Coronavirus Gave Me Tinnitus and Intermittent Hyperacusis

Hello everyone,

My name's Oscar and I live in Spain. I'm 31 years old and I, like most people, was unaware of the existence of this demonic condition up until two months after contracting COVID-19.

This beast showed its face without any previous warning and now I'm stuck with a constant high pitched ringing at around 12.5 kHz that remains unchanged in tone and volume no matter what I eat or drink. I've tried multiple supplements and they seem to make no difference whatsoever in my tinnitus.

What I've noticed is that if one night I get little to no sleep, a different monster arises the next morning: Hyperacusis. It makes certain sounds like cutlery against plates cut through my ears like a knife through butter...

And these are only two of the many symptoms I get on a daily basis ever since getting the virus. It's what they call "long COVID-19", but that's another story.

I hope to find some peace with this because I'm 6 months since onset and honestly suicide is becoming more and more appealing every day.

Best wishes to all sufferers.
O.

 

Hi Oscar. I’m sorry to hear of your troubles, as you can imagine, mostly everyone here can sympathize.

There are some pretty phenomenal people here who might be able to lead you in the right direction. While I don’t think I can help you specifically with the tinnitus and hyperacusis (there are better people here for that) I would recommend attacking the root of the problem which is obviously viral.

A variety of treatments seem to be working for Long COVID-19. I am skeptical on some of them but enough people are reporting success so it must help. I would first suggest you try and anti-viral therapy first and foremost. L-Lysine and Monolaurin together may be able to help with Long COVID-19. From there there are tons of treatments that people are trying and achieving success. Take things with a grain of salt, but don’t be overly skeptical as some people are achieving remission. I don’t want to keep on going back to this, but given CFS is similar to Long COVID-19, maybe something like LDN might be able to help as well.

Good luck and let us know if anything works.

 

Thanks Lukee. I'm well aware of the link between CFS and Long COVID-19, something that honestly terrifies me.

I read about LDN here and elsewhere, but I get the feeling that the general outcome is inconclusive. Although I guess if I find myself at the end of the rope, I'd have nothing to lose by trying it.

The worst ailments that Long COVID-19 has given me are tinnitus and fatigue without any doubt. I don't know how someone can live with these two at the same time, since being active is one of the ways to cope with tinnitus.

I know for some people it gets better with time, but mine is so intrusive that I doubt it's going to happen...

Thanks again for your reply, I'll give Monolaurin and Lysine a go. My room looks like a pharmacy with all the supplements I bought to try and beat this illness.

 

Unfortunately, I know the feeling.

 

I've had tinnitus for 6 & ½ months and the first 4 months I spent them in denial hoping my tinnitus would disappear one day, and in the meantime numbing myself out with copious amounts of benzos (not recommended).

During the last two months, now benzo free, I have been bouncing between extreme suicidal ideation and the hope for a cure within the next 5-10 years, so that I could still have some of my youth days (currently 31) to enjoy instead of living in this torturous state.

The thing is lately I've been noticing I don't pay too much attention to my tinnitus during the day while I'm doing things outside, be it having lunch with friends or just riding my bike, but as the day goes by and especially in the evening I begin to realize that this awful demonic sound may stay with me for the rest of my days and will most likely be the last thing I hear before I die... This fills me with a feeling of dread and despair, and the suicidal ideation comes back as a feasible possible escape from this living nightmare.

Before my post-viral nightmare began, tinnitus was out of the realm of things that I could ever imagine a human body was capable of doing. To this day it still amazes me the level of malfunctioning that it takes to create such bizarre condition as tinnitus, and deep down I still refuse to believe this is real and wish to wake up one day free of this ordeal.

So my question, especially for the veterans is, does this sound (no pun intended) like the road to habituation to you? How long should I expect to be plagued by the suicidal thoughts before they abate?

 

My suicidal ideation stopped at around 7 months mark. My journey was:

- first two weeks, shock and looking for doctors in disbelief there's nothing anyone can do to help. Suicidal thought appeared, but were merely thoughts
- one months in, I started researching suicide methods and planning it as a back up
- around 6 weeks in, I started attempting
- after about 4 months, an attempt that nearly got me passed out
- after the above experience, I stopped attempting but the ideation was there
- around 6 months into it, the ideation started to ease up
- now, I'm exactly one year in, I don't see suicide as an option; yes, I'm still in major depression, but I accepted the order and now get inspired by habituation stories

Regarding habituation stories, in the first, say 8 months I never believed that I would habituate. I was writing all the habituation stories down to "mild tinnitus ".

Now I really believe that it's achievable. I'm not there yet, but I believe that I can restore some level of normalcy.

 

Just forget about suicide. I have been down this road and trust me you don't want to go there. Find a way to deal with it.

 

Easier said than done my friend. The truth is I doubt I will ever have the bravery that it takes to top myself. Survival instinct is just too strong... But I would feel tremendously in peace and in control if I could get a hold of a bottle of nice old fashioned barbs.

 

Hi Oscar,

I also had COVID-19 and am dealing with some long haul symptoms. Tinnitus was there before COVID-19 and didn’t get louder until 5 months AFTER I had COVID-19 and one or so months after the vaccine. It’s possible this is the case for me as well.

The good news I see from following a lot of long hauler COVID-19 posts is that most cases are resolving after 6 months (some take a little longer) if your tinnitus was purely COVID-19 induced.

I’m unsure if you’ve mentioned how long you’ve had it (apologies, going through brain fog at the moment) but if you’re past the 6 months please don’t lose hope.

I’m here to talk if you ever want to compare long hauler symptoms :/.

 

Hey man, thanks for your support. The truth is I'm past the 6 month mark and I doubt it's going to disappear on its own due to the intrusive nature of it. I know some other longhaulers for which it disappeared or subsided with time, but they seemed to have a milder form of it.

Luckily with all the people getting this horrid disease, we'll see more research and a potential cure one day.