New Here

Hi everyone. After searching on the internet I came here.

The way my tinnitus started is with a sinus infection (or I feel like it was)

On 8/15/14 I didn't feel well and I just felt funny. The next day I had a fever. The day after I vomited. I slowly started to feel better. Starting 8/20 I had massive amounts of nasal drainage and was blowing my nose constantly. I was also coughing up flem. On 8/26 after a 12 hour shift I drove home in the morning. I felt like my right ear was stuffy and clogged and I had a slight ringing sound in it I had my mother look in it because I thought it was wax, she didn't see anything. When I went back to work that day I had the MD look at my ear. She stated my right ear had lots of fluid behind it, which was the ear that was bothering me. SHe wrote me for amoxicillin. After several days the drainage stopped and even the stuffy feeling in my ear almost went away.

It didn't go all the way away and I had trouble sleeping. I was only getting like 2-3 hours a day. Because of this I went to a walk in clinic on 8/30 and was told my ear looked better. She gave me sample packs of what were basically mucinex and such..

On 9/3 I went and saw my primary because the ringing had not gone away. I had such a hard time sleeping because of that and the sensation that something was in my right ear. That was when he told me I had Tinnitus and maybe had clogged eucstachian tubes. He told me to get some Afrin.

So far it's the same. I tried Benadryl to sleep and it didn't work. I was actually supposed to work tonight but called in because I am so stressed out over this. I went ahead and made an ENT appointment but it's not until the 16th.

I can barely hear the ringing, but it's there when I sleep, it's awful. Its a very low pitched sound. Its's more noticeable if I place the side of my head on a pillow. I tried to keep the fan running, but it just keeps me awake.

Right now Im in the panic stage I guess. I am hoping it's just clogged tubes which I read can cause this and I hope it goes away, but my MD stated it could take several months or be permanent.

 

Miller, sorry to hear about your onset of T. I am going through the same thing right now. Panic, anxiety, sleepless nights, an worrying all day. I only found this forum today and it has already made me feel like less of a leper. I've been feeling extremely lonely and isolated, which is crazy considering I have a one month old and a 3 year old at home.


I don't have any advice on coping techniques since I'm still trying to work through the onset myself. I've already been to an ENT but he basically told me to go fly a kite and get use to it. Not a great experience. I do have an appointment at a wellness center that uses a holistic approach to helping patients next week.

All I can say is give yourself some time, go to the doc, then get informed. It might suck, but it's not cancer. There are a lot of worse things to all of a sudden come down with. I still get angry as hell some days, I mean Christ I didn't sleep more than 3 hours last night due to anxiety.

Things take time, try to focus on giving yourself time to adjust.

 

Try to mask your sound with WHITE noise app or rain sounds from your smartphone.
You may want to try taking melatonin tablets before going to bed.
You may need ZOLOFT if you feel depressed.

Good luck. My T started on 7-15 and first month was like living in Terror, I could not sleep for weeks but since past 2 weeks I have slept without any music. My T has gone down too and I no longer take anti-depressant meds.

Life is back to normal.. sort of.. and I'm hoping T will go away in the next 6 months or so. It takes time for T to go away.