Tinnitus After Hitting Head in Attic

Hi there,

I'm a 42-year-old male.

My tinnitus is still quite new, but I'm alarmed nonetheless due to the odd nature from which it set in. I hit the top of my head on a rafter in the attic that I did not see when taking a step forward. Hit it fairly hard somehow. It gave me a slight bump on the head and localized head aches and pains. Tinnitus did not set in immediately though. For the first week after bumping, all I had was some sensitively to loud noise, headaches, and sort of feeling off. Then, about a week later I noticed the hiss and ring in both ears. The hiss has remained constant and really spiked my anxiety.

Panic and anxiety over this ( mostly due to tinnitus ) drove me to go get checked out and get a head CT. It came back fine. I've spoken to the doctor about the tinnitus, but they really don't acknowledge it much. They pretty much say, "you likely had a concussion, and you may wish to go see a concussion specialist type of doctor". The doctor did say they saw a very small amount of fluid in my ears which they said might be contributing. Asked me if I had allergies.

I'm an anxious person, and I've always struggled with insomnia. So, having constant tinnitus is not good when I'm already mentally wired where I struggle to relax.

My tinnitus itself - It's an extremely high pitched hissing sound in both ears. It's constant and mostly unchanging.

Has anyone else experienced something like this after bumping their head? Did it ever get better?

Gman45

 

So, it's week three and tinnitus is still there. High pitched electrical hiss in both ears. Tinnitus is really strange since I don't really perceive it much when walking around or being engaged talking to people and such, but the moment I relax it's like it turns up. It's always there right now though. I find it odd how little information Is known about concussion caused tinnitus like this. My concussion was mild with no loss of consciousness or memory. I had headaches for the week after. Then tinnitus set in about one week after the head Injury.

I know tinnitus really stinks that's for sure. I have become really anxious and find hard to sit still.

 

I can’t help myself but to post on this site and read it all the time. It’s good to read the posts here as I can relate to so many of them. Try as I might, I just can’t stop dwelling on tinnitus. Most people including my wife just don’t understand. I have been through other health issues in the past, but t is just different because it’s in your head all the time. It’s like it’s physical and psychological at the same time.

The hardest thing is how it turns on fight or flight all the time. It’s crazy how I am not worried, but the tinnitus keeps my subconscious in a state of panic behind the scenes. It’s truly horrible.

Another strange thing is I believe mine was from a mild concussion, and no idea if that will behave like the more common noise-induced tinnitus. Most success stories are regarding noise or drug induced tinnitus. Concussion is seemingly rare. I really don’t think I have hearing loss. I think it’s just the brain in my case, and who knows if that will change itself again in time.

Anyhow, my thoughts are the sound is terrible, but the way it triggers fight or flight is what makes it hell.

Thinking of going on anti anxiety meds, but reading how they can complicate tinnitus more.

Having a hard day, and needed to write it out I guess.

 

5 weeks of tinnitus. I went to the ENT today. He said I have ETD. He stated that the tinnitus could be from either the ETD or the concussion and it's hard to know which. He did say concussion tinnitus is rare in his experience. He put me on Prednisone and nasal steroids. He seemed fairly optimistic it may quiet down, but hard to know for sure with tinnitus.

My tinnitus is still always there. It's gone from being more tonal to a hiss over these weeks, but the hiss is still audible over fans, TV, etc most times. It's strange how sometimes it's screaming and other times it's just a gentle hiss.

I've felt crazy over these 5 weeks though. I feel like tinnitus is something that is hard to believe even exists. So, unlike any other health issue. I'm going to do my best to snap out of it and accept that it is what it is. Easier said than done of course.

 

Hey there, Gman45. I am incredibly sorry to hear about your case, and it's quite an odd one at that. I've done a bit of research over the last few weeks, but I don't think I've seen anyone bring up a concussion as a cause.

I seriously emphasize with this. I was already anxious and insomnious before my symptom began, but now this constant nuisance has thrown all of that into overdrive. I am four weeks in myself and feel as if I haven't made any major progress. The fact that I have university now to contend with makes me all the more anxious for the coming weeks.

I certainly hope you are doing better with your sleep by now. If not, I can offer some additional recommendations to try. I wouldn't say I'm exactly stable right now, as yesterday evening was pretty bad, but I think I'm much better off now than I was in the first week or so.

I was very active on the site the first couple weeks, but I've started to taper back. If you really are anxious, it may be best to keep yourself limited to how often you come and what posts you read. It's great to understand whatever you can about the condition and what you might be able to do going forward, but there's a limit I think to what you can learn because so many of what "works" is unique to each person. There's also a lot of negativity, which is understandable given how much some users suffer, but it's easy to latch onto that and have it throw your mood into an even worse state. Hell, it can be challenging sometimes to read success stories given how long it may take for recovery. It often feels like you would need the patience of a monk to outlast this problem should it prove more persistent than hoped.

I also do understand all too well about how others don't understand, which is partly why joining a board like this is so appealing. I've reached out to my grandparents and several of my friends for support, and while I did receive help in varying degrees, none of them could really grasp the true extent of the distress I face. Of course, I am glad that they don't have to experience this; I don't think anyone deserves a symptom like this. Honestly, I don't know what I should even be expecting.

One thing I've come to learn is that hearing loss is incredibly fickle, and it may still be a factor in what led to your symptom developing. Are you sure you had no major acoustic traumas around that time? It may be hard to reflect back, because I really don't think anyone understands how dangerous loud noise exposure can be when their ears are fine. Also, you being 42 years old could potentially indicate accumulation over time that might have been triggered by the concussive event you experienced.

Of course, I am not diagnosing you with any hearing loss, but I do think it's important to maintain perspective and understand that it's not entirely possible to rule out everything. Your best bet is just to analyze your potential options, and those that are treatable should be addressed. I'm not sure the steroids you received will do anything, but it would be great if they help clear up or reduce your problem.

Anxiety medication is one of those things that has both supporters and opponents, so I can understand your uncertainty. It really, really sucks that pretty much all of them are considered ototoxic to some extent, and it's even worse that we can't validate exactly what that means. I do think it would be best if you could manage it on your own, but if you're this far down the road and still suffering greatly from the anxiety, you might want to consider it. There are some options here on the board that have been advertised more often than not as okay, but as always with medication, your mileage may vary.

This really is a very cruel symptom. It's evasive. It's piercing. It's just awful. The only thing we can do is try to manage one day at a time and wait. It's also good to talk about your experience as you have been doing. If you would like to speak with me privately, I am open to that.

At any rate, best wishes, and I hope things only improve for you from here.

 

Habituation will set in, "whether you like it or not", as someone once said on this forum. Hang in there!

 

Thanks for support. ENT did say he'll do a hearing test in six weeks. The idea of accumulated hearing loss being triggered by the concussion would be rather unlucky, but I guess not impossible. I used to play in a band throughout my 20's. Odd thing is that was now over ten years ago and I've never had t then or now until this concussion. I've also never felt my hearing was lessened. Still holding out hope it fades. Seems like any day now my brain will just turn t off. Fingers crossed for sure.

I guess habituation is the only other outcome. It's hard to fathom 5 weeks into t how one habituates, but a lot of folks on here have said they do. Does habituation mean really being consciously unaware most of the time?

 

Drachen - Agree that anxiety, tinnitus, and sleep don't mix. Things like work or school don't stop because we can't sleep either as you know. Been a pretty sleepy time lately. Some days you feel like you are running a race.

 

This very well could have contributed to any damage. This symptom often appears at random, potentially years after damage has been inflicted. It's a sneaky bastard like that. I know at least in my case, I really didn't have anything going on around that time like a noteworthy trauma that should have sparked it. Well, here I am, and hopefully for not much longer. Like you, I'm still holding onto the hope it will fade entirely.

Habituation does seem to be the most likely positive result, yeah. There is a chance of natural recovery, however, so I would not discount your chances there yet. Several people have recovered after days, weeks, months, or even years, so it's hard to say for sure until you get to that point.

There's also the possibility of cures, though there is nothing concrete there yet. If your symptom is related to hearing loss, then there may be hope close on the horizon with prospective drugs like FX-322 and OTO-413, both of which are performing well in clinical trials. These might be the most positive threads you could keep up with here on the forum.

Everyone has their own definition of what habituation means, so it's hard to define exactly. I would envision it's a point where one is simply not bothered by the phantom noise any further.

I'll be honest: some success stories make habituation seem like barely a step up from onset. I guess if they feel at peace enough to consider it a success story, though, it's valid.

Absolutely. This condition makes it feel like the world has stopped, but things keep going as they were before. It's just an added weight you find yourself encumbered with as you deal with the day-to-day.

 

@Drachen, so your tinnitus just appeared at random out of the blue with no known trigger? It's such a beast.

 

Yep! I had no sort of acoustic trauma, sickness, or physical event that would have lead into it. I guess the closest thing would have been my listening to music in the car, perhaps a bit too loudly and for too long, but I had been doing that every few days for months.

Then again, that all might have led to it. I have no idea, and there's no way to know for sure. It sucks. Sure wish I knew what I knew now before, because I'd have been much, much more careful...

I certainly hope for you that whatever is causing yours might subside with time. If it actually does result from your concussion, then perhaps some interior healing could resolve your problem. It's commonly stated that tinnitus itself is a symptom of an underlying condition; this is partly why it's somewhat important to determine what could be the cause. But when you have doctor's that don't take it seriously, somewhat like what you mentioned in your original post, it can be challenging.

 

So, steroids seem to be helping but my tinnitus is still there and fluctuates. Pretty loud at the moment. I have found that the tinnitus changes based on my neck too. My neck has been sore. My CT scan was normal, but who knows.

 

So, I'm on week seven. My tinnitus is still there unfortunately. I sort of dread it still being there at the 3 month mark that everyone says is permanently imprinted into your brain. I have to still hope that is not necessarily the case. I just started taking Curcumin and Turmeric supplements. I figure "can't hurt to try". I ponder a lot if my tinnitus has decreased at all since its sudden onset. It's hard for me to really say because it's hard to measure. I don't know if I'm just getting used to it or what. It drives me nuts, and I can't help but keep analyzing and trying to figure out what is actually causing it to no avail.

In my case, the concussion likely had some triggering effect but I do have allergies and the ENT says ETD. Of course the ENT looked at me for two minutes so it's not like some deep study was done.

 

It's been over two months since the onset of my 24/7 tinnitus. Depression has started to sink in even though I have been able to sleep better at night with 10 mg of Melatonin every night.

The challenge of tinnitus has made some of my other challenges in life a lot harder. I've been at my job for around 8 months, and have never really settled in happily since I started. Now, after two months of tinnitus and possibly long term, I really want to leave. Still, need to have a job. It's hard to leave when you feel crippled by this new unwanted intruder in your head. Going out and finding another job seems more daunting than ever.

Having some issues with my family life at home too. I guess it was shaky before tinnitus, but now after tinnitus it's really rough. I'm not really here mentally, my mind is consumed by eeeeeee & sssssssss whether I want to be or not. It's hard to not be mentally present when you have a family that needs and expects you to be what you were before tinnitus. Hard for them to understand tinnitus because I really don't think people do understand unless they've experienced it for a long period of time at some point.

Having a rough time today. So, needed to vent to a community that understand the mental challenge of this. Sometimes I wish I could just go off alone to some scenic location and immerse myself in relaxing hobbies and let go of stress.

 

That's a very high dose of Melatonin. Average is 3 mg. Did you know that high doses of Melatonin might be less effective than smaller doses? I would start with 0.3 mg (300 micrograms) of Melatonin and take it up from there. Life Extension suggests this.

This is a problem, people close to you struggle to understand tinnitus. If it was cancer, no problem, you'd be given all the understanding in the world.

What is your score on the following test?

https://depression.org.nz/is-it-depression-anxiety/self-test/depression-test/

 

Looks like I score an 11 on that.

I've seen things like the below out there regarding Melatonin, so, I went for the max because I was not sleeping but a few hours a night at first with tinnitus.

https://bjanaesthesia.org/article/S0007-0912(17)31962-1/fulltext
In adults, the standard dose used in studies ranges between 1 and 10 mg.​

 

Hey, that's not written in stone. Many people report improvements even after the 3 months mark. I personally know some.

 

I am 42 as well Gman and our tinnitus started the same time. I do not know the cause. I lifted a weight badly at the gym and put all the pressure in my head. I was having ongoing headaches, and taking lots of Ibuprofen on top of 2 x blood pressure meds. Could be a combo of all of the above. It could have been the MRI on my adrenal gland I had days before tinnitus started. All I know is that I did not come into contact with any loud noises.

I'm not going very well. I scored 21 on that test.

 

Yeah I have to hold out hope that three months is not set in stone for tinnitus. I think the hope that it will diminish keeps me happier.

AliasM - I understand how you feel. It's really hard. I think I know what caused my tinnitus, but not certain. I guess I want to know if in some cases it's something that can be treatable. I know in my case it's not loud sound exposure unless it's some effect of concerts and such from my distant past. That seems far fetched. It's making me nuts. I am just so tired of the noise. Makes everything else in life seem so trivial. It's like I have one thought all the time to make it stop.

 

So, I saw my ENT for my hearing test. They did some test of my ear drum for fluid too.

Not really the best of news. Ear drum test went fine, and doctor does not think ETD is going on.

My hearing test was normal in left ear and just under normal in right ear. Both ears show some hearing loss on the curve in high frequencies, but nothing that they said would need a hearing aid.

As for tinnitus, they think that having a concussion was the cause. They said my pre-existing slight hearing loss (probably from playing in a band over a decade ago) was the ultimate cause of the tinnitus. They said that up until the concussion my brain was probably filtering it out totally, but the concussion put stress on the nerves that do that and all of a sudden the filtering out stopped due to the concussion.

I do feel like my ears are clogged up, but I guess I must just be overly aware of feelings there since tinnitus started, and I've learned a behavior of trying to pop my ears all the time now.

It stinks, I wish I could take back that one second of clumsiness walking into a beam in the attic that was just above my line of sight. I wasn't doing anything dangerous or out of the ordinary that day but putting a few books in there as I had done many times over. I still can't believe that doing something so mundane leads to this. Even the concussion was mild or so it seems. Seems like it could have happened to 1,000 others in the same way and they would be fine. Super unlucky I guess. Ugh...

My ENT's opinion on this was that there is an 80% chance that my brain eventually filters out all or part of the tinnitus signal again within a year's time from its onset (2.5 months ago). There's no way to know of course. TRT was mentioned which could be started in a year if I still feel I need it.

It's the answer I thought was coming, but I was oddly more hopeful on ETD because it's treatable.

All I can do is go on and try to habituate or maybe my tinnitus does fade. I don't know about his claim that there is a 80% likelihood my brain will filter it out, but if that was true that's not too bad of odds.

 

Well, three months in and tinnitus is still there. These have been the toughest three months of my life thus far thanks to tinnitus. I knew it was different than more common temporary tinnitus when it started overnight one week after a mild concussion. I still had hopes that it would simply fade, but unfortunately not yet. It's sort of hard to believe that that one moment in my attic started this nightmare. When I hit my head on the rafter, it seemed so trivial even though I knew I bumped it good. Tinnitus was the last thing on my mind when that happened. Tinnitus didn't start for another week after when something fateful and awful must have happened in my brain while asleep. Hard to believe that a bump on the head's effect is so life changing even now when the moment of hitting my head seems like such a distant memory. It's a memory that tinnitus is making sure I never forget.

Month one was absolute torture as I could not sleep and obsessed 24/7 along with the 24/7 tinnitus. Month two, sleep started to slowly return, but still not the same. Month three, and I don't obsess 24/7, but I still think about it a lot since it's always there. On a positive note, I swear I heard silence for the first time for about thirty minutes in month three. Could have been just my imagination, but shows that my tinnitus definitely fluctuates in intensity.

Overall, I think I'm working toward habituation even though I'd much rather be working toward being cured of the sound altogether. I sure do miss silence.

 

I have been taking Curcumin for about a month now. I recently added Lipoflavonoid. I don't know what I expected, but no help thus far after a few days of the Lipoflavonoid. I do feel like it sort of upsets my stomach. I am debating whether to stay the course or cut that one out. I know it's probably not going to work, but there does seem to be some people it helps.

Am I doing more harm than good? Any harm in staying the course for the month? Anyone get worse taking Lipoflavonoid?

 

Sorry this is happening to you. Im 21 and have had severe noise induced tinnitus for about 2 years now and i havent been able to find any improvement. Some days are better than others and its really been affecting my sleep a lot. I find myself waking up every few ours tossing and turning. Its really draining my energy

 

@Bradleytech386 - I'm sorry this is happening to you and well all of us with tinnitus as well.

I know what you mean about sleep. I haven't been good in that department since the day my tinnitus turned on. I do miss just lying down and feeling relaxed. Now I have to take something (melatonin and/or OTC sleep aid), I have to be exhausted to pass out basically. Gone are the times where you could just lie down, relax, and doze off even if not totally wiped out.

I wish there was something that worked... I know I'm in that phase where I'm still trying everything under the sun. Heck, I would be pleased with a placebo effect if there still was an effect.

 

So, it's just about four months since my concussion and tinnitus onset. Man it's tough. It's 24/7 noise. Hard to cope. I guess I just hope for habituation. I am not the same person I once was. I cant tell if it's better or I am just getting used to it. I sort of feel like I am not even a person since I am always focused on tinnitus. I do hope that I will find a way to let go mentally someday. Going to see a psychiatrist in a few weeks. Hoping to learn to live a normal life again.

Glad to have this site of others that understand. It seems like I should just be able to take a pill to knock it out like a headache or something, but no such relief exist. I will have to hang in there, but having a rough time.

 

Going on five months now since tinnitus onset. I am starting to habituate even though I still want it gone. I went to a chiropractor and just their exam hurt my neck without even getting to am adjustment. I don't think that Is for me. I went to a psychologist and they want to give me Prozac. For me all I want is an answer that might help my tinnitus or perception of tinnitus. Doctors don't want to talk about tinnitus at all though. I guess because there is no cure. Taking Prozac is scary to me because some say it causes tinnitus.

 

Glad to hear that it’s at least bothering you a bit less. Keep in mind that you are still only 5 months in and things will likely continue to get better.

On the antidepressant front, there looks to be a few related threads on this forum:

Are There Any Antidepressants That Are Not Ototoxic for Tinnitus and Hyperacusis?

You may want to lean on antidepressants if you feel you really need them. However, it’s worth investigating other areas too: Are you getting enough sleep / exercise / good food? Also, are you keeping yourself busy? I’m not saying these are easy but they’re important for your your overall well-being. I find the most difficult times are when I’m sitting around with little to do and ruminating over my tinnitus - it gets me in a bad head space. Best of luck.

 

Hi Gman... I only know all too well exactly how you feel. I am sorry to say I've been battling this beast along with hyperacusis for 4 years!!! And I, like you was anxious and not a great sleeper to start with. I have just discovered this forum and even though the stories are heartbreaking I guess the old cliche is true, misery loves company. Even after 4 years, I still think about my tinnitus all day, every day. I always was a slow learner. I feel like there is hope for you... you won't be a tinnitus long hauler!!

 

Thanks for the link on antidepressants. I can't imagine taking something that makes tinnitus worse in any way. I still don't know if I am going to take anything because of that. I would rather be depressed than risk higher tinnitus.

Thanks for Tinnitus Talk. I totally relate with so many here.

 

I've been reading your posts and I remember that a week before my tinnitus I also hit my head.

Can OTO-313 or FX-322 help us too? I am 3 months into my tinnitus. During the second month it decreased until I started to go out on the streets

I am 26 years old. If I believe that I will be able to overcome my tinnitus, you will also be able to overcome this. Believe it!