My Perspective on Tinnitus Changed After Sudden Hearing Loss — Look for Positives

I'm not sure if this is really a success story but I thought I would log in one last time and share my story in case it helps others.

I developed tinnitus in January 2022. My original post from April of that year tells the story → here.

My tinnitus has several tones. It's always there, but there are frequencies around 10 kHz that are super piercing when it's at its worst.

It really took over my life and I tried everything. Nothing really worked. I became so consumed by it, I'd spend ages just sat in silence obsessing over it. I was desperate to believe that there'd be some cure and I'd have given my life savings to find it.

I did start to get my life back a bit and enjoy life more but I was quickly slipping back into despair.

Between Christmas and New Year just gone, I had this supercold, or maybe it was the flu. I couldn't shift it and my sinuses were blocked. Suddenly one night, the hearing in my right ear just went. This is the side where my tinnitus is. I couldn't hear a thing from that side.

I just told myself it was a temporary thing due to the illness, like when your ear goes funny on a plane, and tried to get to sleep. The next morning, no change. I started getting really bad ear pain. The day after (NYE) I went to the walk-in centre at 6 am. When I eventually saw a nurse, they said my eardrum was red and swollen and they prescribed antibiotics.

The pain eventually eased off but I still couldn't hear. My tinnitus was off the scale - it had turned into a roaring static. I went back to the doctor. They said my ear looked normal now, and they didn't have any answers regarding my hearing other than to give it time and if it didn't recover, they'd refer me to ENT.

As weeks went by and my hearing didn't come back, I had to consider the possibility that it wouldn't. I had no quality of life as I was completely depressed and shut myself away. I work with sound for a living, and was asking myself how I could continue to do my job. I looked back on the 12 months I'd spent obsessing over my tinnitus and I swore that if it even recovered slightly so I could hear a bit, I'd never take my hearing for granted again.

Then after weeks I started to notice little improvements. I wasn't sure if I was imagining it, it was so gradual. Weirdly though, as my hearing slowly came back, it was out of tune - If I heard a musical note, I'd hear a slightly higher pitched one in my right ear. This made all music sound out of tune.

Very slowly, over more weeks, it just settled. By the time I saw an ENT and had a hearing test in March, the results showed that I was actually hearing better from my right ear than my left.

Now I just have tinnitus, like I did before, but my perspective has changed. I said I wouldn't waste any more time obsessing over it, and that I wouldn't take my hearing for granted, and I won't. I'm determined to live my life and be grateful for what I do have. I still hear my tinnitus, but it's a reminder of that now, so it almost seems like a positive thing.

As for what happened to my hearing, I don't have much of an idea. The doctors weren't able to tell me. My guess is that my ear must have filled with fluid from an infection and it took 2 months to go away. I found a handful of similar experiences online. Maybe it's fairly common - it had never happened to me before anyway and it certainly scared me.

I appreciate everyone's experience is different and I don't want to seem like I'm peddling cheap platitudes about "you can get over it" and "look on the bright side". However, I think I've learned that improving your wellbeing and trying to get to a more positive perspective is hugely important in building a success story.

Before my recent hearing issues, I was finding some positivity from exercise, immersing myself in activities I enjoy, writing down positive things from each day etc. An online programme I did also helped me - there's a link to it in my original post. But the biggest thing that helped me was overcoming something worse.

Things that didn't help were everything else I listed in my original post, and reading most of the stories on the Internet. Try to get away from reading about tinnitus too much.

But thanks to everyone who shares their stories and experiences - I did find some genuinely helpful and encouraging. I doubt I'll spend much time on here now as I want to stop letting tinnitus control my life, and I now feel like I am in control.

Best wishes to all. Better times are ahead of you.

 

Thanks for posting.

There is the recurring part about not reading about tinnitus in "success story" posts. I find it fascinating and hard to understand. If you got to such a good place where you can live a good life, where you are not controlled by tinnitus - which is there, as you say, all the time, I really wonder why reading (or not reading) makes such a difference?

I have been consumed and devastated by my tinnitus for now a solid 3 months (4 months now since onset) and I keep spending inordinate amount of time here. But I feel even if I did not, I would be still in tinnitus obsession hellhole, I think.

 

@audioprog, thank you for sharing your positive story!

Your experience resonated with me. Recently I've had the perception that my left ear is going through hearing loss. I have hyperacusis in my right ear only. My theory is that the imbalance in volume has kind of tricked my brain into believing that my left ear has hearing loss. I have a 1-year follow-up with the ENT this Friday. So let's see what happens.

 

It could be earwax.