Massive Tinnitus Spike After Tapering Off Prednisolone

It is 1am here and I am totally freaking out. I suffered from unilateral (right ear) idiopathic Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss on 23 Feb 2018 (reverse slope loss with hyperacusis) with quite severe low frequency losses.

I got started on treatment 8 days after by ENT with oral Prednisolone and after with intratympanic injections with Dexamethasone followed by a week of Prednisolone oral that has now tapered off and I am on nothing. It has been a few days since the Prednisolone stopped.

I have been getting tinnitus since the SSHL. At worse it was a roaring sound that lasted just a few hours. Other times I have had a buzzing tinnitus as well.

Suddenly tonight out of the blue whilst sitting in relative quiet my tinnitus suddenly has gone beserk and it has become extremely loud. Louder than I have ever experienced. And it is a new frequency like a high pitched car horn on full bore. It is so loud I cannot hear the pedestal fan in my right (bad) ear. It is so loud it feels like the inside of my ear is vibrating from the intensity of it.
I am worried that it means there is new damage occurring inside the ear, that the Prednisolone was stopped too early, that there is still too much inflammation inside my ear. I feel like I should be rushing to the hospital to see the ENT tomorrow if I wake up (I doubt I will be able to sleep now) and it is still like this. There is no way I could cope with it this loud. This is ridiculously loud.

Totally panicking here. I am also on Betahistine 24mg x 3 t.d., acetyl-cysteine 3600mg per day, Sermion (Nicergoline) 30mg p.d. and Clonazepam 0.5mg at night which I have just taken after the tinnitus attack (ENT prescribed). The only other medicine I took about an hour before the tinnitus went beserk was my Nexium tablet (esomeprazole) but it has never caused tinnitus before.

I have been taking large doses of ginseng, ginkgo biloba, L-arginine, L-Carnitine, multi vitamins (magnesium, b vitamins, C, D, zinc, magnesium), calcium, fish oil, Vitamin E, Taurine, Alpha Lipoic Acid. And drinking lots of pomegranate juice, eating bananas, dairy, vegetables and fruit. Not drinking any alcohol, coffee and avoiding salt.

I have also been avoiding doing any exercise (ENT told me to stay off the gym and anything strenuous) and any loud noises.

Anybody know what could be going on? I am trying to do everything right but still I am getting knocked down by this. It is driving me into insanity. I already suffer depression and anxiety. It is tipping me into a very dark place I don't want to be but I cannot live like this.

 

@ozzienam I know how you are feeling emotionally. Lots of us feel or have felt the distress you are going through including the depression ans other thoughts.

Did your doctor tell you to take all those high doses of vitamins? If he did, good. If he did not, I would make start thinking about adjusting that. High doses of some of these vitamins can cause issues for some and not others. This board is good at giving some advice on which vitamins to take but I would not take that as scientific proof and more trial and error.

If you were on steroids and you got better while on them then that actually may be a decent sign that it's inflammation that can be treated. When I took steroids , 4 weeks in, it did nothing at all.

In my opinion I would consider going to the ER for the Tinnitus and the emotions you are having. This is based on your last sentence.

 

It seems to me like polypharmacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polypharmacy

 

I would get checked out as soon as you can.
You might have a middle ear infection or inflamation and need treatment.
Let us know how you get on.
Love glynis

 

Thanks for the replies. I appreciate it. Eventually it reduced in intensity to about half. I got to sleep and woke up to the same half intensity but over the course of this morning it has reduced further, albeit still being there and being a new tinnitus frequency I did not have before. I now have three different tinnitus tones - low buzzing, the new one (mid range) and a very high pitched one. I see my ENT on Saturday 8 April 2018 which is three days. I have a blood test scheduled for Saturday which means also I need to be completely free of steroid in my blood so as to get an accurate result (ENT should have done blood tests from the outset but didn't consider it a priority then).

Will try to cope until then. Thanks again.

 

Had a hearing recovery on 5 April after the 'car horn' tinnitus and 6 April it had virtually been restored. I was amazed. It seemed the massive tinnitus was a prelude to a hearing recovery event. No idea if anyone else has had that? Anyway it was short lived. Over the next couple of days the low frequency hearing slope started to fall back down (coincidentally I had gone for a walk/jog as recommended by ENT to do some light exercise since my cholesterol results on 6 April were too high).
By 9 April my hearing had taken a severe reversal with huge hearing loss. Over the next 8 days I have suffered worsening hearing loss and increased hyperacusis/recruitment to the point I wanted to rip out my ear and end it. However my tinnitus fell away. I thought it was because I was turning deaf.

But last night I again had the 'car horn' tinnitus tone. Not as severe as last time though. I got to sleep and woke up today still with the 'car horn' tinnitus but amazingly again my hearing has remarkably improved. Not perfect and still a very slight tad of hyperacusis/recruitment in high frequencies. I test this via an Android hearing app I use for comparison purposes (I know is uncalibrated etc).
The tinnitus is continuing on all day to about 60-70% of what it was before. I am hoping it may be a further prelude to more improved hearing.
I am just paranoid (and this is probably the wrong group/forum) of further hearing loss attacks that nobody really has any clues at to why. The third drop in 7 weeks since it began.
That is something I am trying to chase up on different sites. But for now I am just going to live with the 'car horn', another high pitched ringing that doesn't really worry me at the moment considering my last week of horror and a low 'electric generator' style buzzing tinnitus.

 

Hey, so.

This is super relevant to me. Any follow up?