New to This — Tinnitus Sucks!

Hello All,

After lurking on here for a month, I thought I would introduce myself and tell my tinnitus story.

My tinnitus started on the evening of March 1/17. At roughly 3:00 am I woke up and heard beeping in my ear(s). It sounded like a back up alarm on machinery so I looked out my bedroom window. I didn't see anything so I looked out the living room window and didn't see anything either. I then plugged my ears and realized what it was. I was wearing ear plugs that night as I had been having trouble getting to sleep for the past month or so. I was wearing the ear plugs on and off for the past month to fall asleep when needed. Haven't been a great sleeper since our son was born three years ago. He was very colic and didn't sleep much at all for the first year. By morning the beeping turned to a high litched ringing.

The weekend before I got tinnitus I was doing some home renos and I was using a loud piece of equipment. I used it for roughly 2-3 mins and then decided I should probably wear ear plugs. Stupid me. My ears never rang or felt full. Actually I have never had that feeling from noise previously in my life that I can recall. So there was no indication from the weekend to 4 days later that anything was wrong. Didn't hear any ringing even with plugs in my ears when I went to sleep that night.

When I was young, I had tubes put into my ears and my adenoids removed due to a lot of ear infections. Since then, I don't ever recall having any bad ear infections growing up. The only issue I have had is having a cold and flying which caused me ears to plug up and be sore until they equalize.

I went to the doctor about a week later thinking it would go away on its own. My normal doctor was on holidays so I seen a different doctor. He looked at my ears and said they looked fine and there was no wax build up. I asked if he could refer me to an ENT. He said I would need to see an audiologist first. I booked an appointment which took the the end of March to get an appointment. I had the heating test and they said my hearing was good. They only tested up to 8khz. They said there is no fluid in my ears. She could visibly see the scarring on my ear drums from all the infections when I was little. I did have a dip of 20 Db at lowest frequency in left ear but climbed up to 0 Db at 8 kHz for both ears.

I haven't made an appointment with the ENT yet. I haven't heard many good stories about him. I will try to make one this week.

It seemed like for the first week it was only in my right ear and then moved to my left ear. The right ear is a high pitched ringing and the left ear is a lower pitched roaring metallic sound. The right ear used to bug me more but lately it's been the left ear. It fluctuates. Some days will be fairly quiet(only hear it in a quiet room) and some days it will be worse. Currently I have a nasty cold and it's louder than normal. I bought ear defenders and ear plugs and use them now for any louder than normal activity. Every time I swallow now, I hear a popping or clicking in my ears. Sometimes my jaw will ache for awhile and then go away. Happened before I had Tinnitus too.

A few questions I have:

Is it normal for tinnitus to start 4 days after noise exposure without any indications?

Could the clicking in my ears have anything to do with my tinnitus even though it mainly started after I got tinnitus? I have had it on occasion before tinnitus too.

Thanks for taking to time to read my story. I'm hoping that my tinnitus eventually subsides.

 

Did you take any medication lately, e.g. Benzos or antibitiotics? I've had two bouts of tinnitus from medications. I find it unlikely that 2-3 mins of noise can cause that.it could be the earplugs being pushed in too far?

 

No I haven't taken any medication lately. The last medication I would have taken would have been some Aleve and Voltaren for a few days in September for a sore shoulder. I don't think I pushed the plugs in too far and nothing felt out of the ordinary when using them. They were foam plugs if that makes any difference.

 

Welcome to the forum @Patrick83. It is quite normal for T to start not immediately right after a loud noise exposure. Also new T is known to be unstable and it can morph into other symptoms. About the clicking/beeping noise, you may want to read up on TTTS & TMJ to see if the clicking is related to these. Here is one link on TTTS discussion and its symptoms:

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...t-over-sudden-hearing-loss.19273/#post-223119

 

Thanks for the info. I will read up about it. I should have mentioned that the clicking/popping in my ears was whenever I swallowed. Ever since I have had this nasty cold, the clicking/popping has gone away. Isn't it usually more common for the clicking/popping to occur when you are stuffed up from a cold?

 

Patrick, the clicking/popping when you yawn or swallow is a normal and healthy thing, it is caused by your eustachian tube opening. That opening ventilates your middle ear, which avoids infections, and balances the pressure on both sides of your eardrum, protecting it from overstretching.

 

That's right, popping is due to eustachian tube and having a cold makes it more noticeable, you may get crackling which means you have fluid in ears too...the t can be more noticeable when your ears are blocked...

 

Update

I have had a nasty cold since last Saturday. It is now getting better. The worst days were last Monday and Tuesday. Starting on Wednesday, the ringing got quieter and was quietest on Friday and Saturday. During those days, my ears never crackled, popped when swallowing. My ears felt slight plugged at times. (Not consistently though) I also had a primary cough headache whenever I would cough. I would rate the ringing at 1/10 and could only hear it if I plugged my ears. I was pretty excited that maybe my eyes were getting better. Today, my ears are back to crackling and popping and the ringing is back to original volume.

Isn't that opposite of what should have happened. Shouldn't have the ringing got louder when I was stuffed up?