Persistent Tinnitus at 24 Triggered by Post-Surgical Medications (Ibuprofen, Tylenol, Gabapentin, and Oxycodone)

[stephenz]

Hello everyone. I am a 24-year-old male who recently developed, or began to notice a worsening of, non-somatic tinnitus in mid-October after months of taking many ototoxic painkillers such as Ibuprofen, Tylenol, Gabapentin, and Oxycodone due to a chest surgery. Within two weeks of noticing the persistent ringing and sudden ear pain, I went to an ENT doctor and had my hearing checked. They told me that my hearing is within the normal range. I attached the results in the files.

My tinnitus has not decreased, even though I have stopped all NSAIDs since mid-October and now only take Gabapentin and Valium for pain control. I have since learned that the standard hearing test only measures up to 8 kHz and can miss hearing loss at higher ranges. By checking with my own headphones, I found that I could not hear anything above 15 kHz. So I am fully aware that my hearing test is not especially useful for diagnosing the cause of my tinnitus.

I have also read about the Susan Shore device and the research from Harvard Medical School on inner hair cell regrowth in laboratory mice. However, I cannot help feeling discouraged by the slow progress of these research efforts and treatments, especially since the first mention of the Susan Shore device on this forum was in 2013, and here we are in 2025 with no clear release date or confirmed effectiveness for people with non-somatic tinnitus.

I would like to hear what the prospects may be for someone my age who has persistent tinnitus. I would also like to hear from others in a similar age group. For example, has your baseline decreased over the years?

It feels very unfortunate to end up with this condition because I was trying to treat my chest issue at such a young age. Still, I am old enough to understand that life will, at times, unfold in difficult ways.

 

[Nick47]

@stephenz, sorry to read about your worsening. Of all the medications you listed, only Ibuprofen can cause hearing damage, and even that is usually temporary. Many patients think that because a medication can cause tinnitus, it must have damaged the inner ear. This is not true at all. It may affect the brain in a way that makes tinnitus worse.

There is no point in having a higher frequency hearing test, since everyone over the age of eighteen loses hearing in that range. There are also no hearing aids that are effective above eight thousand hertz, nor are there other treatments that target this area. If you can convince me otherwise, I am all ears.

Regarding Susan Shore's device, realistically it will be around 2029 to 2030 before it becomes available and completes the larger trial. It will certainly not be effective for forty to fifty percent of patients. There will need to be many treatments, each tailored to the individual.

Tinnitus Quest is a new organisation focused on treatments, and it is something you may want to get involved with or support.

I encourage you to read the thread and visit the website.

Nick

 

[FellowSufferer]

Hey mate, sorry to hear you are going through this. It can be horrible in the beginning when you realize the tinnitus will not fade after a few hours or days. The ear pain, which is hyperacusis, is nasty as well.

The good news is that your tinnitus is largely caused by medications. If you look around the forum, this is one of the types of tinnitus that is most likely to eventually go away completely or settle into a very soft hiss, which is essentially the same thing.

Do you think you have exposed your ears to loud music or other loud sounds? That type takes longer to improve. I am twenty three, and I have had tinnitus since I was nineteen from headphone use and stress. Things have improved this year, but I could have recovered much faster if I had reduced stress and started a program of Tinnitus Retraining Therapy earlier.

Anyway, good luck.

 

[stephenz]

Hey mate, sorry to hear you are going through this. It can be horrible in the beginning when you realize the tinnitus will not fade after a few hours or days. The ear pain, which is hyperacusis, is nasty as well.

The good news is that your tinnitus is largely caused by medications. If you look around the forum, this is one of the types of tinnitus that is most likely to eventually go away completely or settle into a very soft hiss, which is essentially the same thing.

Do you think you have exposed your ears to loud music or other loud sounds? That type takes longer to improve. I am twenty three, and I have had tinnitus since I was nineteen from headphone use and stress. Things have improved this year, but I could have recovered much faster if I had reduced stress and started a program of Tinnitus Retraining Therapy earlier.

Anyway, good luck.

Interesting. What I read from a Google search was that medication-induced tinnitus is usually permanent because it reduces blood flow to the inner ear and permanently kills the hair cells there.

I have always had a little bit of hiss in my head, but it was only there if I wore noise-cancelling headphones in a completely silent room. Even then, it was a very low-level sound. Even after going to concerts, nightclubs, riding motorcycles, and going to Formula One races, it never changed in loudness by more than maybe ten percent compared to my baseline.

But the recent ringing was something so loud I could hear it over the television. That was when I truly learned that I had tinnitus. What especially led me to believe it was medication-induced was that it happened during a time when I was fully on bed rest, inside around the clock, to recover from major and painful surgery. It occurred after a month and a half of continuous use of high-dose medications that I had never taken before.

In any case, I really hope this gets better. It is difficult, and I am already quite depressed from the chronic pain that came from the surgery.

 

[FellowSufferer]

Interesting. What I read from a Google search was that medication-induced tinnitus is usually permanent because it reduces blood flow to the inner ear and permanently kills the hair cells there.

I have always had a little bit of hiss in my head, but it was only there if I wore noise-cancelling headphones in a completely silent room. Even then, it was a very low-level sound. Even after going to concerts, nightclubs, riding motorcycles, and going to Formula One races, it never changed in loudness by more than maybe ten percent compared to my baseline.

But the recent ringing was something so loud I could hear it over the television. That was when I truly learned that I had tinnitus. What especially led me to believe it was medication-induced was that it happened during a time when I was fully on bed rest, inside around the clock, to recover from major and painful surgery. It occurred after a month and a half of continuous use of high-dose medications that I had never taken before.

In any case, I really hope this gets better. It is difficult, and I am already quite depressed from the chronic pain that came from the surgery.

Hmmm, I cannot find the exact forum post I read earlier where the person with drug-induced tinnitus eventually had it fade to almost nothing, but here is something from Google's AI search. I know it is not necessarily infallible, but still worth noting:

"Yes, tinnitus caused by medication is often temporary and may disappear after discontinuing the drug, making it easier to "cure" than tinnitus caused by acoustic trauma, which is often permanent. There is currently no known cure for most forms of permanent tinnitus, regardless of the cause."

"Reversibility: In many cases, tinnitus caused by medication is an acute, short-lived side effect. If the person stops taking the offending drug (after consulting their doctor), the tinnitus often disappears."

Have you had a hearing test? That would show whether your hair cells have been damaged. Be careful though, because tinnitus makes it hard to distinguish the tones they play, even if you technically hear them, since it masks the sounds. My hearing has actually "improved," I think, even though audiologists will tell you that is impossible, simply because the tinnitus sound is not as strong as it used to be and therefore masks things less.

Still, I wish I had not been so stubborn three and a half years ago. I should have taken a long rest instead of trying to continue my high-stress life as if nothing had happened. If I had done that, it probably would not have been so bad for so long.

 

[stephenz]

Hmmm, I cannot find the exact forum post I read earlier where the person with drug-induced tinnitus eventually had it fade to almost nothing, but here is something from Google's AI search. I know it is not necessarily infallible, but still worth noting:

Have you had a hearing test? That would show whether your hair cells have been damaged. Be careful though, because tinnitus makes it hard to distinguish the tones they play, even if you technically hear them, since it masks the sounds. My hearing has actually "improved," I think, even though audiologists will tell you that is impossible, simply because the tinnitus sound is not as strong as it used to be and therefore masks things less.

Still, I wish I had not been so stubborn three and a half years ago. I should have taken a long rest instead of trying to continue my high-stress life as if nothing had happened. If I had done that, it probably would not have been so bad for so long.

My test result is attached in my opening post. I have perfectly normal hearing in both ears.

Recently I have started to think that mine is neurological. The medication they put me on immediately after the surgery gave me severe hyperacusis for one night, and it disappeared the next day. The tinnitus I hear now feels similar to the sound I get when I am drunk, except I have been sober for almost three months. I also have not had any caffeine.

How would you rate your tinnitus from one to ten, and how does it compare to when you first noticed it? I have read a few posts here that say even the fastest recovery takes three months. I am trying to set some expectations for myself.

 

[FellowSufferer]

Ah, sorry, my mistake. It is interesting that you have a dip at around 3 kHz, even though it is still within the normal hearing pass range. That is the same thing I get when they play high tones at the same frequency as my tinnitus. You hear the tone, but you cannot distinguish it from the tinnitus. As your tinnitus hopefully improves, that dip should disappear.

My case is a bad example, because I did not make any real effort to reduce stress. I continued a very stressful, self-flagellatory lifestyle for the first 3 years of my tinnitus, which is the exact opposite of what someone should do in the beginning. You should reduce stress and take time off to calm down the nervous system. So I did not see any improvement from February 2022, when I got it, until December 2024.

This year it feels much better, since I started TRT with an audiologist and read Peter Studenik's book where he explains how he did it with earphones. My tinnitus went down from a 6 out of 10 to something like a 3 or even a 2 out of 10, which was amazing for me, since before that I was in despair.

If you reduce stress, avoid silence, and definitely avoid listening to podcasts or music on headphones, then your chances of it disappearing or fading to a very slight hiss, which is basically the same thing, are very good. It can happen within a year. We are young, I am 23, so it should be a quicker recovery than for older people.

 

[stephenz]

Ah, sorry, my mistake. It is interesting that you have a dip at around 3 kHz, even though it is still within the normal hearing pass range. That is the same thing I get when they play high tones at the same frequency as my tinnitus. You hear the tone, but you cannot distinguish it from the tinnitus. As your tinnitus hopefully improves, that dip should disappear.

My case is a bad example, because I did not make any real effort to reduce stress. I continued a very stressful, self-flagellatory lifestyle for the first 3 years of my tinnitus, which is the exact opposite of what someone should do in the beginning. You should reduce stress and take time off to calm down the nervous system. So I did not see any improvement from February 2022, when I got it, until December 2024.

This year it feels much better, since I started TRT with an audiologist and read Peter Studenik's book where he explains how he did it with earphones. My tinnitus went down from a 6 out of 10 to something like a 3 or even a 2 out of 10, which was amazing for me, since before that I was in despair.

If you reduce stress, avoid silence, and definitely avoid listening to podcasts or music on headphones, then your chances of it disappearing or fading to a very slight hiss, which is basically the same thing, are very good. It can happen within a year. We are young, I am 23, so it should be a quicker recovery than for older people.

The dip at 3 kHz that I believe you are referring to is actually from my otoacoustic emission result. It is obtained by playing sound into my ear and listening for a kind of echo. It has nothing to do with whether I tell them I hear the sound or not. My actual pure tone threshold at 3 kHz is normal, not even a dip. It is apparently a mechanism of the ear that was discovered only recently and it can signal outer hair cell health. One of the audiologists I saw for a second opinion told me that if my tinnitus is similar to that frequency, it could be the cause. But it is still within normal limits and should not be a direct cause. Otherwise most people would have tinnitus too.

I am taking supplements and I try to use a desktop fountain and fans to mask my tinnitus when I sleep. Unfortunately, my surgery involved placing metal bars in my chest for three years, and as an adult the recovery is painful. I still cannot sleep through the night without pain, so I do wonder if it will keep getting worse. I will update if anything changes.