My First Post, Newly Worsened Tinnitus

Hi Everyone,

I've been reading this forum a bit over the last few weeks and thought it was finally time to introduce myself.

I'm a 35 year old audio engineer, and while i've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember, it has become much more bothersome over the last 10 days or so.

I played drums in touring rock bands though my teens and 20's - and developed a certain degree of tinnitus as a result, but it never got in the way of sleep or my daily life. I do remember one instance about 2 years ago where it was worse than normal for about a week, but either subsided or I acclimated to it and got on with my life. It was always there if I listened for it, but I could be in a quiet room and not notice it. I have slept with a fan on in the room for years, but I could (and have) fallen asleep without one.

I've been working for a number of years as an audio engineer, I monitor at very safe levels. 75-80db for about 4-5 hours a day is the average (this about half the allowable time according to OSHA and others). I've been doing this for 15 years with zero issues. I ALWAYS wear hearing protection when doing anything noisy, I don't play drums anymore, overall healthy - though I deal with some moderate anxiety. Business has been good, I just got my first grammy nominated project, I have a daughter and another child on the way, My wife and I just bought the house of our dreams. Everything was great. Until.....

About two and a half weeks ago I began to notice my right ear felt a little 'full' or 'stuffy' and I was struggling to work as efficiently as a result. At no point did I notice any increase in T, but something was certainly off. I've always had a post nasal drip (and it was especially bad leading up to this) so I thought this would be a good time to go see an ENT.

12/15/17: I go see the ENT / Audiologist. After a hearing test i'm told I have "minor loss" in my right ear - around 8khz. Both ears show a dip starting at 4khz but only the right ear just barely dips into loss territory.

The ENT tells me this is not of huge concern, but does note that I have some very swollen Eustachian tubes, and some polyps on my right side. He prescribes me a 5 day course of steroids, nasonex, and claritin. I leave a little upset that I have hearing loss but i'm still not noticing an increase in T. Fairly sure I slept soundly that night.

12/17/17 I go see a client play at a smallish (800 cap) club that Sunday, but I wore 30db reduction earplugs 95% of the time I was there, and did not leave with any ringing in my ears

Over the next 4-5 days I start noticing my T getting louder and louder. It's somewhere around 7900hz, in both ears but more in the right ear. I'm now at the point where I hear it everywhere with very few exceptions, and I haven't slept well in a week. Anything loud enough to drown on the T is too loud for my wife to sleep with (or really me). I did fall asleep with some soft rain sounds on ear buds last night, but now i'm reading that headphones even at low volumes can be harmful too (although my background in audio doesn't really support that idea).

I'm having a huge degree of anxiety over this. Fear of making the T worse and some hyperacusis are making it very difficult to work (work I need to do in order to support my family).

I have somewhat of a history of letting my anxiety 'amplify' symptoms that I have, and i'm REALLY hoping this is just another example of that - set off the by the discovery of some minor hearing loss. But I don't know and I'm very scared.

 

Hi @RPM , Welcome.

As you have been reading this forum for a while, I will just point you towards some posts that I have found helpful.

@Michael Leigh has written a number of great posts, and I will include some here. First, some on tinnitus, hyperacusis, and habituation.
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/tinnitus-a-personal-view.18668/
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/hyperacusis-as-i-see-it.19174/
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/answers-to-hyperacusis-and-habituation.12058/

Michael Leigh wrote the following post on headphone use and tinnitus:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/headphones-and-tinnitus.12062/

That one may not work for you given your job, but you should read it anyways.

Staying positive is also important.

@billie48 wrote his success story demonstrating how positivity helped him habituate.
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...w-i-recovered-from-tinnitus-hyperacusis.3148/

Michael Leigh wrote the following, excellent post on the importance of positivity: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/is-positivity-important.23150/ and the following on negativity and tinnitus
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/tinnitus-and-the-negative-mindset.23705/

I wish you luck, hopefully these posts will provide some answers. Also, if you search for phrases like "sound engineer" and "musician" you will find others who are in the same field whom you can contact and I am sure will be willing to provide any advice they have learned.

 

HI @Kolisar

I know you are not feeling great at the moment and hope you start to feel better soon. You are doing great service offering help and support to those having difficulty coping with tinnitus. I wish you all the best for 2018 and please keep up the splendid work.

Take care
Michael

 

@Michael Leigh . Thank you. I am trying, I have been given some medication that I am waiting to take effect. I come here because this forum has been very helpful to me, and I have made a couple extremely special friends here with whom I communicate on a daily basis and are very supportive and mean the world to me. I come here as much as I can, which has not been much recently, because I feel I owe w huge debt to this forum because of the support I have received and because it allowed me to meet someone here who has helped me to be able to keep going during this particularly difficult time in my life.

 

Thank you both for the insights. Trying to be positive about this, but I'm pretty devastated at the moment. The constant ringing and pressure is absolutely maddening.

I'm going back through texts and I think my first complaint about this recent bout of loud tinnitus was on the morning of the 18th, after going to that concert on the 17th. That must be the culprit. I did start a round of prednisone the morning of the 18th, but clearly it didn't help me out.

I've started taking Lipo Flavenoid (I've heard it doesn't work, but a family members claims to have had success so I figure it's worth a try) and Nasonex to my existing regimen of Flovent, St Johns Wort, and Ginger. I'm open to any suggestions here.

 

Your case scarily mirrors mine. I too have been in bands all my youth, and was seeing an ENT for bad post nasal drip 2 weeks prior to my T increasing. I also had a milder T since I was around 19. I also had a spike in the middle but acclimatised to it quickly, but then after a particularly loud gig, everything changed. It became noticeable all the time and I could no longer ignore it. This put me into a state a sheer terror. I went to see a few specialists, but never really got any help. I have now pretty much rehabituated, but I had to quit my band and have only done two proper gigs since. I was completely miserable and depressed for a long time and never thought I’d get over it.

I don’t really think about it much now, I mainly ignore it and it doesn’t affect me. I was petrified of making it worse and went through a phase of avoiding everything, but ultimately this made me feel worse and seemed to make the tinnitus worse, because it’s all I thought about. I started to improve when I accepted it, guilt free. I just told myself to stop torturing myself and get back into doing regular things. Slowly but surely I integrated myself back into the world. I’m not perfect, but I’m a million miles from where I was. I’m content and have my life back. It’ll never be like before, but I’ve accepted it.

 

This is truly an inspiration, thank you! I hope I can shake the obsession with the T and fear of making it worse so I can get back to enjoying the work I do on music. I'm scared, and being overly cautious with work even though I know that i'm listening at a reasonable level and it should not do any damage.

I think the thing that scares me the most is that the last 2 years have been filled with unbelievable growth and success with my business, and now that i've afforded to set my family up in a wonderful home with everything we could ever ask for, this nightmare is threatening to take away my livelihood.

I feel like I haven't been able to relax and take a deep breath for almost 2 weeks now. I know that's nothing compared to many, but it is wearing on me. It's nice to know that many are able to get back to the point where they don't feel like their brain is being seared with a laser.

 

Same here. Business was doing well, bought our first family home and now we’ve got our first daughter. This was all about a year prior to my T going crazy. Give it time and rest your ears. I think you’ll be fine again in the future; you’ll be surprised what we can come back from.

I’m quite lucky in the fact that many of my students are GPs and Consultants. In fact, it was one of my students who looked after my wife during her pregnancy as she was consultant lead (due to a previous heart condition). I also had the chance to talk to them about a few issues I’ve had, including tinnitus. I also teach a Dentist, which comes in handy. He gave me x-rays and checked for TMJ for me, free of charge. I’ve had many discussions with him about tinnitus. I feel privileged to be in such a position surrounded by great people who are now basically friends of mine. I had Sepsis earlier this year, and again, one of my students who is the clinical lead consultant of the ward next door, came over to help and assist me. I feel like I’ve had access to some serious private health care. All of this because I teach them the guitar. The power of music ay.

 

Great to hear and I truly hope you are right. Interesting about the Dentist and TMJ. My wife is a hygienist, and although she didn't notice any issues upon quick inspection maybe I'll have the doctor she works under take a look.
Mine certainly gets louder when I clench my jaw.

I read somewhere on here that if you can drown your T out with your bathroom faucet, you're not nearly as bad as some others who eventually went on to 'recover' Fortunately mine isn't quite that bad.

I wonder, though, if my being a Mastering Engineer (and this probably applies to all musicians) has trained my brain to zero in on specific frequencies, I know I do this all the time at work. Maybe that makes it harder for me to shake my focus from the ringing.

 

Mine gets louder when I clench my jaw or open it wide. I think this is pretty common and is a form of somatic tinnitus. I’ve mixed and mastered many projects, but only as a hobby and for my diplomas etc. There could be an element of sound obsession mixed in, because when mastering, it’s all about balancing frequencies. And I know how obsessed I used to get whilst mixing. I am very finicky. If somethings not right I’ll spend a lot of time on it until it’s perfect to me. Even if everyone else says it’s fine.

 

I know a professional producer/engineer who runs his own studio who also has bad tinnitus. He still works mixing and recording bands.

 

Awesome. I've dropped my monitor level quite a bit. If this doesn't get better i'm going to consider moving to a smaller set of speakers (I currently have B&W 802's which are quite large ... though that doesn't mean they have to be loud) and playing around with some equal loudness curves so that I can monitor lower while having the same ear frequency response I did at around 80 db. The tricky thing about mastering is that with every change in monitor level, you perceive the overall balance differently (as you probably know) and I am SO used to hearing music at 80db.

It's interesting how i've adapted to the slight high frequency hearing loss and it doesn't really effect my eq decisions - but the ringing ... ugh! I fantasize about being able to put an EQ plugin on my brain and notch out the T ... if only it were so easy!

 

Your increased T most likely came from the club night. I went to a concert with 30db ear plugs and 2 days later the T increased by quite abit.

The spike has been with me for 4 months now but in the last week ir so has shown some improvements.

Earplugs dont attentuate low frequency very well. So even though you wore -30dB earplugs, a realistic reduction wouldve been probably -15dB

 

I think you're right. I've re-traced by the text messages to my wife and mother, and my internet search history in the days before I had issues. I went to the show Sunday night and Monday I was googling tinnitus relief. Looks like i'll be investing in some serious custom-molded plugs in the near future.

I'm glad to hear your issues are starting to subside. What have you been doing (or not doing) to help it along?

 

I haven't been doing anything to help other than avoid loud places like bars/concerts/movies. There isn't much you can do (actually there is nothing you can do). first 3 and half month the spike was constant, but in the last week it's lowered by maybe 50%.

Just be patient and it will most likely get better. Even if the spike seems permanent, I sure thought so after the concert.

 

Actually I have been going to the gym more consistanly in the last few weeks. Not to help with the T. But because i booked a upcoming vacation and i wanted to get in shape. Other than that everything has been routine. Not sure if the T improvements has anything to do with the gym sessions. But my sleep has been definitely better since i'm more tired as a result

 

Could a steroid taper help? Might be worth trying along with taking nac and magnesium.

can you access hbot and/or stems? i havent personally tried hbot so read the threads. i did receive adipose derived stems in may and have noticed my hyperacusis has significantly improved along with my spikes.

what has worked in the past with your health anxiety?

have you heard of cbt mindfulness. this is what got me through some dark times ( along with support from special friends). it was especially useful for my sleep.

 

Thanks for the advice. I took a steroid taper starting the day after I attended that concert, but the dose was fairly low. I’m unaware of what nac or stems are, but would love to know!

 

there are threads on stems and nac on here. probably easier to look them up

 

Thanks! Picked up a Nac suppliment last night and started it today.

Regarding your other questions. I'm taking St. Johns Wort for the anxiety. I have somewhat of a history of becoming fixed on ailments (real or otherwise) and obsessing over them for a few weeks before they slowly fade from though. I'm hoping this recent spike of T is that, but I honestly don't have much faith in that. I've also tried meds like Lexapro, but I don't love how they make me feel, and I tend to gain weight.

 

Hi @RPM. How are you? Any improvements?

 

Thank you for checking in! I'm doing MUCH better. I think the volume of the tinnitus has somewhat reduced, but more than that my brain has been blocking it out. It actually happened more quickly than I expected. I plan to come back and write something in success stories soon.

 

Good to hear your positive update. Yes please do write a success story so other members or visitors still suffering can benefit from your experiences. Take care. God bless.