Even with Ear Plugs My Tinnitus Spikes :-(

Hello all,

I had an incident back in February where I was hit with loud tinnitus after shooting at an indoor range with foam earplugs.

I went to see a doctor about 5 days after the incident and took 12 days of prednisone with a initial steroid shot in the thigh. It worked on quieting my tinnitus after the 3rd day starting the regimen. Like an idiot only a week after taking prednisone and thinking I was in the clear I went to IMAX to see black panther and then to a restaurant with friends downtown that was so loud with people's voices echoing I almost didn't walk in but I did anyways and stayed there for an hour :-(

Well that spiked my tinnitus again to a loud level so the second time I went to see an ENT who did an audiogram on me and noticed I had hearing loss in my right ear. So I was once again placed on a more potent prednisone regimen that was 14 days long. After tapering off I began to notice the ringing wasn't as loud and my hearing in my right ear improved. Well fast forward to 3 months later and 5 days ago I did yard work for about 2 and 1/2 hrs using a riding lawn lower and gas weedeater but I had foam earplugs in the entire time.

I didn't notice anything until about thurs/Friday but my tinnitus has spiked once again :-( its not as loud as the first or second incident but man it seems like I'm stepping on egg shells here anytime I have to be around something loud even with hearing protection in my ears.

Why is this happening? What can I do to keep these spikes from happening? Do I need to see a doc again and take another course of prednisone to get this ringing to to go back to baseline?

I was doing so well the past few weeks and then bam I'm back to ringing after doing a routine task that every homeowner has to do at least once a week during the summer.

Thank you for any input on this matter!

 

Regarding hearing protection - A lot of tinnitus vets recommend doubling the ear protection with plugs and then ear muffs. I use these muffs: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CPCHBCQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Same as my t spikes while driving a car with plugs only because our car is getting louder when accelerating,
but when I use my muff while driving I'm fine.
I've tried before a double used like plugs and my noise cancelling headphone when driving and after that I felt fullness, pain or discomfort of my ears.

 

Your ears are still fragile and will be for a few months or a year or two depending on age and how much damage has been done
Eventually you will be fine. But this is going to take much longer than you think so avoid all these situations as much as you can and wear ear muffs like the peltor x5a better than plugs

 

Will I need to redo the prednisone therapy to lessen my tinnitus or will it it subside on its own in a month or so?

 

@RallySportRyan

I have been going through the same process:

- high pressure cleaning with foam plugs: spike
- lawnmower with muffs AND alpine plugs: spike
- trazolan meds for dealing with spike: extreme spike

Walking on eggshells is the right expression. It’s extremely frustrating and unforgiving.

It’s now been 2,5 weeks since my last spike... and 3 months since T first started.

Hiss is still there but I only hear it wearing muffs or in quiet rooms. Or when I’m very tired / stressed.

For now it seems to have stabilized... I feel more confident and safe... although I’m more aware of my limits and it will be quite some time before I dare go to the cinema again or mow the lawn. Even with protection!

I think some advice that has to be given to all noise induced tinnitus patients here is to be more patient those first three months. Although my ENT said my hearing was not more fragile than before, I got the feeling it was!

Don’t lock yourself up, but give your ears some time to settle, readjust and heal.

I even suspect that if I would have let my T heal with prednisone and HBOT... did not commute and didn’t take any (plugged) risks doing chores during those first two months, I might have gotten rid of it completely.

I also think rest and sleep may be underrated parts of the healing process. Is it in Germany where people are hospitalized for T?

After my last spike (the trazolan) I followed the advice on this forum and did not take prednisone again. The spike flattened out like I said without meds. And as I tend to get anxiety and insomnia from higher doses of Prednisone, getting some sleep instead helped me get better too.

I plan to only use prednisone again if I get exposed to noise that could cause real damage to a healthy ear.

My two cents.

 

I don't think so. Prednisone is a corticosteroid that reduces inflammation in the ear by suppressing your immune system and can help with accute hearing loss or when your t. first appears. This is what my ENT told me.

I think it's just a temporary spike and that your t. will subside on its own again.

 

You need to enhance your protection to prevent permanent damage to your ears. Foam earplugs are useless against high intensity noise IMO