New here, but tinnitus for a while/now worse

Hi there,

Glad I found this forum. I'm sort of at a loss for what to do. I've had tinnitus for some time now (since 2005), most likely due to spending my teen years at concerts without earplugs, and listening to headphones at the highest volume setting. While the tinnitus was pretty bad at first, eventually I was able to get used to it and it didn't really affect my day-to-day life.

Then, about a week and a half ago, I woke up with the ringing in my right ear worse than it had been in a while. Since then, it's gone back and forth and is now in both ears. I can mostly tune it out during the day, but it's been affecting my sleep: I get maybe 2-3 hours per night, 5-6 if I'm really lucky. I saw an ENT about a week ago and apparently there's nothing wrong with my hearing, and I don't have a blockage that he could find. He recommended taking a course of antibiotics (which I'm currently on) and prednisone (which I haven't started yet, because I'm terrified of the side effects) to see if there's a sinus issue that can be cured. But he didn't seem to know for sure if that was the case.

But in the meantime, I feel at a loss. I have anxiety and depression normally, which have both been exacerbated in the past year by other circumstances; this just feels like piling on, and I'm starting to feel quite hopeless. I know both of those things can make tinnitus worse so I'm trying my best to not let it get to me, but man, it's hard when you're not sleeping. It also seems like it's gotten worse since I started on the antibiotics (four days ago). I know it's a matter of time, especially since I was able to retrain my brain to ignore it once, but this is just rough.

Wondering if anyone has any suggestions especially on how to ease anxiety caused (or worsened) by T, or to just make getting sleep a little bit easier. If I could just feel well-rested I feel like it'd be easier to face this again.

Anyway, thanks for reading and for the support. It's comforting to know that I'm not alone in all of this.
-Amy

 

Which antibiotic??

Sucks that it's spiked like that, but a week and a half isn't that long, so stay positive! I've been on prednisone a couple times now and found it fine, only thing I noticed was a crazy increase in appetite. Prednisone had a real positive effect on my tinnitus and hyperacusis (went from 7/10 to 2/10, was actually able to sleep in silence for a few nights) but those effects wore off once I was off the prednisone.