Fire Alarm and Worsened Tinnitus?

I've had low/mild tinnitus for several years from a loud party. I've coped amazingly well, where often several months would go by without me even thinking about the T and it feels like I've been free of it for most of the time. Life has been normal for me.

About four days ago the fire alarm went off unexpectedly in my room. I got a stool from another room and placed it under the fire alarm and reached up for it to make it stop. The fire alarm was on for maybe 25-30 seconds and I was directly under the fire alarm for about 5-10 seconds. I had no symptoms that day. During the next day I for some reason started thinking more and more of my T, and for the last 2-3 days I've been very depressed and anxious, probably the worst 3 days of my life so far which is very weird as I practically never think of my T and am also normally a happy person.

During these days I've been more sensitive to sounds, where noise levels which feel normal are slightly uncomfortable for me now. Also the T in my left ear seems to be slightly louder than in my right ear (unsure if this has always been the case, I don't think so). This makes me anxious as when I turned off the fire alarm, there's a wall directly to my left, which would've bounced a lot of the sound waves from the fire alarm into my left ear.

I haven't been listening to anything above normal volume at all these last days, and plan to keep it that way for at least some weeks/months/forever.

Does it sound like I've caused a spike (which I've never experienced before), or have done something bad to myself?

Thanks for reading.

 

Alarms are dangerous things, I got tinnitus and hearing loss from a external sounder so I know how lethal they can be.

Most internal fire alarms arnt as loud as that though and usually max at around 90db so you should be ok.

 

Yes I don't know where you live but in Europe the limit is 85 dB at 1 meter or something like that so it's very unlikely that this worsened your T.
Take it easy on loud sounds for a few weeks

 

I can and do spike after having an alarm sound off near me.

In the UK alarms can be anywhere between 65dB and 120dB. The guidance is that they need to be audible in the area they are installed. So the installer may decide there is a potential for ambient noise to be at a certain level so set it higher - or there may decide they don't want to come back to increase the volume and set it at 120dB by default.

My advice is to ride it out. Don't worry about a spike even though it's unpleasant and not easy to shut out. I'm confident it will settle down, you're doing the right thing by avoiding loud sounds, just don't get too obsessive about it. Speaking as someone who has been obsessive about their tinnitus I know I'm not suggesting an easy thing

 

I got my tinnitus from a fire alarm.

 

Your nickname too

 

What kind of fire alarm? How close were you and for how long?