Horrific State — Need Help

I'm Alex. Had hearing problems all my life, grommets and t tubes. 27/11/16 got a sinus cold. Took amoxicillin and all hell broke loose. Terrible tinnitus in left ear followed by pulsatile tinnitus in right. Sinus/ear infection gone but T still there. Causing anxiety insomnia and constipation due to sleeping tablets. Had T-Tubes yesterday as fluid wouldn't go from behind eardrum. This has been the worst ever! I don't know what to do. I'm crying all the time HELP!

 

Welcomto Tinnitus Talk Alex.
The tubes in might have spiked your tinnitus due to some inflamation.
You could ask your doctor for prednisalone as works on inflammation.
Keep sound on around you day and night to help mask the tinnitus and basic pain killers when needed.

Remember to keep your ears dry with plugs or cotton wool when washing air and cotton wool or hat in the cold.
Try relax and lots of nice treats keep your mood up
...chin up and hope the tubes help clear your ears...lots of love glynis

 

Alex...thought I'd reply as your story is similar to mine. Things WILL improve.

I have chronic ETD (due to persistent/recurrent sinus infection) which has caused severe 'hissing' tinnitus 24/7 and PT both ears (not constant). In my case PT seems to coincide with, and is maybe caused by, inflammation (like Glynis says). Ibuprofen HELPS me a lot (I know ibuprofen gets a bad pressing tinnitus).

After T-tubes the 'bunged up' feeling and tinnitus spike and the feelings are much amplified over the way they are when grommets are inserted. It also takes a lot longer to settle.

I don't think the amoxycillin will have been the cause of the worsening symptoms, just the condition itself.

Your tinnitus will improve, and the PT will likewise reduce or even disappear. (My PT only re-emerges when I have inflammation...a cold/infection etc).

It'll take a while to adjust to T-tubes if you've never had them before, BUT, after a few weeks you'll realise all the 'pressure' symptoms and pain are subsiding, you can fly without agony/perforation, and ear infections become very much less frequent (I have not had an ear infection since my T-tubes were inserted 18 months ago).

Things will improve. I still have the 24/7 hissing, but PT is a rare occurrence thesis days.

Good Luck,

Fungus

 

Very sorry to hear. My major T spike a few months ago was also caused by amoxicillin. I went to a couple of ENT's who weren't helpful, and I ended up taking magnesium and NAC supplements. Not sure how much good they did, but at the time I did habituate to the new T sounds in about a month and felt like I was almost back to normal.

You will get through this as we all somehow do. Keep reaching out for support on here so that your voice is heard. Definitely see your ENT to let him or her know exactly what's going on. In the meantime, use a sound machine to mask the sound for sleep as someone else suggested. Rest is important. Things will get better.

 

Be careful with NSAIDs like Advil and such. They are known to have T as a side effect in some people.

 

Hello Alex. I would just like to empathise as I'm going through similar. I had a lot of hissing tinnitus which seems to have subsided but I'm left with wooshing PT which is very difficult to deal with and my ears pop and crack a lot when I swallow or even move my jaw. Since everything else has been discounted I think it could be inflammation. I can't add anything to what glynnis and fungus have said other than to say time is a great healer. This is what I say to myself every day. Time is your friend. Time, patience, healing. I take a strong brew of chamomile tea at bedtime. I find it helps a bit. I tend to agree with fungus about ibuprofen although the general consensus is that it's bad for ears. I did take some recently when I had a lot of joint pain and it didn't seem to do my ears any worse harm.

 

I find that eating natural carbs such as boiled potato and beans lessens my pulsatile hum. Porridge with a bit of honey also does the job. I try not to eat after 7pm.

 

Here's some help.. https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/back-to-silence.7172/

 

Hi Alex ,

I've read somewhere, but I don't remember where, that Amoxycillin is not ototoxic. It's the antibiotics that is mainly given to young children when they have otitis and other serious bacterial infections: pediatricians wouldn't give this to young children if it could hardly hurt their ears. I've been having T on right ear since last April just after a viral media otitis causing inner ear inflammation. 6 weaks after this otitis my ENT measured a 4% hearing loss on right ear, probably causing T. 3 months later my audition only very few improved on right ear. Another ENT told me that after 3 months if my ear didn't recover it was too late and I had to get used to live with my T... 10 days ago, 7 months after T appeared, a new audition test was made by my "official" ENT, showing that... my right ear definitely recovered full audition (2nd ENT pronostic was wrong on this point).

T is still here at this time but I keep hope because audition test check only hearing up to 8000 Hz frequency and it seems it can take still more time for higher frequencies to recovery (my T is at about 12-14 kHz, so high frequencies). If sound signals come back normally the brain, it's quite possible brain plasticity will adapt and T will decrease and even disappear.

So give you time a keep hope: ear needs a lot of time (in the case of viral inflammation it can last really more than 3 months!). In the meantime, I know it's easy to write, but it's important to do, enjoy live meeting people you love and practicing your favorite activities in order to focus on other things than T. And as said Chris Martin, the leader of the music groupe Coldplay, having also T, it's important not to panic, lives goes on. Today, most of the time during the day I forget my T, which was not the case at the beginning. So even if my T don't disappear, my wellness has improved since the beginning of T.

Take care and courage!

Laurent

PS: did your ENT make an audition test of your ears?