

 

Thought I would update this. It's been 13 days, and I finished the 10 day antibiotic course a couple of days ago and saw zero improvement with that. On Friday, I panicked a bit and was (am kinda still am) convinced that I might has sudden hearing loss from that cold. I went to another doctor 4 days ago and got prednisone for a 3 week course (60mg for 2 weeks then taper off). The steroids seemed to have helped the tinnitus, as I can barley hear it, even in a quiet room, which is good. I still, however, have some hearing loss that doesn't seem to have improved. The hearing loss isn't horrible but defiantly noticeable (I can hear conversations no problem, but the ear feels kinda of muffled or off, and I especially notice it when I walk into a new room and notice that my right ear feels dull).

I'm hoping this isn't sudden hearing loss as I started the steroids 9 days after the onset which typically isn't as good as starting within 3 days. I'm not sure if it's Eustachian tube problems since I don't really feel any fluid in my right ear, and i'm kinda able to pop it just by yawning, but my eustachian tube also pops very easily when I blow my nose (my left ear never does this, so i'm thinking it may still be inflamed or sticky?). Also, strangely enough, I don't seem to have any hearing loss when wearing earbuds or headphones, but i'm not sure what this means.

I took an audio test on Monday and have an ENT appointment on Thursday where he'll go over the audio results with me, and i'm just hoping this is a temporary problem. Wish everyone out there good luck as well.

 

The ENT yesterday showed my audiogram results and said that both ears had perfect hearing and were well in the normal range, which is great news. Told me to stop the prednisone since I don't have any hearing loss. The ringing is quiet and pretty much only noticeable when I try and listen to it, and even then it's still fairly faint.

The only annoying thing is that my right ear still feels muffled or off, it's a weird sensation. He said that there is no nerve or hearing loss problems and that there is no fluid in my ear and my Eustachian tubes are working fine. He thinks the problem is just inflammation and that it could take a month or two to fully recover. Told me to see him again in june if the problem hasn't resolved itself, but he seemed very confident it would clear up, so fingers crossed.