Developed Tinnitus After Testing Positive for COVID-19

Hi everyone,

Thank you for taking the time to read my post. I have had tinnitus now for just under 1 week. From reading other people’s posts you might think how ridiculous it is to be so overwhelmed at this stage, but I guess I have a feeling I am in for the long haul, and I need some help to get through the coming months/years (gulp).

My tinnitus first appeared after I tested positive for COVID-19 a week ago today. I am double vaccinated, and my symptoms were mild. I had a slight fever for a day and a slight sore throat for a morning and lost my sense of taste and smell. My main issue was ‘crackling’ in my ear where it felt like it was popping or fluid moving. I had a brief earache in my left ear which lasted an hour or two, and when I woke up in the morning it was blocked and muffled.

Later that afternoon I noticed a change. A sort of frequency shift which bothered me. I started to severely panic as I couldn’t find ‘silence’. Cue panic and constant checking to see how bad the noise was.

I guess sometimes it’s mild. I can sometimes be in silent spaces and only ‘hear’ my muffled ear. I can go for a walk around my (small) garden and be tuned in to the environment and not hear any ringing unless I completely strain for it. Sometimes it shifts when I move from one ambient space to another. Although lately the static high pitched noise and hiss are becoming more frequent, and at about 8pm it feels like it’s encasing my whole head. I am TERRIFIED of silence. Sometimes at night it feels like a million bells are ringing in my left ear, sometimes it’s not there but I’m aware something is ‘off’ but not the high pitched hiss/ring.

I feel very suicidal and lost at the idea of this preoccupying me forever. I spoke to my GP and she gave me some sleeping tablets and said as this came on acutely with COVID-19, it might also go when my body fully recovers from COVID-19 too. I don’t think so, though. Everything else shifted pretty quickly except this (and the lack of taste or smell).

I’m not sure why I’m writing this, really. Looking for a little bit of hope, just to vent as I am scaring my family members with my depressed state as I find it difficult to eat or just even function normally right now. Tinnitus is really a brutal, horrifying condition, which is so misunderstood, even by doctors. Imagine losing your sense of peace suddenly? Horrifying.

Anyway, this is the post that has made me feel the most hopeful as I can totally relate to all of these emotions and situations:

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/tinnitus-gone.27317/

I truly hope in the next few months I will find the same peace that @norwaygirl did. It is so hard though. I just want my life back, even the bad times

Thanks for listening

Annie

 

Welcome to the forum. It is expected and quite common for new tinnitus sufferers to get too anxious on the future because of the current initial suffering. I made the same mistake too when my ultra high pitched tinnitus first hit me followed by severe hyperacusis. It was horrible to have both conditions of tinnitus and hyperacusis. It was a nightmare. I thought I would never recover. But how wrong I was. I am now living a good life even with my recent sudden hearing loss with the left ear seeking early retirement. Lol. So don't worry about the future. It will be just fine over time. It will either fade away or you will habitutae to it. Many others post their success stories. You can read them to give you hope. I wrote mine too called "From Darkness to Light..." and I share many helpful strategies. Check it out. Take it easy. God bless.

 

@billie48, you are an absolute angel. Thank you so much. I have read your post and it brought me to tears, for what you have experienced in life, and for the strength you developed and now graciously pass on to others who are suffering. Thank you so much once again, you have given me light in the darkness. And thank you so much for sharing that video of David Lam, very very inspiring. Following on from his video I have also discovered Julian Cowan Hill and hope to meet with him soon.

More than ever it seems to me that tinnitus is our mind and body flaring up after years and years of barely dealt with stress. I also have suffered from anxiety, OCD and depression for many years. Since I was a child, since I woke up in the night aged 6 to my beloved grandmother dying in my bedroom from a heart attack, since I spent my formative years in Belfast during the Troubles. How I have always tried to self-soothe with alcohol. This wasn't caused by COVID-19, it was just the straw that broke the camel's back following a very stressful year of job loss, bereavement and worry. It all makes sense to me now, and I am trying to re-frame this horrible situation as a positive step to make change for the absolute better.

When I get better from this, I will endeavour to follow your example and use my experience to give peace and hope to those that are struggling.

All the very best,

Annie x

 

@AnnieMac, try to relax, it wouldn't be weird in this situation to have temporary tinnitus and have it lower or go away; this is common in viral illnesses. My own tinnitus always flares up when my immune system is activated and I had spikes after both rounds of the pfizer vaxx, also get horrible spikes from being ill.

Your post is a reminder to me to keep masking and stay vigilant, but I think you'll be fine.

 

Thanks @linearb. It does come and go, sometimes there is lots of static noise around my head, sometimes it's barely there at all, only getting worse when I get 'activated' and panicked about it, also when I'm not looking after myself. Even if it is temporary, it's a real wake up call to take care of my mind and body.

It's a good reminder to stay safe and masked, to protect ourselves and others from this. Take care xx

 

I also believe your tinnitus will be fine @AnnieMac and that you have no reason to believe it won't go down over the coming months; you've not even had it 1 month yet, so you're in the safe (acute) zone.

That said, you mention you were fully vaccinated before you got ill and developed tinnitus(?); therefore more living proof of just how useless these vaccines are(?).

Something the guy above me has and will, conveniently choose to turn a blind eye to (as evidenced in his post).

 

Hello @AnnieMac.

I agree with @linearb and @Damocles above. You're still very early in the experience - which is the very worst part. Better times for you will most certainly come. I'm about 5 and 1/2 weeks following a noise induced tinnitus and hyperacusis event. For the first few weeks I had all of the reactions many people seem to have when they initially acquire tinnitus and hyperacusis: terror, sleeplessness, severe, almost uncontrollable anxiety and depression. Suicide, which prior to my tinnitus was only a very rare fleeting thought that disappeared from my brain as quickly as it came, became a continual comforting idea that I could count on to escape this Hell.

But now, five and half weeks later, my sensitivity to noise has significantly diminished. And as for my tinnitus, I can't figure out if it too has diminished or if I just getting used to it. Right now, as I type this letter to you on my computer, I can hear the steady ringing in my ears, but it doesn't seem to bother me particularly. And maybe the most notable improvement is my ability to get a good night's sleep; sometimes with the use of a sleep aid and sometimes without. AnnieMac, I guess what I'm getting after is, that this sort of improvement will most likely happen to you. You just have to give it time. Before you know it, you will go from just trying to survive for the next fifteen seconds to being able to survive the entire day. There will soon come a time for you when the prospect of going to bed doesn't fill you with anguish and fright. As many sufferers on this forum before me have said, 'You just have to give it time'.

You mentioned the Troubles and being in Belfast during this time I too recall the period of the Troubles, but at that time is was growing up in the Midwest of the United States. I have a very Irish surname and my ancestors came over to the States from Ireland in the 1840s. Even though I was young during the time of the Troubles, the news held my attention because of my Irish lineage.

Mark

 

You know which part of Ireland your ancestors migrated from @Mark62?

 

@Damocles, I thought I knew, but I just checked with my brother and apparently there’s some discrepancy regarding where we came from in Ireland.

 

Lol, that's cool @Mark62. I'd expect a little discrepancy after 1 century and 8 decades .

My Irish ancestors hail from County Galway, though I'm second generation English, so I guess I'm what you'd call a "plastic paddy".

In any case, don't trouble yourself too much over The Troubles; I once asked my Irish grandparents how they felt about the matter, and they told me they "couldn't give two hoots".

The native Irish are brilliantly apathetic like that.

 

@Damocles, the data we have on breakthrough infections is that they are monumentally less severe than infections among the unvaccinated, so, no cognitive dissonance there on my part - @AnnieMac would have been very likely to have had a more severe case of COVID-19, if not vaccinated. We have huge data sets that indicate this is the case and the US is currently a smoking gun since our deaths and hospitalizations are worse than they've been since the first waves and the people dying are tremendously disproportionately likely to be unvaccinated.

It seems like we both want the best for @AnnieMac and agree she'll probably improve. She only mentioned the vaccine in passing. No need to do this here, and for me continuing this derail anymore personally is just disrespectful. We have a proper venue to have this discussion, and I'd say we have, and then some.

 

It still sucks because you are screwed either way.

I have not "too much" against the vaccine, but everything against the return to normal.
It isn't always safe nor are you COVID-19 immune with it, yet government is pushing that garbage.

Less serious infection still means infection with fallout complications. Like tinnitus.

 

Governments are always pushing garbage, now more than ever we have to rely on our own ability to parse information together from disparate sources. It does seem remarkable how badly this event has been parsed by basically every world government, though.

And yes, it still sucks; being in a pandemic sucks. Having imperfect drugs is looking much better than having no drugs at all; people who have been vaxxed are much less likely to end up needing hospital resources, and generally less likely to get sick, but we're infecting people at such a high rate that stories like this one are going to become more and more common.

 

The tinnitus might worsen after one of the booster shots you have to get (regularly).

 

Yes.

No it's cool. I'm dropping this now.

I think @Matchbox sums up the middle ground quite well (from a kind of... defeatist perspective).

Also, what @Cernuto said: This is a topic everyone should do heavy research on before they settle on a decision; because it will have long term Health and Political ramifications for both the individual and society at large.

And I'll add that: there is conflicting and incorrect information on BOTH sides of the debate (from both the pro-(COVID-19)vaccine media and the anti-(COVID-19)vaccine alternative media). It's up to everyone doing the research not to be lazy and discriminate by fact checking each piece of evidence they weigh toward their conclusion.

It's only your life we're talking about here, after all.

 

How is a vaccine that prevented them from severe illness, hospitalization, and possibly death "useless"?

 

Hello AnnieMac,

Have not seen you post anymore. Has your tinnitus improved after COVID-19 (became manageable)? Mine did (the first time), but now I have COVID-19 again, and I'm terrified since I have a terrible spike that is bringing back dark times.

I wonder how many people had tinnitus with COVID-19 and got better, and what was the average recovery time.