Did my tinnitus get worse or is it a common cold?

Last Saturday I had band practice/show so I was around music for about 7 hours that day. I wore earplugs and that helped decrease the volume. On Sunday night I began feeling a little congested and on Monday morning I woke up with my left ear clogged/full. My sinuses were full of mucus and so on. Common cold symptoms, cough, mucus, sneezing, etc. But now my throat is getting better but my ear is still clogged and my tinnitus has gotten louder.
Should I be worried? I'll give it another week before I go to the ENT because again, this might just be a cold (something I haven't experienced yet with tinnitus). Care to share your experiences with colds/tinnitus?

 

I

It's prob fluid in your ears see an ent. They may be able to help you

 

yeah probably, i've thought about that

 

I just got over my first cold with T and surprisingly it didn't affect my T much at all. I was hesitant to use any cold medication though and just roughed it out. Medicines I never thought twice about in the past are now something I'm very careful about using only when I really need them! I'm sure if you give yourself a little time, your T will return to it's baseline level in a few days.

 

I'm just in the middle of a cold and my tinnitus has increased in one ear and remained stable in the other. What is weird though is that in the ear were it has increased, the tone has changed to a low-frequency tonal sound which is usual to the higher frequency whistle that I usually experience. I'm not terribly congested either. Any ideas why it could change tones to a very low tone?

 

Congestions caused by cold can always temporarily increase the volume. The other possible culprit is the quality of sleep being affected and we can wake up very tired which will increase the ringing. However, the problem will usually be rectified by getting over the cold. So there is nothing to worry about it.

 

Hey billie,

The increase in volume due to congestion or quality of sleep I can understand, but I'm just freaking out a little because the tone of the tinnitus has changed from a higher frequency tone to a low frequency tone. Is it common for blocked eustachian tubes to cause a low / lower frequency tone? What do you think?

 

I wish I know the answer why T changing tones & frequency on people. That is the unpredictability part about T. Generally though, for people with hearing loss in the high frequency (like myself) or acoustic trauma resulting in damage to the hair cells responsible for high frequency, the resulting T can be very high frequency. Sometimes, one of my ears would seem like it has shut down for a moment, and the ultra high pitch scream was replaced by a low humming. But after a while, the low humming is gone and then the high pitched scream is back. I don't have enough medical background nor experience to conclude what cause all these changes. Some people have both a low tone in one ear plus a high pitched one in the other, like this video clip of David Letterman talking about his T with Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) who also has T. Letterman said his 2-tone T was like the Emergency Broadcast system being tested in his brain 7/24 and jokingly asked the audience for sympathy. LOL. The important thing I think is like them, they put their worry about their T away and just live their lives and not trying to constantly monitor T & its tone/volume.

David Letterman with William Shatner - March,...