Sudden Hearing Loss

30.09.2013

Tested my hearing right now. I have had some improvement since last time. Now I can hear from about 12500 hertz all the way down. It fluctuate at some frequencies, but still, its an improvement.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5l4Rt4Ol7M

 

Yeah, laptop speakers are no good. I have some some quite good Denon headphones. 20-20.000 hertz. I also use my Samsung Galaxy S4 to test my hearing. It have an in-build hearing-test app. This app also adapts the music for you when you are playing music at your phone. So, if you have a treble hearing-loss in the right ear, like me. It boosts the treble in one ear, so it sounds more stabilized and true. Wish my laptop had that function too.

 

Yeah, that it something I will dig into in some time. Right now it its still in the acute stage. I have just messed with the sound balance at my laptop now. Turned up the volume slightly in the right ear. In the beginning I had to turn up my right ear 10% to make it even. Now its just on 2%. Making progress yeah!

 

01.10.2013

Stopped with anti-anxiety pills yesterday. Slightly higher ringing today and yesterday. I hope that have a connection with stopping with anti-anxiety pills. No high pitch sound anymore. Just radio-static and buzzing.

Have had some fullness in my right ear today. And some problems with equalization. After 21.00 my ringing went to the roof again. And still goes strong. I think it can have something to do with the fullness in my ear and that I stopped with anti-anxiety pills.

 

02.10.2013

Better today. The ringing have changed very often all day. From loud this morning. After that it have gone from buzzing, radiostatic and high pitch interchangeably. I also had some moment today with silent.

I had a interesting conversation with my caring mother today. It went like this:

Me: "I will test something on you."
Her: "NO, I don't want to listen to any high pitch sounds or peeps now!"
Me: "Oh, why? Do you think its irritating?"
Her: "No!"
Me: "Hmm. Do you get tired of it?"
Her: "No."
Me: "So, what is the problem then?"
Her: "You are so childish!!"

The sad part is that I was going to test some massage on her. Because I'm going to my girlfriend tomorrow. Well, no massage to my mother today.

 

Another conversation just now:

Her: "I'm closing your door. I can't bear listen to the birds and waterfall you are playing."

Hmm. Wonder of she would handle tinnitus if she even can't handle some birds and rivers..

 

@meeruf - sorry your mother isn't being supportive

I often wonder how my husband is going to deal with listening to noise at bedtime every night for the rest of his life it's a hard concept to deal with.

Thankfully he loves the outdoors/camping etc so he doesn't mind the forest and frog sound that I'm using at the moment!

 

Tinnitus have been on and off the last three days. Yesterday it got louder just before I took the bus to my girlfriend, when I got to my girlfriend, it went down again, when I got to work, it got louder when a friend came to visit me. When I got back to my girlfriend to sleep again, it was actually almost gone. This is interesting. Maybe some stress on a subconscious level triggers it.

Anyways, I think I have to prepare for my tinnitus to be more present in the future. If I block my ears, I can hear it in both ear. But when I'm out, I can only hear it in my right ear. It can have something to do with my hearing-loss in my right ear.

My hearing is down to around 10.000 hertz, not 12.000 hertz anymore. I don't understand how it can fluctuate that fast.

 

Meeruf,
ENT is sure my T depends on the hearing loss in my left ear. I am doing a therapy, and he is sure to prevent further loss by doing two courses a year of vitamins and antioxidants, following the basic rules we all know.

 

@Carlo

How do your ENT explain this?

 

I need explication

 

06.10.2013

My tinnitus went away yesterday around midnight. When I woke up today it was still gone. My tinnitus have been gone / very low today. First time since my setback it has been so low over many hours. Maybe I wake up tomorrow and its still very low? That will give me some serious chills.

 

Happy for you, Meeruf ! That's great.

 

Very happy to hear that your tinnitus is improving!

Just for information Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy can actually cause barotraumas, not cure them. This study suggests the incidence to be as high as two-thirds:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19105143

I think it did so in my case as I have had pressure problems with my ears ever since taking 11 sessions of this therapy three weeks after my tinnitus started. I also noticed a slight worstening in my audiogram and subjectively thought my tinnitus was maginally worse after taking it: it is very noisy therapy and they would not allow me to use ear plugs during the pressurisation and depressurisation stages, which are particularly noisy.

 

06.10.13

Woke up today with very low tinnitus too. It's been low all the day. It got slightly louder after I was in a bar for 20 minutes. But now its low again. Noise seems to still trigger my tinnitus a little bit. This bar was not loud. It was just me and my girlfriend there, with some low jazz in the background. Wierd. Yesterday I played music in my headphones much louder then this bar, but it did not trigger my tinnitus.

I have one theory about this. I use my mobile phone as MP3 player. I have boosted the frequences I dont hear so well in my phone. Maybe my tinnitus trigger because when I'm out in bars etc, my brain hears much more high-frequence in my left ear then my right ear, therefore, it boosts up the high-frequence in my right ear to make it even.

 

I think you hit on something that provides the only relief for me. "I don't constantly think about it." For context, you prefaced that with; "First time for 4 weeks".
That video did not mask the ringing in my ears, but I did enjoy it. I have found that when I get occupied..........I mean really occupied.......really into something to the extent that it is my only focus.......the noise stops. Or at least I don't notice it. I am not talking about a mindless task such as mowing the lawn. No, I mean something like really important work that requires my brain to be totally focused for short periods of time. I know that my T may be different than yours. Recently, immediately subsequent to a moment when I was busy and didn't notice my ears ringing, I tried to remember if there was in-fact silence, OR if they were ringing and I just didn't notice it. That is more difficult than it sounds. It is sort-of a split-second look-back. In any case, they were ringing. I just didn't notice it. So the bottom line for me is, if I can't get relief any other way, I will just strive to get relief by occupying my mind in ways that makes me forget about the ringing. It is relief and at least gives me some control. Control is important. Ultimately, it is really just a mind game, but an important game that I can at least win occasionally.

 

Some updates:
I had a spike yesterday when I was attending my brother's Tae-Kwon-do fight. This event lasted 8 hours and was quite noisy. I don't know if I had a spike because of the noise, or that some part of me didn't want to go. Or, I wanted, but I was afraid for a spike. It settled again when I woke up today.

I also had a spike at work some days ago when I had to do a task that I really don't wanted to do. And there is was no noise. Not that much at least. No doubt that some part of my spikes is psychological.

 

Some updated the last four weeks.

Tinnitus still comes and goes. Had a spike on Sunday. That was most likely because I was in the capital all the day. A lot of sounds and stuff. Since Sunday, my tinnitus have more or less been gone. I also drank alcohol for the first time since onset on saturday. My tinnitus actually went away. Today have been a very good day.

 

Hi meeruf, sorry to hear how it all started but happy that you are improving well. I think it was because of the pressure of water or your ear was in a mild situation and when that dive happened, it must have crossed the barrier. Well I am also going on with this unfortunate thing, at times it feels that it's going away but the very next day it is coming back. Now only thing I am doing is making people aware of ear problems and how to take care of their ears and avoid noises. Here is a blog that I like all to share on: www.hearingsolutions.ca/blog/everyday-tips-take-care-your-hearing
And there are so many other useful blogs too.
We are suffering, we know how it feels, hope others don't get this weird problem.

 

Interesting link about Sudden Hearing Loss:

http://www.masseyeandear.org/for-pa...tion/diseases-and-conditions/sudden-deafness/

 

As for the shallow free dive to 15 feet, I read that the first 15 feet is the worse part for barrow trauma to the inner ear. That is when I feel pain, if I feel pain.
Intruely hope your tinnitus goes away.
Tonight I listened to the tinnitus screeching tone in a post above, and my ears got quiet for a few moments. Any one else experience that?

 

Hi guys. Just an update on my first post here on Tinnitus Talk.

Next month it's 5 years since I made this thread. Crazy. Time flies so fast.

In August 2013 I got a hearing damage from diving down in a pool 5 meter down. I don't know why it happened. I guess it was just bad luck. Shit happens.

The next 3 months after onset of Tinnitus I had the worst time of my life. It took a good year for me to get used to my T. After 1.5 year my T started to settle. Today I don't think about T anymore. It's still there in different degrees but I don't care.

The first year of my T I used a cocktail of different pills to try to cope. My biggest challenge was sleep. I probably tried 5 different types of pills for sleep, before I settled on Imovane (Zopiclone). I also tried something called Stilnoct (Ambien - Zolpidem).

Unfortunately I went absolutely nuts when I took Ambien. I called my bank. I played poker. I was shopping online. I wrote weird shit online and I even took the car for a ride. I didn't remember doing any of that tho. My relationship with Ambien ended with me eating the entire package of pills during the night. Making me wake up the next day with a hangover of another dimension. Never touched those pills again after that episode.

I used Imovane on and off the next 3 years. In 2017 and 2018 I've been almost sleeping pill free. In 2018 I haven't touched sleeping pills.

My doctor also put me on some antidepressant in the beginning of my T. I think this helped me to cope a little bit as it made me numb. I could not be happy on those pills, but I didn't freak out from anxiety or depression either. Unfortunately I don't remember what the name of those pills were.

So. 5 years down the road. How did it go?

I'm not cured as I still have tinnitus. But I don't care about it anymore. So in a way I'm cured.

In 2017 I went travel for 8 months to Southeast Asia. I went to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam. Doing something like that was unthinkable back in 2013 when I was in the middle of my tinnitus nightmare.

I enjoyed life down there. I was social again. I experienced new stuff. I had a great time. However I did use my brain and protected my ears in noisy streets or nightlife venues. My T would spike once in a while if I had been exposed to noise over extended periods of time, but T always settled again after some time.

Now I'm working full time and I just bought my first apartment. Life is back as it used to be, with T. Right now I'm working my ass off to save up some money. Maybe another long trip to some exotic place? Who knows..

Still have problems sleeping but I found my own way to cope with it.

I do have some issues sleeping at times. Days I have trouble sleeping I microdose with Cannabis. Personally I think that is a much more healthy option than taking those hard drug sleeping pills like Imovane or Ambien. Getting a good night sleep is the most important factor for me to make T shut up.

For those who live in areas with medical marijuana that could be something to consider, or for those who are brave enough in areas it's still illegal. I've done this microdosing thing since the beginning of 2018. No side effects, no hangover and no addiction. Just a good night sleep.

The way I do it is that I will smoke just a little bit. Just enough to feel a minor buzz. This buzz will go away in 20 minutes. When it goes away I will become really sleepy.

When I used Imovane for longer periods I would always develop a dependence to them. The periods I had a break from Imovane I always got a really bad headache. My body would itch really bad for some days too. That has not been an issue with microdosing on Cannabis.

That's it for this time. As you can see it turned out fine for me so if you're having a bad time right now don't loose hope. Time will make things better.

 

When some of your hearing came back did your tinnitus reduce in volume?

 

Does your hearing still fluxatate?