My Story Looking for Advice as Well as Just Talk

After I started a new job a warehouse, I noticed I couldn't hear out of my left ear. There was no tinnitus at the time, but life started to seem pointless, and I seemed to notice my eustachian tube when drinking soda for the first. When it didn't get better after a couple weeks, I saw an ENT and had my ears cleaned out. They told me I hear perfectly, and there was no tinnitus. I ran that night and tend to remember that night as my last good run free from both tinnitus and the disturbance of a silent ear.

A few days later I noticed a sound like air moving through my left ear. It also seemed like I could hear my voice coming from internally sometimes. Around the same time soreness in the throat and other cold symptoms appeared. I took off from running to help recover. At some point during the cold I started noticing a vein on the left side of my neck moving up towards the ear with tinnitus. On third day I had a headache and some dizziness. As such I new I needed to run. Afterwards the cold symptoms disappeared. But the soreness in my throat remained as did the vein and tinnitus. The soreness was weird no matter how much water I drank my throat would always want more. Between my perpetually dry throat and the tinnitus I cut back on running. Eventually I went back to the ENT who cleaned my ears out. All he did was look at my ears and tell me there wasn't compacted wax and the tinnitus may or may not go away. Even though it felt like a waste I wish I would have gotten in sooner in case there was an infection or something.

After the appointment, not much changed. I started playing Magic the Gathering Monday nights as a way to get out of the house. Talking and listening to people seems help a lot. As does being in public place like the library. When I'm at home I tend to either read, watch tv, or play video games to keep from being fixated on the noise. Talking to people I game with tends to help a lot, but I worry about the damage my headset may do to ears even though I always have kept the volume low. If I'm having trouble with I'll play some music I love or the masking type to help.

Recently I noticed tinnitus in my other ear as well as minor ear pain and a popping noise when I was chewing. I looked up the popping noise and found out it was a sign of eustachian tube dysfunction and about the existence of pulsatile tinnitus. I saw a new doctor. She wanted to focus on the ear pain rather than the tinnitus and prescribed me antibiotics. That was last week. I've been hoping but doubting my tinnitus will go away. And my left ear still feels weird.

As far advice goes I've been wondering about who I should see in case there's actually a treatable condition I have, what testing can they run, and how do I know they're knowledgeable about this. Also I was interested in medication that can reduce tinnitus.

 

Welcome to the forum @Nick07. If you can distract your by getting busy and talking to people, take that as a positive as mine can be heard above jet noise and river rapids and most members don't have that luck. Taking things positively can help reduce anxiety and stress which can aggravate T. Give it some time. Usually the ears take 6 months or more to get better or more stable. If you have a treatable condition, such as TMJ, or TTTS, then your doctor should be able to refer you to a specialist for that. If you have hearing loss, then ENT and audiologist should be helping etc. But ETD should be the area of ENT.

 

@billie48 thanks for the reply. It's good to see someone took the time read my post and reply. To be honest as much as wrote I wouldn't be surprised if people just skimmed it. Talking to be and staying busy doesn't necessarily block out the tinnitus. It just keeps me from being fixated on it. Initially I was often fixated on it and realized this is a suicidal person must feel. Now I'm handling it a lot better. Though I know I could go into panic mode about it any time. As far as treatments, there's one other ENT in town, so I could talk to them and make sure they would perform tests specifically for ETD. I also wanted to see a vascular surgeon in case it's related to blood flow. Anyways thanks for listening.