New and Worried but Hopefully and Fighting

[Naj33]

So I am 17 years old I'll be 18 in 3 months. I lived in the Caribbean for most of my life but i moved back to New York around June. It's October now and ever since 3 days ago when I was reading on my computer and about to go to bed I heard a ringing in my left ear accompanied by a full feeling in my ear and a stuffy left nostril. I was worried when I woke up and it was still there. I told my aunt and she gave me antihistamines to take for my congestion. My congestion is still there till now and the ringing hasnt stopped since. I've been anxious and online ever since. At first i thought it was ETD or something to do with my allergies or sinuses since ive had a history with both allergy and sinus problems just like my mom and brother. I'm also wondering if it has something to do with wax in my ear but I'm not too sure. Ive tried to stay calm but to be honest the past few days have been silent depression and anxious thoughts. I do were headphones and earbuds but i don't put them on too loudly to avoid ear damage but i doubt its that because the ringing just came out of nowhere.

Also my throat has been a little scratchy so whenever i clear it with a cough the pitch of the whistling in my ear is affected and increases for the duration of the cough and whenever i breath heavily through my nose the pitch is affected as well. So this adds to my idea that it has something to do with my Eustachian tube. The noise isn't that unbearable and in some scenarios whenever i'm focused on something else such as typing this and reading or watching a show i barely even notice it but when its quiet and im thinking about it it gets annoying.

I haven't gone to see a ENT yet my aunt said she had a similar case and they just prescribed her painkillers but i doubt she had the tinnitus I also saw a phamicist at the Walgreens down the street and she recommended Sudafed but ive heard that worsens the tinnitus.

I'm honestly a little scared that I may have to deal with this forever but after coming here and reading a bit I found a little closure and felt a little relief. From what ive read a lot of people said to be patient and try my best to habituate to it and it will or may get better. It's only been around 4 days but I think just talking to someone about it has calmed be down a bit.

SORRY for making this so long it's just I've had a lot on my chest and this has been the first time in 4 days where i can let it off.

If anyone has any advice, methods of relief, recommendations or just words of hope for me that would be really appreciated. I hope we all can get better or at least live happily with this.

 

[billie48]

Welcome to TT. I think your T being so new and seemingly mild from your description (as compared to many memebers' T here), you really don't need to over-react to it. Anxiety and stress are bad for T. So the best thing you can do is to stay calm and positive and give it a little time. Of course you can do something about it to help yourself, such as getting masking going on asap. This will prevent you from getting overly anxious upon hearing T. I used to do masking the whole day, from bed time to on-the-go to work/home time. Always had something in the ears to mask the ultra high pitch dog whistle T. But I could only do partial masking due to severe hyperacusis. Any masking is better than nothing if the sound still borders you. The other thing you can do is to make sure to sleep well and perhaps take some supplements, such as Magnesium, Zinc, NAC, B12, D3 etc. There are many success stories from young folks like you. You should read them up as much as possible to help you calm down. Here are some of those:

success story of 17 years old Zach:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/fake-it-until-you-make-it.7590/

success story of Jari with T since 12 years old:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/new.7670/


Honeybee's success story with good tips:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/3-months-in-and-going-strong.9747/

College age AnneG success story:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/came-back-to-say-it-really-does-get-better.6166/