My Tinnitus Has Improved A LOT — Unknown Cause — Half a Success Story

Hi guys,

The only reason I come on to Tinnitus Talk is to read the success stories as I needed hope and a lot of it. I have had tinnitus for 8 weeks.

I suppose that I am writing half a success story. I am still really unsure as to why I first got tinnitus? Had a dreadful flu over the Christmas period... woke up a month later to extremely blocked ears. This stressed me out HUGE amounts. I started putting olive oil in my ears and my left ear started humming which was awful. The week after I then got my ears microsuctioned and the left ear didn’t resolve itself and the right ear started to ring. So so upsetting.

I did all the usual, went to see my GP who told me to live with it (nice)! I went to see an ENT who felt my tinnitus was stress induced. I didn’t believe him. I kept trying to put blame on other causes... headphone use (I barely use headphones), the night out I had at Christmas, the olive oil... microsuction etc. He told me if I could try and calm down then he believed it would go. Well here I am 8 weeks on and the left ear has faded huge amounts where I don’t even hear it in the daytime and the right ear is well on the mend. I put my finger in that ear then to do the whole checking of noises and the ring has got less and less and it’s so quiet I think it will be gone over the next few days and I can hear the sea in the background. This may not help anyone but felt compelled to write this.

Have hope and lots of it. It’s the only thing that has got me through these last few weeks xox

 

Best of luck to you! Don't say it won't help anyone because hope is good for everyone

I do suspect that stress can play a big role in developing tinnitus too, though often in combination with another factor, such as your illness and blocked ears. It may just be the thing that tipped the scale over. I'm suspecting this is true for my case too but now I need to work on resolving my other issues.

Anyway, I'm really glad to hear you've been getting better. Try not to put a time frame on it, just keep in mind it has been improving and there is no reason it won't continue to improve over the next few days/weeks/months. And definitely don't forget to protect your ears well.

 

I think stress can play a big role. I really wasn’t convinced at first with it being the cause but I don’t believe I did anything to cause it. I think perhaps if my ear hadn’t been buzzing after the olive oil I would have blamed the microsuction but the ENT said I was clearly in a state of turmoil from the moment I woke up with blocked up ears and it spiraled.

How did you get your tinnitus if you don’t mind me asking? Fingers crossed yours fades / goes away!!!!!! Xxx

 

@Lucy MacLean still not 100% sure because it's a combination of things: Eustachian tube dysfunction, earwax blockage - this caused my hearing to go muffled and scared the crap out of me resulting in severe panic and stress on top of usual stress - but mostly, neck issues from whiplash.

Likely the stress of my initial ear problems caused so much extra strain on my neck it could no longer deal and now I'm stuck with several highly varying tones. From day 1 my tinnitus has never been the same even for just one hour and it's easily influenced by posture etc.

So I have some good chances at improvement at least, maybe eventual complete healing, but it's going to take time for sure.

 

Yes on the day I woke up with ears blocked I absolutely lost it with panic as well. Did you have the wax removed?
Hope it improves in time for you x

 

@Bill Bauer Hi there Bill, I have spent hours and hours on this website over the weekend - mainly looking at the success stories though. I have seen in a lot of posts you are extremely positive and tell people that tinnitus fades and sometimes goes. This is encouraging. I have noticed with my left ear which has primarily always been the worst one is sounding more like a white noise - which is a pain but I could probably live with it. You said that if the tones change to a white noise that’s often a good sign... why is this? Also when I plug this ear too I feel like it’s quietening down but just don’t know if I am trying to convince myself that this is the case. 10 weeks ago when I first got this dreadful condition the left ear also felt like it was attached to a fridge it sounded just like electricity - so frightening. Currently there is a ring and a weird beep and slight odd ring. I even wonder if the white noise is the blood pumping in ear. Just wondered what your thoughts were really! How is your tinnitus doing these days?

 

This is so inspirational to hear, I know that stress can manifest differently in everyone's body and I definitely know that I need to find ways to reduce my stress. For now, I've been taking a natural supplement called Lipo-Flavonoid and it's helped reduce the ringing by about 60%, so I'm hopeful with a little more work on reducing my stress I can beat this!