Sharp Ear Pain After Nap Followed by the Onset of Tinnitus

Hello everyone, being here isn't a good sign, but sadly I'm here.

So, my tinnitus started relatively early, bit more than a month ago. I had a daytime nap (that's quite rare, but when I'm having a nap during day, I'm totally tired and falling to coma for hour or two), I slept on front and my right ear squeezing against the pillow and woke up with blocked ear and sharp ear pain (it was really sharp and could mainly feel it when moving my jaw, I also felt a lot of crackling when moving jaw). The ear pain was followed by pulsing tinnitus.

It took around a week for the pain to disappear and for the pulsing tinnitus to be changed to high-pitched tinnitus (probably the most common I've noticed here so far).

And this high-pitched tinnitus has been following me for a month now.

I had ear wax removed by microsuction as the GP said there was an excess of it but the tinnitus hasn't changed. Now I'm waiting for another visit at GP to see what other options I might have.

Any advice from the community what should I do first? As the GP will probably say to wait and see...

 

Have you had a history of TMJ issues or bruxism? That would explain waking up with pain and cracking sounds from the jaw. It could very well be related to your tinnitus development, otherwise it would be very coincidental. I would have an ENT evaluate your situation ASAP, unfortunately, there are so many possible causes for tinnitus so you will most likely be going down a rabbit hole like so many on here.

Good luck, hopefully you find some relief going forward!