Hello There!

Hello Tinnitus Talk! Today I am on here to talk about my tinnitus and I am wondering about your opinions of it. I have now had it for almost six weeks. My tinnitus started in my right ear on Thursday, April 20, after a cold and sore throat. I went to an express doctor the next day, and they gave me Amoxicillin for 10 days. It started out as a ringing noise, and then switched over to a hissing noise about two days later. I went into my college medical center and saw a PA, who gave me Prednisone for 5 days to clear up the infection. That seemed to work well, and the tinnitus didn't get any worse at all. However, the next Sunday Night (April 30) I noticed a sort of intermittent tinkling in my right ear during the night. I had been able to get to sleep perfectly fine with it the prior week, except for two days when I was stressed, until that day. After the tinkling started, I was not able to get good sleep for the next two weeks. I could get to sleep just fine, but when I woke up, I would hear the tinkling and focus on it, and not be able to get back to sleep. The strange thing is the tinkling doesn't appear during the day, and disappears within a half hour or so after I wake up (or after I take a shower). I had a concert band concert two days after the tinkling started, which may or may not have made the tinnitus worse (I can't really be sure). That went on for about two weeks, with the hissing and tinkling. I had a good amount of anxiety and some depression during that period, both from the lost sleep, and thinking about the ear. I came home, and although the tinnitus didn't necessary get better, I began to habituate to it and not think about it as much. Then, a week and a half ago, I went to a karaoke night. The music wasn't overly loud, and I was there for two and a half hours, but it seemed to make my ringing come back. The ringing tone was in my ears if I plugged them with my fingers during my whole time with tinnitus, but I didn't notice it outside of using earplugs or plugging my ears with my fingers. Now the new ringing pitch, along with the hissing, are there. I started taking Ginkgo Balboa, super b complex, and zinc about a week ago. That seemed to help for a couple of days. However, I went to a graduation (I used earplugs), but it was kind of loud. I'm not sure if the graduation, along with singing in the mass choir, have made it worse or not, or if the ginkgo, b vitamins, and zinc was just a placebo effect. Currently, the ringing seems to be better in the morning, and gets worse right before bed. The tinkling is still there in the morning, but I can sometimes block it out with the other noises in my head. Also, I have been able to get pretty good sleep the last two or so weeks, except last night when I focused on the ringing.

So... what are your opinions on it? Will it get better over time? If so, how long approximately? Should I continue to use earplugs at loud events? Do you think if I continue using the ginkgo and other supplements, that it will improve? Any suggestions for improving my anxiety and sleep?

 

Hi,Herbit!I can't answer all of your questions,but I want answer what I know.(Sorry for my terrible English)
It seems like your T is caused by the side effects of Amoxicillin.The ginkgo is mainly used to cure "blood pressure "causing tape T.You should ask you ENT whether you should continue talking ginkgo.Please hurry to the doctor.
Of course you should use earplugs when you exposed at noisy events!
For your anxiety,I just want to tell you please try your best to calm down,but also accept your feelings at the same time.I know it's very hard,hang there!

 

Have you had your hearing tested? What I thought was just a cold and sore throat was actually a virus that damaged my hearing and caused tinnitus.

 

Hello! I don't think it was the amoxicillin; at least I hope it wasn't. I have had a hearing test, and I had completely normal hearing except for at 8000 hz. I went to an ENT last week and they were confident that the tinnitus would go away. However they did not say there was any way they could directly help me.

 

Welcome to the forum, @Gerbit.
When tinnitus is new or at a new irritating level, and the ringing is causing much anxiety and panic plus sleeplessness, it is advisable to get masking going so you won’t be so anxious and fearful and can sleep better. Stress and anxiety are toxic to T. So try masking if you haven’t done so. When my T was new, I used to mask all day just to prevent panic attacks from hearing my ultra high pitch loud dog whistle T. Try these if you haven't yet. Best of luck. Take care. God bless.

1) Mask at bed time if having trouble sleeping, by using a sound pillow or sound machine with pillow speakers. There are good sound machine & pillow therapy systems like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Oasis-...d-Oasis-Therapy-System-Speakers/dp/B00MH5HKTA

2) If you need masking on the go, try load an ipod with nature sounds or music using itune. If you have a smart phone, you can download free APPs for soothing or T-masking sounds. Use wisdom in the use of headphones or earbuds as extended use or excessive volume may hurt your ears. Try set the volume slightly below that of your tinnitus.

3) With PC & speakers, you can try these excellent masking sounds to see which one masks best:

TT's excellent audio player: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/audioplayer/

or this online sound library, particularly the self-mix nature sounds: https://mynoise.net

or download free sound generator ‘aire freshener’: http://www.peterhirschberg.com/mysoftware.html

or click play to mix these sounds with this simple sound generator: http://asoftmurmur.com/

or search youtube with words like 'tinnitus masking sounds', 'white noise', 'rain sound' etc.

 

Also, it was caused by a virus. When I went to the PA a month ago they checked my ear and decided it was a virus.

 

Was it a large drop at 8,000?

Oops, just see you posted it was a virus. When I was diagnosed, I just didn't want to accept that what seemed like a little cold could be so devastating to my hearing.

 

It was in the right ear, and somewhat on the left ear. However I'm not sure if the test they used was an official ear test, it was some sort of a bone reverberation device.

 

A bone conduction test? Those are usually part of the hearing tests that I've had. Did they also do a test with just headphones or earbuds where you had to listen beeps? Or a word recognition test where you're asked to repeat a series of words as they're said one at a time.

 

They did a word recognition test and a test with headphones and beeping. The beeping and word tests went up to about 6000 hz and showed no hearing loss. Only the bone conduction test, which went up to 12000 hz, showed hearing loss at 8000 hz.

 

So does anybody think it will get better? If so how long?