Surgery for ETD — Has It Helped Anyone?

I have been diagnosed with ETD, I have had tinnitus for 9 months and some days are more manageable than others.

Today is a bad day, I live in the mountains, going up and down the mountains make my ears hurt and pop, I usually try to pop my ears or be aware of them when I do travel up or down the mountain.

Well last night I had fell asleep in the car while going up the mountain, when I woke up right when we where at the top my ears was full and my tinnitus was loud and it’s been like that all day today.

Does that sound like a part of ETD?

Another question my ENT wants to do surgery for ETD, has anyone had that done and has it helped with tinnitus?

 

What time of surgery did your Dr. recommend? Grommets or ET ballon dilatation?

 

He mentioned about making a small hole to relieve the pressure in my ears and after a week it should heal back, he said within a week if it helped with my tinnitus then he would insert tubes or a balloon.

 

I wouldn't make a doctor touch my ears unless my life depended on it. And certainly not when it comes to grommets, which have a bad track record of doing anything positive to tinnitus. I've had them twice in my younger years and I still have ear pressure imbalance issues up until today. I also believe a forum member recently reported things getting worse for her after getting this surgery.
It might seem like giving up, but I've just accepted the tinnitus for what it is and I keep on going regardless. When the sounds gets nasty I look at any lifestyle changes of the last few days (such as eating habits, sound exposure, rest and stress) and try to correct those, instead of drastic and invasive measures like surgery. Those are my two cents.
You mention the tinnitus amping up after a drive up the mountains, but have you considered the noise you are exposed to during such a trip? Maybe it is causing a temporary spike? I, for instance, always wear ear muffs when driving on loud roads (cement concrete roads on the freeway for instance; tarmac is much more silent imo), cause my tinnitus doesn't like it very much otherwise.
Please don't believe everything a doctor says or trust them blindly, especially when it comes to a condition as badly understood as tinnitus is. Take care.

 

Woah!! I've had them twice too! I used to get ear infections all the time...
Those things can ruin your life.. I still have severe ear pressure and patulous eustachian tubes, etc. My ENT said they can make tinnitus worse!! I'm sure my tinnitus was inevitable, because of my past... My ears were ruined because of all the infections, antibiotics and grommets... It's been 10 years since I had them but my ears never recovered...

 

Same here. I've had a pretty bad track record at the ENT's office myself in the past. I always used to tell myself: "At least I won't be getting tinnitus (after reading about it), since I'm more the studious type and never really go partying". Imagine the joy I felt at 7:30 PM on January 18th of this year when I was proven wrong. Anyways, regardless the cause of the tinnitus, no one deserves this. Ears are not meant to ring or make other sounds, they are meant to receive air waves and convert them into sounds, damnit!
If there really was a cure or trustworthy treatment, I bet we would've heard about it by now.

 

@Mellow7

I was like that too! Thinking I would't get tinnitus... My brothers both party a lot and go to music festivals several times a year, work in noisy environments, and so on. What the heck, really! This just proves how unpredictable tinnitus is! People who never party or avoid noisy places, get, like, the loudest most horrendous T ever!

My grandpa who is a war veteran lost half of his hearing and was exposed to sounds of war, and now he's 93, never had tinnitus!!

How can our brain make this noise, why does it torture us! We all know tinnitus is brain plasticity + nerve signals + ear problems gone wrong. But why?! Why can't our brain be like "oh I'm not receiving the right signals from the cochlea or auditory nerve (insert cause here - hearing loss, acoustic trauma, ototixicity, other) so I won't bother making this phantom sound and cause severe anxiety, I'l just stay quiet"... We have good healing capacity, people can wake up from coma or recover from brain hemorrhages, and so on.. so why, why can't always recover from tinnitus??!!

 

That’s all one reason why I’ve not had the surgery yet! He mentioned it months ago and I keep putting it off. If I knew it would take my tinnitus away I would do it in a heart beat, but there isn’t no guarantee, and that’s what worries me, because with what all you all have said your ears are fragile and you don’t want to do anything to make matters worse. I just want some kind of relief from my tinnitus, I’m sure we all do