Got Tinnitus This Year: ENT Recommends Tympanoplasty — Could It Reduce the Tinnitus?

Hi everyone, I'm Bee, male, 46 years old. Since I was 6 I have had constant ear infections on both my ears and both eardrums have holes. When I was 7 I had surgery to repair one of them but it failed. For 40 years I have lived with eardrum holes and hearing loss. I've never used a hearing aid and just assumed I was hearing things "normally".

For the last few years, my hearing loss has worsened and has prevented me from enjoying daily conversations with friends and family. Now I dread conversations and discussions with people because I can't understand what they are saying and it makes me look anti-social. I'm so embarrassed to have to tell everyone to repeat what they're saying, I just avoid humans.

I work from home so it hasn't affected my employment. But recently I developed tinnitus and it is killing me at times when it is so loud, especially when I go to bed. I went to see 2 ENTs, but neither have really answered the tinnitus question. Both want me to get a tympanoplasty to patch my eardrum. One said it could improve my hearing 50%, the other said it could help a bit. I'm so confused and frustrated, with no one to really understand what's going on.

I am going to get tympanoplasty to patch one of my ear to see if it help at least reduce tinnitus so that I can have some comfort, but even then I am dreadfully scared of any type of surgery or if it fails and gets worse!

Thanks for listening and best of luck to all my brothers and sisters out there suffering like me. I hope someday there will be relief and silence for us all.

 

@savister all of the best of luck to you. To help my sleep I use a sound machine, a tune on my phone that plays for an hour that masks my tinnitus and I take melatonin to help me sleep.

Kwc