Tinnitus for 1 Month After Listening to Loud Music — Other Symptoms: Ear Pain and Crackling Ears

Hey.

Long story short, I've had tinnitus for 1 month after listening to loud music. I've got crackling in the ears, as well as ear pain. I have been taking ototoxic medicine for an eye infection so I'm hoping it could be something alternative but I expect it's NIHL.

I've done a ton of research on it and I've gotten more and more depressed about it as it seems like there's no treatment for it, at least in the UK. I'm 19 so I can't exactly afford many treatments outside of the free NHS.

Personally I haven't found the hearing loss so bad, as I haven't exactly noticed it. According to online tests only my left ear is the issue. That's also the ear the tinnitus seems to be coming from.

I suppose right now I'm just looking for advice. I've heard NIHL gets worse with age so I guess I'm going to be forced to put up with this for a long time. My mother has had chronic tinnitus ever since she got it from an injury after falling down the stairs and she says it gets better, but not sure if that applies to NIHL or not though.

 

Go to an audiologist and get a proper hearing examination. This is definitely step one.

Also, an ENT doctor would probably be able to confirm if your tinnitus is due to noise induced hearing loss.

 

Your ears have plenty of time to recover yet! I'm only 2 and a half months in myself and it does slowly get a little easier and I'm still hopeful of them healing! I'm far from an expert but from my experience over the past couple months I'd advise getting some half decent high fidelity earplugs for when you're out at noisy places and just be protective (but certainly not over protective)! I've changed my diet a bit to cut out some junk foods and taken a few supplements on board --- hard to tell if they even work but worth a shot, right!

I'm also from the UK and our health system sucks! I'm a month into a 7 month wait for an ENT doctor to have a look! However, what I didn't realise before getting this, is the number of free audiologist services available over here! Most opticians have audiology departments these days and most of them will do a free hearing check and assessment! I've used Boots and they had a good look in the ears and did a number of hearing tests etc. While they might not be the most thorough, it gives you a good idea about the health of your ears and hearing. They also send off the results to your GP so it could speed up a referral if needed! I also found a local independent hearing place that did a free tinnitus appointment which was very useful and again did a few tests etc! So basically yeah, our healthcare system sucks but there are people you should be able to see out there! Good luck with it =)

 

Thanks for your encouragement.

I got an appointment with SpecSavers but they delayed it a week due to COVID-19. I have a GP telephone appointment on the 16th.

I've already ordered some earplugs. I've read there shouldn't be any permanent issues so long as I wash them regularly.

I'll have to look into those supplements you talked about.

Sleeping really is hell though. I'm also unsure of if I should use white noise as all the data I've found on it is muddled - different types of colour noise, what is the safe level for overnight, etc.

 

Hello again everyone. I'm back with an update. I just spoke to my GP over the phone. She mentioned that I could have multiple things at once and mentioned that my symptoms sound like ETD. Yesterday I had my ears looked at and they mentioned that both ears had wax in which might be exacerbating issues.

She prescribed me some ear drops and nasal spray. I mentioned to her that I took multiple online hearing tests and the 'commercial' ones like Boots and Specsavers both suggested I had minor hearing loss. I also mentioned that on a test with an online audiogram about a week ago my hearing dropped at about 4 kHz in the left ear - a symptom of NIHL. The thing is, before that my results in both ears were fine - no issues with either ear (I was doing this test pretty much every day). I'm a little confused as this was a month after the event which I think kicked it off - listening to loud music. Additionally surely I would have hearing issues in both ears after that (as I was listening with both headphones). Anyway, she told me to try not to obsess over such results. She's right and I've stopped doing such tests now. Hwever, now I tend to notice how I can still hear birdsong in both ears (both physical birdsong and tinnitus birdsong sometimes haha.)

She said to keep the surgery updated about the status after 3 weeks (at that point it'll have been about 2 months with it) and then I should contact them again.

On my side, I'm still holding out hope. I had an awful 3 days of being unable to sleep with it along with other issues such as my dog barking through the night which didn't exactly help.

However, in the daytime I haven't had it too bad, and I've started trying to get into the swing of a bedtime routine and the past two nights I've managed to sleep better - about 6-7 hours without waking up in the middle of the night. The High Fidelity earplugs I ordered should be arriving today. One of the days I couldn't notice it even when I covered my ears. Talking about that, I seem to have different tinnitus sounds depending on if I cover or uncover my ears. Odd.

Anyway that's where I'm at right now. I asked the GP if I should do the Specsavers hearing test I booked (the one which was delayed a week as they got COVID-19) and she said that they'd probably take a look inside my ears and cancel it. I guess it was a good thing it got delayed?

Hoping all of your symptoms get better!

 

You're going to be ok if it was noise trauma. But this was a huge warning.

No loud noises ever again. Restraint on music volumes, especially in headphones. Learn to love quiet.

Some vasodilators for small capillaries might help a bit, but don't overdue it. I think Ginkgo, time, quiet and vitamins tend to fix this. Messing with it with heavy drugs does not! Steroids or HBO at this point would be dangerous to your tinnitus.

Stay away from anything that induces louder ringing. Viagra or other copycats included.

Might want to keep some benzos around in case of a huge spike to hopefully bliss it to static.

 

Is Viagra a no go for us for good?

 

In my experience, no. It is not. I got crazy loud static an hour after intake on a half dose. Definitely ruined the mood hard.

It isn't listed as possibly ototoxic but it should be. All the PDE5 inhibitors.

There's links to hydrops and sudden hearing loss. Rare. But I'd rather never than rare.

What happened to me was temporary. But... why the hell take the risk.

They do have dick injections but lol. Haven't gone down that road yet. A PDE5 inhibitor cream restricted to your dick would be fabulous.

 

Man... maybe I can go the testosterone route.

This sucks lol.

 

Can always do what I did if you don't use it a lot already. Try a quarter, then half dose, and after about 90 minutes with earplugs in see if it actually affects you. Then you can stop before increasing the dose and just deal with a temporary spike.

Slow but steady watch for changes.

But for me, I did this test already and didn't pass.

Thankfully its half life is short enough to risk. Other drugs with 20+ hour half lives I have trouble experimenting with in case shit goes sideways.

 

Hello again everyone. I'm back with an update. Unfortunately the nasal spray hasn't helped and I'm still experiencing the tinnitus, as well as lots of ear crackling and some itchiness. I ended up going through with that SpecSavers hearing test I mentioned and my results were perfectly fine. I thought that would ease my fears but I've read on this forum about how sometimes audiograms are wrong and now that thought lingers in the back of my mind.

One thing I noticed when putting in the ear oil was that my ears crackled a lot when putting them in. Additionally, my ears felt muffled after taking a shower the other day and it lasted for a while - now my hearing feels very very slightly off in that ear afterwards. I told the surgery that the spray hadn't worked and they booked me an appointment with an ENT - I'm getting impatient waiting for them to contact me with the date though.

Another odd thing I noticed is that with my crackling ears I can kind of control it by flexing some sort of muscle in my mouth. Additionally, the crackling sometimes comes with spasms in my Adam's apple. Additionally, sometimes when I breathe in it feels like my left ear pops, and I can't sleep on my left side anymore (my more comfortable side) as it feels like somethings pressing on my ear to create pressure and pop it. Aside from that a couple of other symptoms I've noticed is that my attention span or maybe short term memory is a little worse. Additionally, I've noticed that when I move my jaw I can feel and hear a bone on my left side of my mouth moving but not the right side. I kinda feel like I'm grasping at straws for anything to make the tinnitus seem curable honestly.

I admit these past couple days have been fairly bad. I was a bit better after getting medicine as I had hope but its fading somewhat. I'm praying that I can get my issues sorted out but the pessimistic side of me is starting to think I'll have to deal with this forever - of course I already knew that, but I'm still struggling to accept it. I keep having circular thoughts about how I might suffer with this for the rest of my life - I'm fairly young. It doesn't help that any research I do on the subject had basically said theres no cure. I hope my ENT is a little more gentle about the way they put it when they tell me that. I'm not having as bad of a sleep as I did at the beginning but I'm still getting woken up by this 30 minutes - an hour before I normally do.

Long story short - I need to stop looking things up as that only worries me more.

Wishing you all the best of luck.

 

I did a Specsavers audiology test 1 month ago and they said I have no hearing issues, including an 'on the bone' conductive hearing loss test which found nothing. I feel I should add before this I listened to loud music fairly regularly, and in my panic I have done multiple online hearing tests which have sometimes said I do and sometimes said I do not have hearing loss. Unfortunately this has not served to calm in in any way, as I have read audiology tests can potentially be wrong and whenever I get a positive result I have that thought in the back of my mind 'what if it was wrong?' and whenever I get a negative result it also makes me feel down.

I also developed two types of clicking - one I believe is palatal myoclonus that sometimes happens when I move my mouth. I sometimes have aches in the side of my jaw and temple and my ears crackle when I move my jaw. Additionally there s a muscle or bone in my jaw on the left side that I can feel pop out and into place whenever I move it, but not the right side. Additionally sometimes my left eardrum pops and I can hear my heartbeat. This developed fairly recently. Sometimes I also have very warm ears too.

I have been to a myriad of appointments with the NHS who first provided me with Mometasone Furoate which unfortunately hasn't helped. They also suggested I put oil in my ears to help get rid of the wax (I went to Boots and they did an ear health check and noticed earwax in my left ear). I haven't felt much earwax fall out. My mother has an ear syringe kit she offered to use but I am unsure whether to do it as I've read up on them and apparently they can potentially make issues worse.

Mid-September I finally have an ENT appointment. I wanted to ask all of you on what I should expect, what questions I should ask, what to do when I'm there or beforehand?

Additionally, one thing I wanted to ask was - my tinnitus normally sounds high pitched and in the left ear only. However, when I cover my ears, it sounds more constant and in the middle of my head. Additionally, whenever I lay down the tinnitus seems to switch to whichever ear I lay down on. Is this normal?

Apologies for the huge amount of text, this was written in an anxiety filled episode so I just rambled off all the information I could think of. Thank you all for reading this.

 

Hello again everyone. I have to say that my tinnitus had greatly decreased over time in the last couple of months, so much so that I could sleep without sound enrichment anymore.

Unfortunately, I went outside to get my eyes tested recently and that included being around some rather noisy traffic and I didn't have my earplugs at the time. Now my tinnitus is very loud again and I can sometimes hear it even over white noise. I am absolutely terrified this is permanent, I was around traffic for about half an hour. I don't think I'll be going outside without earplugs ever again. Unfortunately, I believe this might confirm my tinnitus is noise induced as well. My audiogram between 0-8 kHz is fine, but when I used a higher spectrum on YouTube, I got to about 13 kHz before it felt like the noise cut out. I can still hear the sound past that if I turn it up though, I think. This was the same result before and after I went outside and got exposed to traffic so im praying theres no more damage and I can hopefully return to what it was like before this.

I've read about hyperacusis, and don't believe I have it. I don't experience any pain specifically when listening to things at a high volume, thankfully. I never use the earplugs while at home so I assume that's why. However, whenever I hear a loud sound, my eardrum seems to vibrate for a bit. It's a little annoying.

The regular clicking stopped, now I can intentionally control it by moving the roof of my mouth.

My ENT appointment was delayed by a month because 'they didn't have any doctors that day' for some reason.

Moving on, I think this has given me health anxiety in general. I'm now hyper aware of the stresses I put on my body and whenever I feel something a little off I get worried it might be a larger problem.

I'll update you all when I finally see the ENT.

Thanks.

 

You have noise-induced tinnitus and this often improves with time with or without specialist treatment. For some people the noise can reduce to such a low level that it's only heard in quiet surroundings. This can give the false belief that the tinnitus will eventually be cured, and one might consider listening to audio through headphones at low volume or attending venues where loud music is played thinking it will be safe as long as noise reducing earplugs are worn. If you choose to pursue this route, then you risk making the tinnitus worse.

My advice to you is to continue using low-level sound enrichment at night. Please click on the links below and read my posts where this is explained in more detail.

Hyperacusis often accompanies noise-induced tinnitus. You may not have full-blown hyperacusis, but I believe your auditory system is oversensitive to sound caused by noise trauma which usually improves with time. To assist in the healing process, it's advisable to use low-level sound enrichment whenever possible and particularly at night. Go to my started threads and read: Hyperacusis, As I See It, where treatment and self-help for it is explained in more detail.

It is good that your tinnitus has improved since May of this year, but please keep in mind you're not out of the woods and have quite a way to go in the healing and habituation process. More about this is explained in the following posts on my started threads: The Habituation Process, How to Habituate to Tinnitus, Will My Tinnitus Get Worse? Tinnitus and the Negative Mindset, Acquiring a Positive Mindset.

My advice is to be patient on the NHS as you will get the best treatment and long-term aftercare for tinnitus with them, that no private treatment can match in the UK.

I wish you well,
Michael

Tinnitus, A Personal View | Tinnitus Talk Support Forum
New to Tinnitus, What to Do? | Tinnitus Talk Support Forum

 

Hello everyone. I recently went to the ENT (FINALLY!) and he didn't do much other than telling me to do a tympanometry test as well as another hearing test. When I told him about my jaw clicking and Adam's apple spasms he put his fingers in my ears and told me to move my jaw up and down. Odd thing is my tinnitus has spiked. I'm not sure if it's from that or not. It's gone from a ringing to multiple wavering up and down high pitched tones at once. Wondering if anyone else has experienced this? I've also noticed more pressure at my temples and pain in my ears.

Not sure what to do now other than wait :/

Guess I'll keep you posted. Thanks for the information Michael.

 

Hello again everyone.

I have yet to see my ENT again as it was delayed and nobody has given me any concrete time I can be seen. It has gotten worse these past couple days and the spike I previously mentioned hasn't gone at all. Furthermore I went to get my eyes checked for floaters which has caused me to spike again even though I wore earplugs.

At this point I spend 99% of every day in my room, and am getting depressed and irritated that I cannot be seen by anyone. I have gone to my GP a couple times but they simply look in my ear, say everything is fine and send me away. I don't know what to do anymore.

It feels like I keep getting a tiny bit better, then screwing up and getting much worse. Currently both ears are blocked thanks to my earplugs pushing earwax down. I'm using eardrops to get them out. I can only hope my hearing remains the same. It's becoming harder to sleep. I'm supposed to be getting anxiety therapy in December but I'm unsure it'll do anything if I've still got this condition.

Not sure if I can do anything, sadly.

-TrueForm