Teenage Years Lost to Tinnitus (Amongst Other Tinnitus)

My story begins when I was 16 years old. Up to this point I was a teenager doing the teenager stuff your parents don't want you to do. I smoked pot, drank, and had taken ecstasy and mushrooms a few times. But I was a good, nice kid. Did well in school, had a lot of friends, and worked hard when I had to. But I digress...

(Sorry in advance for the long story)

My story begins with me at 16, and a bad experience with mushrooms set in motion an interesting array of events. I started feeling very sick, weak, nervous, and depressed and thought there was something very wrong with me for 4 or 5 months, going into the ER and doctors office constantly. After a while, my primary care sent me to an endocrinologist because my thyroid hormone was a little low and I have a family history of thyroid disease. At this point, I think I had my tinnitus. I couldn't tell you exactly when I got it, but I know that it was within the course of me starting to feel off. Anyways, I see the endo and he diagnoses me with hypothyroidism and prescribes me synthroid. But at the appointment, he felt my neck and felt a mass on my thyroid. "Huh." Cool, doc. He sets up an appointment for me to get a needle biopsy done on it to see if it was cancerous or not. Whatever.

So that day, I go home and take my first synthroid pill. Within an hour EVERYTHING WENT BACK TO NORMAL. I could have cried. I think you guys understand when I say that the way I felt was agonizing and dreadful. I don't know if it cleared my tinnitus or if that I felt so good that I didn't care, but either way I was fine. Good even. So for about 3 months of feeling this way, I had the biopsy done for my nodule on my thyroid, and it comes back inconclusive. Sweet. The endo tells me that I might as well just get the whole thing removed just to be save, and I obliged.

On July 2nd, 2011 I was diagnosed with Papillary Cancer of the Thyroid.

And you know what, I didn't care. I felt that good. After feeling the way I did, I felt so good that it didn't even phase me. The doctors said they removed all of the cancer tissue, so I felt fine with it. I knew I was going to beat it, and that was that. I left the hospital a few days later (had some complications with my calcium levels) and went back to leading a normal life. For about 3 months.

My doctors needed my thyroid levels to drop, so they did not change my synthroid dose to compensate for my lack of thyroid. This is when things go downhill. All the symptoms come flooding back. I went back to anxiety, depression, weakness, fatigue, you name it. And tinnitus. Oh the tinnitus. And when they finally get my levels back up to normal, all the symptoms stick around.

That puts me to where I am today, 20 years old, cancer free, but not tinnitus free. I guess I should say I only had tinnitus in my right ear, and I've had MRIs and CAT scans, so there wasn't any tumors or something causing it. Maybe I had it in my left ear too, the right might have just been louder.

I had all but coped with my symptoms, habituated a lot to my right ear ringing, able to lead a fairly normal life, but then in the beginning of January 2015, I get sick with a cold. My ears get stuffed up and not I have tinnitus in my left ear, louder than my right.
Feels like I am at square one.

Well thats my story for the most part. If you want to know more, let me know. And thanks for taking the time to read it.

 

If you have dealt with cancer with an accepting and calm attitude and the fact you have habituated to your right ear tinnitus, you should have no problem using the same attitude to get habituated to the other ear. A lot of tinnitus suffering is mental. A good attitude like what you have shown in dealing with cancer will minimize any suffering from tinnitus, mentally. It is what it is, a livable condition if not curable just yet. You are so young. You can't rule out that your ears will settle down. So keep up the good attitude. My tinnitus is an ultra high pitch dog whistle and I can hear it above the jet noise in flights and above the sounds of the raging rapids in the salmon rivers I fish. Yet life goes on normally for me. Tinnitus, even a loud one, is livable given a good attitude and given enough time for the body to get used to it. Take care & God bless.

 

Well, at the end of allergy season I began having ETD problems in my left ear as I have had from time to time. Usually comes with a bit of ringing in that ear, but as the tube opens up as it “heals”, the ringing goes away with it.

For some reason, this time it decided to stay. What’s worse: it seems worse than my right ear, which I have had for about ten years now and it’s taken me that long to habituate to it.

Guess I’m looking at another ten year journey. Cool cool cool

 

I’m also experiencing this - somehow it is worse than the sum of its parts. With tinnitus in both ears I kinda feel disoriented. When I had one good “reference” ear I could sort of tune into that one. Now it just feels like a hallucination.

 

Exactly! Couldn’t have said it better myself.