Tinnitus After Concert/Concussion

Hi Dr. Nagler,

I suffered from a concussion on 2/20/2020. I did not experience any ringing in my ears after that, but had other concussion symptoms. I then made the ill-advised decision to go to a friend’s concert on 2/22/2020. The concert was extremely loud and I ended up directly in front of a speaker for a little over an hour. After the concert, I could barely hear and the roaring sound in my head was unbearable.

Despite the ringing in my ears and headache, I went to fitness classes the next day (more loud environments). These certainly did not help, but also did not seem to improve the ringing. The ringing seemed to have improved a bit by 2/24/2020. On that day, I helped some friends with a renovation project and built a door frame, requiring about two hours of sawing and nail hammering. The pounding in my head was the worst that night.

This last week, I went to two GPs and an ENT. The GPs assured me that the ringing would stop, but I was having too much anxiety about it to wait to see a specialist. The ENT told me that it would “most likely” go away, and probably within 6 weeks. She told me to just live my normal life and avoid exposure to unnecessarily loud noises (concerts, sporting events, etc.).

I am training to become a fitness instructor and I attend at least one class everyday. The classes are typically quite loud (think SoulCycle). I asked her if I could continue attending these classes, and she said yes, as long as I had hearing protection. I have attended one 2/28 and one on 2/29, with ear protection for both. It did not make the tinnitus extremely worse, but the ringing is louder as a result.

My questions are:
1) Is this ringing permanent?
2) If it is significantly quieter than one week ago, does that mean that it is going away?
3) Can I continue to take fitness classes or am I making the possibility of its permanence worse?
4) If the tinnitus does eventually completely go away, will it come back every time I am in a loud environment?

Thank you so much for you time. The anxiety caused by this is unbelievable.

Sincerely,
Erin

 

Hello @Erin Jeanne. Thank you for your inquiry.

I am away taking care of a family matter. I should be back in Atlanta by next week and will respond then.

Regards -

Stephen M. Nagler, M.D.

 

Hello again, @Erin Jeanne -

Thank you for your inquiry ... and for your patience while I was away.

You asked:

Most tinnitus resolves on its own. It may help to remember that the fine folks on this board are a self-selected group for whom unfortunately that was not the case. But for the majority of people who experience tinnitus, it seems to fade over time. I see no reason to believe that your tinnitus will be permanent, but there is really no way to tell.

In general I try not to view tinnitus in terms of day-to-day loudness or week-to-week loudness. The key, in my experience, is how much your tinnitus bothers you regardless of how loud it might be. If your tinnitus is bothering you less and less over time, I consider that to be a good sign.

If you are looking for some sort of guarantee, I really can't help you there. But in general I think it's fine for folks with tinnitus to take fitness classes as long as they wear good ear protection. And the same goes for folks who do not have tinnitus!

Probably not. But in any event you should use ear protection any time you are in an environment such that you need to raise your own voice in order to be heard by somebody standing next to you, which definitely includes every fitness class I've ever attended - all three of them!

Hope this helps. And you might want to take a look at the article I'm attaching below for some other guidelines.

All the best -

Stephen M. Nagler, M.D.