Hey! Tinnitus Increased a Month Ago — Original Cause Unknown (Noise/ETD/TMJ/Ototoxicity...)

Hello everyone,

Been lurking in here for a month so I guess it's time to introduce myself.
First of all excuse my poor English, but hey... I'm French and everyone knows that us, "frenchies" are more than crappy when they try to speak foreign languages...

I've been "dealing" with tinnitus for about 15 years: very mild, nothing more than an annoyance when it started and nothing more than nothing a couple of months later. The cause of the initial onset is unknown: it could have been anything.
- Noise? Maybe, I was playing drums in several rock/metal bands. The fact is that drumsticks were out of my hands for nearly a year when the ringing started. I'm sure my ears have been "fragilized" a bit by all those gigs so...
- ETD/TMJ? Maybe. Since the initial onset I had this sensation of fullness and all those popping, cracking noises that a lot of us, tinnitus sufferers, have when swallowing. Concerning TMJ, if I want to open my mouth, I'm obliged to "slide" my jaw to the right until I feel a "crack" then ONLY I'm able to open it "wide" (not sure this is clear).
- Ototoxicity? Maybe. I have a hiatal hernia and I swallowed PPI like candies for years.

That said, what brought me here is the new permanent (I soooooooooooo hope not) spike that occurred a month ago, "just like this", and turned a happy 45 years old man into a f.......g wreck trying not to drown.

Well, that said, glad I found this place.

 

You do seem to have something wrong with the jaw if you have that kind of problem with the jaw movement. So the first thing is probably to see a TMJ specialist to get an opinion. Have you done that yet?

 

Thanks for reply,

I've already tried it years ago, on my initial onset but it didn't improve things what so ever. And, as said that was a tiny tiny T so I gave up.

That time indeed I guess It will be my next move but finding a TMJ specialist is not that simple.