Tinnitus Back After 5 Years

Hi all,

I'm new here and although I didn't post many of you helped me get through my initial shock back in 2010.

Please bare with me as this will be long but want to be as thorough as possible to obtain accurate opinions.

For me this all started with a bout of meningitis in December 2009. Or at least what they thought was meningitis as the doctors were unsure. While waiting for the infectious disease doctor they pumped me with antibotics thinking it might be the non virus kind.

That's when I first noticed issues with my hearing. The IV played like a drum over and over with no relief. I was very sensitive to sound, smell and light what I assumed all due to the meningitis.

When I returned home from the hospital I noticed my ear would vibrate when on the pillow. Also an every day marijuana user for at least 15 years, I smoked & felt like a fan was going off in my head. I thought nothing of it as I still haven't heard any noises. My ears became stuffy from time to time as well. Trying to forget the meningitis hangover, I made my way out one evening and played music in the car for about a half hour. The next morning I felt my head was being invaded. It was so intrusive and scary. I ran to the ENT who prescribe me some prednisone steroids which helped with the fullness and the sensitivity to sound and lowered the volume a little. For the next 4 months I was a freak. Sound was probably down to a 3 most days with spikes reaching a 5 (10 scale). If I didn't hear it I became obsessed & would go look for it in quiet rooms. It was the hardest thing I've ever experienced.

Luckily for me it was gone completely by June 2010.

Fast forward to now. I noticed the noise again while I had nothing playing in my Bose noise cancellation head phones. Also felt the vibration. Mine is like a light saber swung back and forth. Not constant.

I listen to my headphones and music on a trip to Florida recently and I also hit my eardrum with a Q-tip. Either of those have could've caused the noise to come back. This time it is a 1 out of 10 as I can only hear at night. I also get same sensation I did previously when smoking.

Now I don't mean to anger any of you were real suffers,I have read as many stories and as much data on tinnitus as I can and my sympathy goes out to all of you.

I've been to the ENT, he sees nothing wrong.

I'm stuck in panic. Is this another onset? Will it get bad again? Do reoccurrences still have chance for full recovery? Does this ever start gradually or is it just waiting for me to make one more mistake?

So sorry for the long post just scared and know all of you have it far worse and are heroes to me with the way you have handled it. I don't know if I can be as strong as last time and as all of you.

Any advice?

Lost and feel alone I'm a 38 yr old healthy male. Outside of the daily weed that is. No drinking no smoking cigs.

 

During the first couple decades of my T, it came and went. Weird.

 

My advice is drop the weed for a while.

 

In my humble opinion I don't think a Q tip would do it. After all people have perforated eardrums or surgery on them, grommets etc not all get T from touching the eardrum. After all we know it is in the brain and auditory nerve

 

A bit late, but have curiosity , why this advice? I stopped smoke Marihuana after the onset of my T. 3 months drug-free. T is exactly the same

 

Once the damage is done it takes time for the body to repair. Drugs is known to cause tinnitus. Keep away from marihuana another 3 months and check if it's related to the tinnitus.

 

There is no scientific evidence of Marihuana causing Tinnitus, just reports about it can spike T or increase the perception of it. There is a study too about CBD (concentration <1% in most marihuana strains) which can exacerbate the risk of getting T after acoustic trauma. Its anphetamines and cocaine which really can cause it corroborated by studies.

I really appreciate your advice, but with no real reasons I really want to come back to my old smoker life since 3 months drug-free did absolutely nothing to my T.

Anyway im on Trobalt so I will be 1 month more without smoking ^^

 

yeah, back off the weed .
Not because it effects T ,mostly because you need to be as stable as possible, weed makes you overthink, obsess,paranoid etc . No need for that while you are dealing with this.

 

Yeah, that is the only reason I stopped it. Maybe you are right guys and I should stay drug-free few more months Hoping some recovery of my T since im in my post-acute phase. I think I´ve lost my hope of any kind of recovery...

But its clear, if im 1 year with T marihuana is gonna comeback haha

 

At 43 years of age , wish I had never encountered weed in the first place.
Smoked it for 20 years and have huge regrets... each to his own.

 

@RaZaH why do you regret it?

 

I'm not against MJ and have an RX for anxiety before all this and personally for me it made my T much worse. It made me more paranoid. I know that isn't for everyone though so just giving my experience with MJ and T.

 

I believe smoking marijuana caused me to have ETD.

 

There may not be any hard evidence of weed causing tinnitus, but there's at least one report which concluded that downregulation of cannabinoid receptors in the DCN is involved in the initial development of tinnitus.

I don't think pot is especially alarming as drugs go, but I think that drug use in general is a lot more dangerous than many people want to really owe up to; we live in a kind of sick and over-drugged, over-medicated world.

I have plenty of experience with pot and I have sort of concluded that personally I tend to feel the best when I use it the least; as with all things, your experience may differ. That said, at the time I first encountered pot, I had not one shred of the maturity or coping skills I have now, and so it sort of filled that hole for a while. It was a tool -- and, as with all tools, when its utility has been exhausted, one must fearlessly cast it aside, or suffer for it.