Hi, Confused by My Tinnitus

[Mike9103]

Hi,

Tinnitus suddenly started up for me about 2 months ago in what has been a pretty stressful year for me.

The tinnitus is mostly tonal and high pitched, although not too loud but it does make sleeping difficult.

It's hard to pinpoint the cause of my tinnitus because I have a history of problems with blocked ears and sinus trouble and I've taken plenty of antibiotics over the past few years. I've also listened to my fair share of loud music live and with headphones so there are a few possible causes.

I took a hearing test and the audiologist said my hearing was fine. So perhaps it's not due to loud music?

Originally because my GP said he saw fluid behind the ears I was treating it with a Neti Pot and Nasonex.

I tried both Temazepam and Circadin (Melatonin) occasionally for sleep but I was disappointed that they seem to stop working well after a while.

Currently I am taking 50 mg of doxycycline per day for a sinus infection and 20 mg of amitriptyline per night to help me sleep and lower my anxiety. I really hope this will improve the tinnitus and not make it worse.

I will be seeing an ENT next month and hope I will get good advice worth the hefty fee of seeing him.

Anyway, I've been looking at these forums for a while and wanted to share my experience.

 

[billie48]

Warm welcome to the forum. Feel free to browse this TT forum and welcome to post to rant or to support others. You may also check out the success stories to learn how others have managed to do better.

ENT generally can't do much for tinnitus unless your T is due to something wrong in the ears or the eustachian tube, such as ETD, ear fullness, infection, wax build up etc. In the meantime, if you have trouble sleeping or get bothered by T, you can try to mask it at bed time with a sound machine. Take care. God bless.

 

[Mike9103]

Thanks for the welcome Billie,

I am masking with the ReSound Relief for Tinnitus app and put a speaker underneath my pillow.

I just hope none of the medication I'm taking or anything else I'm doing is making the T worse because the pitch does seem to be more insistently high of late and it's quite loud in a quiet room. Hopefully it's just because I'm quite new to T that it hasn't lowered yet.

 

[Mike9103]

I just saw the ENT and he had no real solutions.

He said I don't appear to have any hearing loss and I probably have T because I have sensitive hearing, in fact my right ear looks better than his.. Pretty frustrating because this problem caused me to have stress and sleeping problems and now I have to contend with back pain every day, which upsets me a lot more than the tinnitus does at the moment.

I'm hopeful I'll habituate to the tinnitus but I'm not satisfied with the lack of any real proper advice from the medical community.