Hello

I have to admit, I never wanted to be here. Years ago, I heard that This American Life episode about the man with tinnitus, and of all the things I've heard on that show, that one was one of the ones that really rattled me to the core. I was quite afraid of this affliction and knew I should do my best to try and keep it at bay. But here I am.

Also, just for starters, you don't know me, but if you're a regular on this board, you probably know my brother @marqualler.

I had an ear infection in April. I got ringing, really loud at times, and thankfully the continuous ringing tones dissipated completely. However, I was left with a strange chirping noise that hasn't changed much since then. The absolute best description of it can be found at this link...the description of this noise is pretty much spot-on to what I'm hearing.

http://www.mdjunction.com/forums/ti...port/1226388-irregular-cricket-chirps-one-ear

At times, in the middle of the night, or upon waking up, I've had damn near total silence. This weird thing has gone away. But it's pretty much usually there. I've spent the last two months looking up all sorts of things that might convince me it's something fixable. The fact that it fluctuates so much and feels more "mechanical" than "tonal" really made me think it wasn't related to cochlear damage and might therefore be temporary, but honestly, I'm just running out of hope that it's anything other than permanent tinnitus and that believing anything otherwise will just delay my recovery.

I still get pressure / full feelings in my ear which radiate to my outer ear, my jaw, and even my neck, which I think is strange, especially since I'm fully recovered from the infection itself. I just saw an ENT yesterday who assured me that things look healthy in my affected ear. I also did an audiogram which was mostly symmetrical except for a 20 db loss in my affected ear at 3 kHz, whereas the other ear was only a 10 db loss. I tried checking that with various online tests and wouldn't put it at a 10 db difference between the two...I'm 31 years old and 20 db loss is still considered "normal hearing". But shit, that's still pretty borderline. And I still have a noise in my ear that freaks me out.

I really don't know what to think of the future at this point. I am not at all a newcomer to either anxiety or depression, but what has always resolved both of those things was time. So I guess I just feel like time is going to be the most important thing here, even though I'd rather be habituated, like, right NOW, lol. Or cured, obviously.

My case is probably pretty mild, and I think my mental reaction to the severity of my tinnitus is probably WAY out of proportion. If I set my fan to a low setting, it somehow inspires this weird sound to bring itself out more. But if I set it to a medium setting, it's drowned out. I really don't hear it at all outside, definitely not over TV shows or music. I absolutely love music and listening to music (which is likely a big contributor to this condition) and I'm trying to tell myself that if I have to spend the rest of my life listening to music rather than listening to this stupid noise, that's maybe not such a bad thing. But, of course, I don't always have control over my environment. Once I started realizing this might be permanent, I became extremely intolerant of the noise. Like I felt like as soon as I stepped into the door of my quiet home, I needed to run to the nearest noise-creating device and turn it on.

Anyway, this is probably way more than what people usually write. But I just wanted to say hi and hopefully get some support from you folks who my brother speaks so highly about.