I Won't Live with This

Hi all;

I'm 22 years old and I came down with an ear infection about a month ago. Got antibiotics for it, just finished those about a week and a half ago. The ringing isn't gone yet and it should be. This is horrible. My tinnitus is in one ear (the infected ear) and it varies so much. One week it felt like it was pretty much gone, the next week it was back. That absolutely devastated me.

It started out as a whoosing noise - like a breathing sound in my left ear. It followed along with my heartbeat. I figured it would pass so I ignored it. Then it evolved into the full on ring. I guess I should have taken that whoosing noise as a clue that it was an infection. Strike one for me.

Then I had to get a tooth removed yesterday. They gave me methylprednisolone for any swelling and that seems to have spiked my tinnitus. Fuck it, I'm not taking it.

I don't know what could be causing this. Is there an injury on my body im not aware of? Is it my scoliosis in my back causing this ?

I can't live like this. I don't know how you guys do this. I feel like I'm being punished for something I've done in the past. Have I offended God in some way? Have I wronged people in the past and that karma is now catching up with me?

I have a follow up with the ENT next week, but I suspect from reading a lot of the posts here that he will be useless. He'll probably want to do microsuction because the ear is waxy. I dont really care, because at this point I'm resigned to having this ringing forever.

I can't fall asleep. I haven't gotten a good night's sleep in over a month (unless induced by valium tablets). I intend to take some tonight. I'm trying not to get addicted, but at this point I just don't give a damn anymore.

A lot of people will play the "well, you could have X or Y" game. I'm not interested in hypotheticals. What is, is.

If I can't get good sleep ever again, I'm going to end it. I won't live like a victim - like I'm trapped. I won't live a life where I have to take Remeron or something in order to sleep. Yeah, I'm 22. I can't imagine living a life like this forever. And god forbid if this noise spikes in intensity.

I just met a great boyfriend, got my dream job at an investment bank, and graduate college this year. Why? WHY OF ALL TIMES DOES THIS HAVE TO HIT ME NOW? WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS? I've tried to live a good life. I've tried to support people - why does this happen to good people?

So, about ~8 days left until this ENT appt. on the 8th. Good news for me is that either way, this is going to be temporary. I will not live with this if it's permanent.

I don't know how you guys do it.

 

There is still a good chance that within a year or two your tinnitus will fade and possibly even disappear.

Check out the thread below where I summarize everything (26 tips spread over five posts) I learned about managing tinnitus after reading the posts on this forum for the past 11 months
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...itus-recently-this-info-will-be-useful.25741/

 

Based on what? Its been a month and I still have it. And a year is a damn long time to wait.

 

See the link in the message. There, there is a link to
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/spontaneous-recovery-stats-over-70-recover-3-studies.21441
There is also a link to a source that says that T is considered to be permanent only after 2 years, etc.

 

yeah, its all speculative conjecture - e.g. what works for you doesn't work for me, and vice versa.

Mine's not caused by noise trauma. Its caused by an ear infection/ear issues. Much different.

 

If you look through all six (I think) pages of that stats thread, you will see that some of the studies posted there are not about people who got their T as a result of an acoustic trauma. There are several studies of seniors (if I remember correctly, for them the cause is not specified, but I am sure that it is NOT acoustic trauma for most of them).

 

Again, with all due respect, this isn't exactly compelling evidence. Its not A + B + C = D, its "well these guys all had their ringing reduced so therefore you might too.

 

You are right that everything is conjecture. Tinnitus is a very individualized condition, what works for one person may not work for another.

My hearing loss and tinnitus is from a virus, likely an infection was involved too. Do you think you have any hearing loss? I did not realize the severity of mine until tested by an audiologist; was more focused on the annoying ringing in my ear.

The medication from your dentist is a steroid, and steroids can make tinnitus seem louder. However, they are also the treatment for viral or ear infection hearing loss and tinnitus because they work to reduce any inflammation — the thought being that inflamation is causing swelling on the auditory nerve.

It’s likely an ENT will prescribe oral steroids for you. I tried those as well as intratympanic steroid injections, which were intended to better target any inflammation. An ENT might also recommend an MRI since your issue is unilateral. Just wanted to give you some idea of what a doctor might recommend.

As for how to cope, well that is pretty individualized too. I lost my hearing nearly a year ago, but I try to follow the cliche of one day at a time.

 

Im not sure about the hearing loss thing. A few years ago I got my ears microsuctioned out after I failed a hearing test. Immediately after, I passed the test and could hear amazing. I couldnt believe it.

That ear has always had a large wax buildup (family history of waxy left ears), and I read somewhere that wax impacted is a common cause for ear ringing?

 

Yes, it can be. Did your general doctor notice wax when he diagnosed you with an ear infection?

Many members recommend using olive oil (or something similar, sorry do not recall what) to soften any wax before having it removed. You’ll find wax removal is a bit controversial here. Some members think microsuction is fine while others feel it made their tinnitus worse, or even caused it. Some members have manual wax removal done.

Really random, but do you sleep on the “bad” ear? I feel like the ear I sleep on has more wax. Maybe the warmth from my pillow? I have no idea but thought I’d ask.

 

Yeah they did. I was told that they could "barely see my eardrum". He (the useless ENT I go to) suctioned a little bit out that day - and the ringing went away that day. Except I felt some wax shift around or something, and it was back.

 

That’s annoying, it’s not easy to find a good ENT. But wax really might be what’s causing your tinnitus. If I were you, I’d look into some safe over the counter wax removal drops and try them. Maybe they will soften the wax enough for it to naturally come out or for an ENT to safely remove it.

 

Even if I've had this for a month? Has any permanent damage been caused? I'd like to know if this noise is permanent ... cause I'm gonna probably commit suicide if it is. This is too fucking much to deal with.

 

I’m not sure. This is of course anecdotal, but I have three family members and friends who had tinnitus and ear problems last year that resolved, a couple even after a month. Their causes were likely colds, allergies, and wax.

Meanwhile, I have another family member who may be okay after four months. Really hoping, and she even had hearing loss across all frequencies.

 

Yeah, well several months is a long time to go with sleepless nights and no quiet.

 

The point is closer to"22% of seniors had their T go silent, therefore your probability of spontaneously healing is above 22%, as you are younger and all studies point to younger age being correlated with a better outcome."

 

Yes it is. I am at nearly a year of no quiet. Had at least four months of sleepless nights until I figured out a sleep sound that worked for me (crickets). I use a sound app with a good speaker, some members prefer sound machines. You may want to try something like that if you’re not already. Some members also use melatonin to help them sleep.

It’s frustrating but it really is trial and error. For me I figured since there is no cure for hearing loss, I would try to treat the annoying symptoms that came along with my tinnitus: insomnia, anxiety, and depression. Still a work in progress but way better than even six months ago.

 

At that thread I linked to earlier, there are tips about what you can do if T is interfering with your sleep.

 

Yeah well, doesn't mean much until it actually happens. Plural of anecdote =/= data.

All I read through this was - "barely alive" .. as in sleepless nights, no quiet spaces ever, and just overall pain. Why am I going to allow myself to live with that? I'm 22 years old and already get hit with tinnitus. Its not like I'm 60 and on the back 9 of life/headed towards retirement. I have at least 30-40 years until life expectancy is expected to take me. Why in the hell would I allow myself to suffer through that? No, if my ENT appt next week doesn't give me any answers then either I get something to help me sleep or I'll end my life. I'm not going on like this. This is not living, this is suffering. I cannot be happy with sleepless nights - and since that seems to be the case, I see no point in continuing with this fucking ear trauma.

Again, I don't know how you guys do it.

 

Your tinnitus could still become quieter, change its pitch or go away on its own. It's still too early to say whether your tinnitus will stay or disappear, but given your history with ear wax issues and your ear infection, those two could be causing your tinnitus. Tinnitus can be a horribly exhausting condition and sometimes it can be difficult to find an exact reason for it, unfortunately.

 

What are you talking about?! The studies published in peer-reviewed journals report statistics based on Data.

The link that I posted in my first message provides information about what you can do to begin sleeping again.

There is also this:

Do you live in Russia?
If you live in the United States and if you are a white male, then you can use the information on page 17 (of 64) of
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_03.pdf
Find the row with "22-23" in the first column. The last column provides you with the expected years left to live. In your case it is 55.6 years.

The last row on that page shows that at the age of 60, one expects to live another 22 years [the reason this is possible despite the fact that life expectancy for white males is less than 82 years, is that life expectancy is the expectation at the time of birth, it includes all of the people who die in childhood, people who die of cancer in their 40s, etc; so once someone lives to be 60, we need to compute a conditional expectation that does not include the people who died before turning 60]. Of course, some people are sick or have cancer when they celebrate their 60th birthday. They are also included and are biasing the estimation of the number of years left. If one is healthy and has no bad habits like sky diving, smocking, etc., one's life expectancy is higher than the one given in the table.

I agree with you that for many people suicide is a rational choice. I wish we were to live in a more enlightened society where I could just get pills prescribed to me at any time that I could use to "turn off the light."

However, in your case, there is still a high chance that your T will fade and/or disappear (see the threads that I linked to). The sound you are hearing now is most likely not the sound you will end up stuck with should the worst happen and your T does not fall silent.

Ears take forever to heal. It makes sense to wait at least a year before you can be reasonably sure that your T won't fade. If it is relentlessly at the same level for a year, then yes it is not looking good. If it fades within a year, there is no reason why it shouldn't continue fading.

 

Remove those dark thoughts out of your head, instead think of improving your situation, which start with sleep, start relaxing earlier, shower, get an eye mask or make it dark. A sound machine works I use ocean. I also have a fan on and I use tyenol pm but that's me. For during the day keep busy and mask. If you have a quiet hobby do it and if not get one. Also listen to other posters, you can get helpful info. Work on a healthy situation for yourself.

 

Agree. My otologist said a lot of his patients have tinnitus that goes away after wax is removed. It's pretty common, and it makes sense. The wax causes a temporary hearing loss, then there's some sort of trauma (acoustic or infection) and then the somatosensory cells try to make up for the lost signal and there's an overcompensation of neuronal activity. Restore the signal and the tinnitus will possibly get better. A lot of people can't have their hearing restored for various reasons, but if wax is what's causing hearing loss a good cleaning might be the fix. As for microsuction, I've had it done about a billion times with and without tinnitus, so if the doctor needs to use microsuction don't freak out. You already have tinnitus so it can't exactly cause tinnitus and if it spikes it will only be temporary.

In my opinion you should keep taking your medicine at least until this ENT visit.

 

So how will I know if its temporary? How do I know its not permanent damage? If its permanent damage, to hell with it. I'm not gonna let myself live with that ungodly sound in my left ear.

Will leaving the wax in there for this long cause me permanent damage?

What if its this something more serious? I've read that unilateral tinnitus can be a cyst, cholestoma, or even a brain cancer/acoustic neuroma. Prognosis there isn't very good either, from what I've read. People who get surgeries for those conditions usually end up with tinnitus anyway. A family friend of mine had an infection that turned into a cyst due to poor care from a GP. That turned into botched surgery and now he's deaf in that ear with a tinnitus noise.

 

@akb12
I've been having tinnitus for two months. At the beginning I cried few times because of this noise. I'm buddhist, I meditate so you can imagine how much pain it has caused for me - person who loves silence. I felt like someone, whom it was taken away something I treasure the most.

Over those two months my T has gone down, it's quieter now and I believe it's going to keep that way, and one day I'll be free from it. Also, as the time passes you start habituating, you are not obsessed about it all the time, sometimes you don't notice that at all.

All I want to say - time is a great healer. Don't assume that nothing will change for you. You don't know that. In few months you might be free from it, so it would only be a distant memory, nothing else. But if you decide to end it - you will never know. So keep calm (anxiety only makes it much, much worse) and carry on fighting it, finding medicines that make you possible to sleep and dealing with daily life. I'll believe you will be fine. Love.

 

Ive had it for a year, others have had it for over 20 years. IF it won't disappear, and I think it will, you can still habituate. I know exactly how you feel and many of us do since we have all been in your shoes. It's new to you and everything feels hopeless. But you've had it only for a month which is nothing. If the cause is ear infection, it should go away with time.

 

When it goes away, you'll be able to state "it was temporary!" - before that, there's no way to tell.

You don't. Even if you pass all tests with flying colors (hearing test, CT, MRI, fork tests, etc), there's no way to assert that you don't have any permanent damage, unfortunately. Some damage is not visible in those tests. These tests are useful to do to have a baseline though, and to rule out other more complicated situations, but in your case you have a strong correlation with an ear infection, so perhaps the priority on fishing for an acoustic neuroma isn't the highest. Still, it may not be a bad idea to have a "big picture view".

 

A friend of mine was talking to me this morning (hes a microbiologist) - is it possible that the infection hasn't gone away completely? When I was taking the medication, I noticed that the ringing decreased gradually (I was on doxycycline hyclate) .. but seemed to come back after I finished the prescription. I've always needed stronger drugs to take care of these infections when I was a kid. Doctors used to have to give me biaxin to take car of ear infections. Is it possible that the same thing is occurring here?

 

It is. That's all any of us really have, and it will be all your ENT gives you. You may well be right about needing a more extensive AB cover though. ABs are only as good as the blood supply that delivers them to the site of infection, and the ear is not all that vascular. Also, infections tend to leave in their wake inflamed and/or scarred tissue which has to re-organize in its own time.

The only way to know the future is to live it.

 

Its always the same at the start of the tinnitus journey. Lack of sleep leads to suicidal thoughts. Eventually you adjust to the lack of sleep and suicidal thoughts become less frequent. Stress is a major factor in this. Take walks by the sea. Take a good holiday. These things really help.