Four Weeks in with Tinnitus After COVID-19 Infection — Every Day Feels Different

I got tinnitus several days after my COVID-19 started, and it has not stopped for a second. Like many of you, I've been a mess of constant stress, anxiety and sleeplessness. I think the scariest thing is how highly variable my tinnitus has been, and I am wondering if anyone experiences it like this?

Week 1: it slowly ramped up over 3 days and then got a really loud spike at 3am one night that would be the beginning of my insomnia.

Week 2: Seemed to get quieter and louder, with a few "quiet in morning, louder in evening" and "louder in evening, quiet in morning" days. I also started noticing there are some ~5 different variants that come and go or mix together.

Week 3: There were a few days where it got much quieter that gave me hope, but then I woke up with it being loud again. It would stay constantly loud for the next week, and I also started noticing a (much quieter) sound in my other ear.

Week 4: After the constant loud spike, it went back to quieter version, a lot more manageable. But I also noticed that it now seems to spike up when I am in a loud setting (bar, coffee shop), which I do not think it did that before?

A month ago, I was on top of the world, and today, I am a wreck. It's overall much quieter and more manageable, but I am paranoid about spiking it in louder environments, or the other ear ringing getting worse. I am not sure if this is a good sign, or bad sign, or no sign and it's all random :/ I think the whole uncertainty of what will happen next is most frightening.

As addendum and mini rant on doctors and treatment - I got total run around with doctors :/ The first urgent care doc diagnosed me with labyrinthitis (I had dizziness and congestion), and said it'd clear on its own. Later I found he didn't tell me I had so much earwax it was impossible to see my eardrum (how tf did he diagnose me?). I wasted two weeks to even just get my ears cleaned and had to schedule my own independent hearing test at another facility. By the time I saw an ENT, it was already over 3 weeks from onset.

The ENT said all looked good, and did not want to prescribe steroids since my hearing loss in the affected ear is very minor in super high frequencies (like only 10 dB in 12 kHz+). When pressured, he reluctantly agree to give them to me and said he'd "probably take them if he was me..." But it felt like I missed the window of opportunity, and the plenty of horror stories made me scared potentially making things worse while having negligible chance of improvement (probably worse odds than of spontaneous recovery).

The other 2 ENTs I saw did not add much, and were also against steroids (I just got the: "could they make it better? - they might - could they make it worse? - they might"). The last one did offer a direct steroid shot into the ear, but mostly "if I wanted to feel like I did everything." She said she would not do it herself due to risks. I asked about previous patients, and she said none of the ~10 people she did it on reported improvement. And it was already 4 weeks in, waay past the optimal window...

I am kicking myself for not taking the orals and kind wish I had a week ago... but I got them over 3 weeks late, likely not SSHL, and I did not feel like any of the ENTs would provide adequate medical supervision if shit hit the fan (the doc who gave me the prescription literally said "well, good luck!" and walked out).

Anyway, thanks for reading my rant. Just BLAH all around :/

 

Steroids made me much worse after my tinnitus started a week after my COVID-19 infection. You might have dodged a bullet to be honest. Hope this makes you feel a little better.

 

It's crazy how different everyone is. Prednisone made think I was cured. 0 tinnitus while on it.

 

What you describe, seems to be pretty similar to my situation when I had COVID-19 the same time. It got better for me. Now at present, my tinnitus is up the roof and I'm desperate (got COVID-19 again). How are you currently doing?