Is the Spike in My Tinnitus After Using a Powerful Drill Permanent?

Hi,

I'm a moron. I was doing better with my tinnitus. It had both gotten better and I had habituated to it. I'd forgotten I ever had tinnitus.

Yesterday I used a powerful drill to put curtains up. I drilled into the wall right beside my ears. The noise was loud. Of course I got a huge spike in my tinnitus. Why would I think I wouldn't? I didn't even consider my tinnitus. And now it's too late.

It wasn't for very long. As soon as I noticed the tinnitus, I put earplugs in. But still, that was a very loud noise right next to my ears.

Is this permanent? Has anybody ever had similar amount of noise exposure and gotten back to baseline in days/weeks/months?

I'm so depressed now. After I had come such a long way, I am so frigging depressed.

 

Why hadn't you come back here to write a success story?

Spikes can last several days, weeks or months. Nobody can tell if it will go back to baseline but it definitely can go.

If you recover... please never again forget that, even if your tinnitus returns to baseline level, your ears are permanently violated. Always use hearing protection when loud noises are near. Or you risk suicidal level tinnitus, like that of @Allan1967, @JoeBattams and @Brian P all of whom committed suicide because of insanely loud tinnitus.

 

I had planned to. It was only a few weeks ago I began to see improvements after doing neck exercises, as I believe my tinnitus is cervicogenic. Or at least it was until loud noise exposure...

Although, perhaps the nerves in my neck are still what primed my ears to respond to a loud noise. I've been exposed to noises far louder than drills and have never gotten tinnitus. Never had any problems with my ears. So maybe there is still hope with the neck exercises. But they really were working a treat.

If anybody wants to check the specific exercises out, there is a whole essay of information I would have to write, and will some day when I get the time, but you can follow this guy's information:

Identify and treat the dreaded cervical hinge;...

Watch all his videos and read his articles, he talks a good bit about tinnitus as a symptom of posture disorders and I've found a lot of truth in what he says (n=1).

https://mskneurology.com/articles/

I've been following him and have been working on posture and strengthening the neck. I believe weak neck muscles have trapped nerves which are causing, or at least contributing to, my tinnitus. There is also some interplay with my jaw.

I'll keep at the exercises and hope my tinnitus goes back to where it was, that blissfully unannoying quiet hiss.

If anybody wants to talk about the neck, posture or anything like that in relation to tinnitus, or not, we can use this thread until I'm ready to give it one of its own.

I am actually raging at myself, that's the worst thing. How stupid could I be? If it were just a random spike, at least I wouldn't be stomach churningly depressed about my own stupid choices.

My tinnitus isn't even severe. It's moderate now and was very mild up until yesterday. I know I can habituate to this, it's akin to what it was before the improvement. But I still feel severely depressed and suicidal (with no actual danger). I'm probably somebody who could benefit from CBT, if all else fails. Moderate tinnitus is a severe affliction, so severe tinnitus scares the shite out of me.

 

Hi @BigLad -- I would (strongly) encourage you to give yourself a break. I've had two significant spikes since I first got tinnitus. One was from a dental visit (unavoidable), and the second one from doing a relatively short stint using an electric snow blower. Both lasted 1-2 weeks.

Like you, I was upset with myself after the snow blower incident, in my case telling myself I'll be done soon (it took longer than I thought). But my situation wasn't too dissimilar to other stories I've read here. Seemingly innocuous situations all of a sudden turn into an event that causes a spike. And there's a learning curve for all of us to figure some of these things out.

I myself would probably not have given too much thought to the noise of a drill, and after hearing your story, it sounds like it wasn't outrageously loud. Which strongly suggests to me your spike will more than likely be relatively short-lived. Of course every situation and person is different, but I think your spike will likely resolve soon. And I suspect you'll be wiser for the experience!

Take care!

P.S. If you would like to try a home remedy, lightly apply some castor oil to the outside of your ears, and then apply some warmth (hot water bottles or electric heating pad). Do as often as 4x/daily for 10 minutes or so. I've had a bit of success doing that when tinnitus becomes unduly loud.

 

Did you wear earplugs during this visit? I will have to get a root canal soon and was hoping earplugs would mitigate any further spiking?

Thanks for the support.

I'm actually trying the "Back to Silence" method I saw on here. Basically a minimal form of CBT. So, hopefully it goes back down, but if it doesn't, I'll learn to deal with it.

 

I seem to remember going back and forth, trying earplugs, and then taking them out. I think I finally left them out because they seem to cause some kind of occlusion effect. I don't really know for certain which way was, or would have been best.

If you would like to try at least a temporary solution to your infected tooth, try putting 2-3 drops of tea tree oil in your mouth, add 1/4 tsp of sodium ascorbate, 1/4 tsp of coconut oil, and 1/2 tsp of wheatgrass juice powder. Swish around mouth for 5-10 minutes. Do 1x-2x daily. Works amazingly well for me.

If that still doesn't do it, I bring out the big gun: making a chlorine dioxide solution, and brushing with it. There are toothpaste and dental products that have chlorine dioxide in them. Amazing how it tamps down infections from minor to major, and cleans teeth really well also. Be sure to rinse out your mouth thoroughly after using it however, as it can affect the enamel.

 

Thanks, but unfortunately it isn't an infection. I have an overbite and my bottom teeth are worn down to near the root canal. Eventually they will open the cavity and I'll need the nerve removed. Nothing I can do except wear a night mouth guard and prolong the inevitable. But I can feel one of them getting painful, so I think I'm due a drill in the face soon.

 

Nah, don't worry about it, worry and fear will only make it worse. Don't ask me how I know.

Yes, habituation is a dual edged sword. Out of sight and out of mind, but not out of our ears/brains. We've all probably done something similar. Just get some good ear protection for next time you do something noisy to make sure you don't damage them further.

In my personal experience, this appears to be something that will be with me for as long as I live. But I have the power to make it worse or better by all manner of things. There are a lot of good options for masking the sound and protecting ourselves (sometimes from ourselves), thank goodness.

 

@BigLad, not sure if these two stories will help, but I can relate. I used a power tool about 5 years ago. My tinnitus had gone from catastrophic (20 pounds weight loss, little sleep, couldn't even drive my car and so forth) to moderate, a process that took perhaps three years. I ha headphones on and took them off. Then i realized I had one more cut to make. I foolishly neglected to put the headphones back on. It took about 5 months for things to resolve. I had a weird secondary vibration whenever I spoke or a sound was moderately loud.

Now, after ten years of tinnitus (and about 6 years after the power tool use) there was a new incident. My tenant set off the smoke detectors in the in-law apt. I had given her batteries days earlier and she agreed to put them in the detectors right away. She didn't. She waited until the chirp low battery sound, set all hell loose at 9:30 pm and called me hysterical. I was tired and totally forgot to use ear protection. I had to disconnect the alarms from the hard wires and got an intense up close exposure that caused a new sound in my left ear, increase of very high pitch in the right ear, plus the weird vibration probably due to the contraction/spasming of the 2 tiny muscles in the middle ear. The vibration is slowly diminishing. The tinnitus is ugh, up to severe levels. Only thing preserving my sanity is hearing aids with Bluetooth so I can play my favorite sounds from the TinnitusPlay app.

Just sharing this because I think most of us have been there, done that, in terms of acoustic trauma in spite of our best intentions. I hope your situation improves (post snow-blower) and that mine does as well. I have had the occasional 5 out of 10 day, but most of the time it's a solid 8. Hoping for healing for all of us!

 

You should be fine.

I was invited to a wedding and the music was so loud that it was making my lungs vibrate. This went on for maybe... 5 hours? I went home and in around 24-48 hours it went back to normal.

 

What works best for me is earbuds (old fashioned rubber ones) connected to my iPhone playing mellow music. For some reason, the music (while not covering up all the drill noise) relaxes my body and works much better than earplugs (or in one case tissue stuffed into my ears when I couldn't find the earbuds).