Hi Everyone, Here Comes a French Fellow!

Hello everyone, I just discovered this forum so I wanted to be part of this great community.

I'm Jimmy, 23 years old, no medical background, French and living in France so my English isn't native and I hope everybody will eventually understand me, sorry if my English is chaotic.

So my story starts with a huge period of high anxiety coming from my phagophobia that just appeared after food stuck in my oesophagia. May to June was a very intense period for my body and my mind, couldn't eat and my anxiety was at his worst.

One day, I was at a station, waiting for the train, and I was sitting close to a train at dock. Suddenly, the train makes a "TCHHHH" noise, like a depressurization maybe? This noise lasted maybe 0.5 seconds, very short, but the sound made my ears hurt briefly. Nothing happened after that, no symptoms at all, no pain. 3 hours later at home, a sound appeared in my right ear, high pitched. But still no pain or other symptoms. All of this happened the 3rd of June 2019 and this day I was very anxious.

I went to my doctor 4 days later, he told me I had a lot of ear wax in my ears, so I came back 5 days later to remove it. And obviously, nothing changed!

I really want to say that I have no usual symptoms except tinnitus since this day.
But I can tell you what I consider as uncommon symptoms:
- Ear crackling (only the right ear) and tinnitus increases when I move my jaw forward
- Smoke and coffee DO NOT increase my tinnitus
- When I'm hungry and my stomach make some noise, my ear make some noise with it! As if my ear is hungry
- Sometime my ears hurt but very gently, not enough to say "ouch", just a little pain. Not sound induced. Also a little hyperacusis maybe? My ear is more sensitive to sound than usual, but it is not painful, only the feeling that I hear too well? (These 2 symptoms appeared 2 days ago like wtf, maybe too much stress?)

My anxiety is still here so I guess it does not help this tinnitus that much.
All of these symptoms only concern my right ear, even if the train sound came from my left (but my both ears reacted to the sound).
I do not notice any hearing loss, but I will check that in July with a professional.

Today, almost three weeks after, even if I get used to my tinnitus, I do regret that I did nothing more to heal my ear, even if I don't know if it was a sound induced trauma or the result of 1 month anxiety that makes my jaw problem worse.

I booked an appointment with a dentist because I have a lot of teeth trouble, so wait and see.

Thank you for reading me. Hope we will all get better And sorry if my English is too bad

 

My English is also not native. I dare to assume that you had an acoustic trauma. Do not worry because you allegedly did nothing wrong. The effectiveness of steroids is questionable; there is no guarantee of results. But you can get huge side effects up to the loss of vision or ulcers of the digestive system... Better look for a dentist with a laser drill for the teeth (even better not to go at all). And before the appointment, take a huge dose of NAC and magnesium (if you decide to go to the dentist).

 

A lot of people state their cause of tinnitus is unknown. Do you use your cell phone a lot?

 

Oh, so I should cancel my appointment? Shoud I wait for my ear healing process to be over? Thank you for your concern Yuri

Absolutly not, I usually don't use cellphone (yes it is possible! ), but I use my computer with headphones a lot (video games, YouTube) but always with a decent volume.
In fact, the only day I chose to leave my house (I don't go outside often, geek thing you know...) my ear decided to not support it... But as I said, I had a lot of anxiety before, so maybe my body wasn't ready to experiment station and train noise.

 

@Blodorn Let us see what 5G does.

 

Recently, one guy wrote that after going to the dentist his tinnitus increased and he scolded himself very much for it. Although some tolerate dentists fine, there are cases of tinnitus spikes after dental brushing.

The degree of damage to your ears is not very strong. You have described almost all my symptoms after an acoustic trauma.

Do you have audiometry results?

Maybe you should protect your ears?

 

How is your cause of tinnitus listed as unknown? When you were exposed to an extremely loud train's wheels screeching.

You mentioned tinnitus, and noise induced pain as well. These are physical consequences of damaging hearing. Make sure you tell the ENT or any doctor you see that extremely loud noise caused this so you get diagnosed correctly.

 

Hyperacusis is not just one thing, it's several different poorly understood problems causing loudness amplification of noise, ear fullness, noise induced pain and facial/jaw pain, which all gets thrown in the same bus.

The word hyperacusis is very poorly defined just like its treatment options.

 

I developed tinnitus with very severe hyperacusis twenty three years ago and had TRT that lasted two years. My hyperacusis was extremely painful so bad in fact that when in conversation with anyone I had to politely ask them to lower their voice.

My article: Hyperacusis, As I see it, the link is below, explains ways of treating hyperacusis and when necessary, professional help will need to be sought in order to treat the condition and cure it. I appreciate that we are all different but, unlike tinnitus most cases of hyperacusis can be cured with self help or having TRT and wearing white noise generators as I did for up to two years, under the care of a Hearing Therapist or Audiologist trained in the treatment of tinnitus and hyperacusis.

The reason a lot of people have problems with tinnitus spiking and prolonged hyperacusis is because they haven't had professional treatment. TRT can be expensive and I had it free under the NHS. However, in some countries this treatment has to be paid for privately and many health insurance companies will not pay for any kind of tinnitus treatment. Therefore, if a person has hyperacusis and it doesn't cure naturally over time or professional help is not sought, the affected person will always have problems with sensitivity to sound.

Two weeks ago a member of this forum who is quite well known but I won't mention the name, informed me they are about start a desensitising programme to treat and cure hyperacusis. This person has been referred to a Hearing Therapist that specialises in hyperacusis. According to the specialist, all forms of hyperacusis can be cured. She told this member, the only patients whose hyperacusis is not cured are the ones that do not follow her desensitising programme and wear the white noise generator correctly and for the duration specified, which up to six to eight hours per day building up to this slowly.

Contrary to popular belief, the Tinnitus and Hyperacusis specialist, says that only one white noise generator needs to be worn and not two, as the brain only has one central processing centre. I am not going to argue with that.
I have always thought hyperacusis can be completely cured as in my case for the last twenty three years.

Michael

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/hyperacusis-as-i-see-it.19174/

 

Thank you Yuri!

For now, I don't notice any increasing of my tinnitus related to loud sounds. Today I went to a shopping center and I totally forgot about my tinnitus, even in a loud place. I had to go and look for it

Also, my hyperacusis almost disappeared, I noticed that my ear gets easily used to sounds that make me uncomfortable at first.

I didn't see an ENT yet. But yeah, in extreme cases I will protect my ears.

Thank you again!

Thank you Contrast, I will edit my tinnitus cause, I think you're totally right. I just didn't want to accept my trouble, because when you are young, you are feeling invincible and you convince yourself that it was nothing, you deny reality.
Also, thank you for your explanations, I will see an ENT as soon as possible.

Wish you the best to all of you, and again, sorry for my weird English

 

@Michael Leigh
So how is your tinnitus? Has it gotten better in the 23 years or is it still severe? On a scale of 1 to 10?

 

In a couple of months my tinnitus almost disappeared, but a loud speech caused a huge spike. I would advise to be more careful.

 

I'm glad you feel better Yuri! And thank you for your advice, I will be more careful, I promise!

 

Why do you ask this question? I assume, cell phone being primary phone nowadays, people use them frequently. I've heard of cell phones causing brain tumors but not tinnitus.

 

Research cell phones and tinnitus electromagnetic radiofrequency radiation, I believe with all the radio frequencies we might be doing harm to ourselves? Doctors won't confirm it but the best way to use the cell phone is away from the ear/face.
Can do good but 'Marie Curie died on July 4, 1934, of aplastic anemia, believed to be caused by prolonged exposure to radiation. '

 

While the long term effects of high frequency exposure remain unknown, those are not ionizing radiation, they will certainly not cause aplastic anemia, cell phones aren't Radium.

 

It was just an example of unintended consequences! 'electromagnetic radiofrequency radiation'

 

HI @MarkX

For some reason I did not get a PM prompt and only seen your post by chance. Therefore, I apologise for my late reply.

After I finished TRT in late 1998 my hyperacusis was completely cured and my tinnitus reduced to a very low level. In 2008 I had a second noise trauma that resulted in my tinnitus returning with a vengeance but hyperacusis did not return. Please click on the link below and read my post: My experience with tinnitus. It covers the period from 2008 to 2012 when my tinnitus was most severe and took 4 years habituate for the second time.

Even though I have habituated my tinnitus isn't like it was before 2008. It is now variable from: complete silence, mild, moderate, severe and can reach very severe levels when I need to take clonazepam to calm it down if it doesn't reduce by itself.

Michael

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/my-experience-with-tinnitus.12076/

 

Thanks for your response. I hope you have more silent times.

 

Update : D+20

My tinnitus is quiet today, (2 to 3/10).

-I discovered that turning my head to extreme left and right affect my tinnitus.

-My tinnitus did also become more distant. Like it is a bit further from me. Even in silent places.

-The tinnitus is unstable, it's going up and down and up and down every 5 seconds. Like the sound of a a soda bottle.

-Bad feeling of the day! When I opened my eyes this morning, my ears were so stunned, couldn't hear well for 3 minutes, but all went back to normal after this.

-My hyperacusis is still here, but mild, I can live normally, my ear only reacts to objects that fall on the ground.

-Anxiety of the day: After my bad moment this morning, I started to be afraid of becoming deaf.

See you guys! Wish you the best.

 

Hello !

Do you have tensions on your shoulders and jaw ?

Because for me the way I move my jaw can bring different Tinnitus sounds... But I am very tense all day...