I Got Tinnitus from an Ear Infection — Valsalva Maneuver Made It Worse

As the title says, I got tinnitus 4 months ago from an ear infection. It started with ringing in my left ear but now I have tinnitus in both ears.

After a flight about a week ago, when I equalized the pressure using Valsalva maneuver, I now have a constant hissssss sound in my forehead that's mostly noticeable when I'm in my room. The ringing had subsided for the most part and was only there when I was in very loud places, but didn't take over anything. I feel like this just made it all worse and that it won't ever improve now.

I'm only 29. How am I going to be able to live like this for the rest of my life? I'm so anxiety ridden. Since my tinnitus got worse, I can't sleep anymore. I've spoken with a therapist and I'm seeing them again soon but my life just feels hopeless. It has been taken away from me.

Seeing an ENT in May, but it feels so far away. And what can they do?

At the same time I know plenty of people that live with tinnitus without an issue. What's my problem? I lived my best life before this, never once contemplating suicide but now. I'm scared of the thought.

 

It will settle down with time.

 

Thank you. Hopefully it goes away but I'm getting less hopeful each day.

 

It will most likely settle with time. I’m just 25 years old, and I’m almost habituated to the sound (although I have a pretty bad spike now). Take care of your ears, find something to do during the day to take your mind off of it. During the first month of my tinnitus I slept with rain sounds to mask the tinnitus. I’m not saying to do this, but you can try it to see if it helps.

 

@alnil, what did you ENT say, out of curiosity?

 

She didn't observe any issues with my ears. She seemed kinda hasty, but did all the procedures that she could to check my ear and middle ear, and I also did a smaller hearing test on the spot which showed normal hearing. I didn't get that many answers though. But I got to talk with an audiologist at a later date due to being sent for a proper audiogram (I had normal hearing still luckily), and she mentioned that the tinnitus spike after the flight might've been due to the pressure changes, but that it doesn't need to indicate inner ear damage.

This was something I was worried about as I've since after the flight been experiencing a small unsteadiness when it comes to my balance (and which I'm still experiencing 2 months after, but not as much), but might just be attributed to the immense tinnitus-related angst and anxiety I had after the trip, which has since then calmed down. The audiologist also said that the intermittent "stings" of ear pain as well as small ear popping I still feel during pressure changes (e.g., going underground, taking the train to work, through tunnels), or just randomly, might be due to tense muscles in the ears.

I also thought I had ETD, but to that, the ENT just dismissed it and didn't do any checks for it. But this thought was just because I started to have crackling in my ears when swallowing, as well as the ear popping. The audiologist thought the crackling could be attributed to tense ear muscles and the anxiety/stress that I've had.

Regarding the Valsalva maneuver, I'm not sure if this caused anything in particular. No doctor I've talked to said that it could. But I've of course read all the anecdotes on the web regarding the damage it may cause, but I've never felt any pain doing it or anything else. Either way, I've stopped doing it.

Anyway, it's interesting to look back on what I wrote at the beginning. The tinnitus is the same, but I'm habituating quite well and while it can be irritating, sometimes depressing, those moments come less and less and I feel like I'm going to successfully forget about the tinnitus in a year or 2 hopefully. I'm also sleeping without sound enrichment now. After I got the dizziness and unsteadiness, I'd say I prefer the tinnitus lol.