Tinnitus for 2+ Months, Spiking

Hey Everyone,

I've been lurking on here for a little more than a week and want to introduce myself.

I got my tinnitus in March of this year attending a loud metal concert with no hearing protection. I had been to similar shows before but I was not standing as close as this and was indoors for the first time.

I felt something wrong in my right ear even before the show was over but didn't think much of it. When I woke up with the ringing still there I was terrified.

About a week and a half in I decided I wanted to leave the denial stage and just accept it to get past it. The tinnitus level was what I would call 2-3 out of 10. After a few days I had adjusted and I even had nights where I would purposely fall asleep on the ear as a defiant "screw you" to the condition to prove I could sleep on it. This lasted about 2 months.

Nearly 3 weeks ago, I felt I noticed an increase in the overall avg. volume of the ring, or that it had changed pitch. Despite this I went to another concert a couple days after it started (with ear plugs and definitely further back). I feel the plugs did their job, but after reading some comments on this board I can see that I should have laid off on going period.

I also did a couple other dumb things like get drunk in a couple semi-loud (from conversation, no live music) bars. I also listened to a "waterfall sounds" YouTube video trying to mask the new elevated sound one night. The volume wasn't up all the way, but it was louder than it should have been and was coming in through my ear phone into the bad ear for roughly an hour. Again, extremely stupid I know. These are things that if I had looked into this site or others sooner would have known not to do. I would have known more of the does and dont's for the first 6-8 months+ after getting this.

I had thought I was doing so well and didn't think it would elevate like this and for as long.

I had a small ache in my ear for the first couple days after the concert which mostly went away except for the random day here and there it would return momentarily. However, for the same amount of time I've had this spike/flare-up the pain has been there daily though popping in and out. It doesn't ever go above a 1/10 on the pain scale but I believe it has to be related to the spike.

I saw an ENT this past Monday and got my hearing checked. I have no perceptible hearing loss (though after reading here, it is clear that they aren't counting higher frequencies). He informed me that the pain is from a muscle in the ear that tries to prevent deafness and could take awhile to heal, if it fully heals at all. I didn't ask many follow up questions because I was distressed at the time, but I am seeing a different ENT next week who specializes more in tinnitus than the first, as I have a lot of questions.

I have become increasingly anxious the last couple weeks over many things such as how this will affect my life and a deathly fear that it will get even worse. I know this anxiety does not help the tinnitus but it has been hard to overcome and I've lost some sleep this week from both.

On the negative side my tinnitus has gone from roughly 2-3 in notice-ability to between 5-6 (how much of that is from sheer stress and looking out for it more, can't say yet). Maybe 4 or less for brief moments. It also went from, I believe, 1 tone, to shifting tones a bit, in a kind of elevating then deflating way.

Trying to stay positive, I am thankful it is only in one ear and not both, and that by some miracle I rarely hear it at work. I am also staying hopeful that even though this spike has lasted longer than I wanted, it will settle down eventually and I can continue habituation.

Thank you to those who read this long post. There's been a lot to this experience and I wanted to get it all out there.

 

Yes, the repeated noise induced traumas definitely add up, and impair the healing. Now that you know what is going on, you should do better.

You are proving the point that going to a concert once the T started, even with earplugs, is hardly safe, and this has potential to get worse.

Hope your job is a quiet one, and you can give this a chance to heal and improve. The T at night when you are trying to go to sleep certainly gets damn annoying, and the lack of sleep just feeds into the process of making this worse.

 

Thank you for your reply. Afraid to ask this but have to. If I did get a secondary trauma, will the new level I'm at still potentially go down or is it more likely to be permanent?

And if it is more likely to be permanent, is there anything I can do?

 

Welcome to the forum. Usually spikes are just spikes that will settle down to baseline, especially if you take steps to avoid further damaging your ears/hearing. Even with permanent T, like many members do, we find ways to habituate to the new level. Staying positive and calm will likely help besides other things, because by doing so, you prevent the limbic nervous system from acting up, and the amgydala from taking over your T response in fight or flight mode which will make T appear much worse. So try not worry about things too much. Choose the right strategies such as positivity and staying away from more loud venues, and let time and your body do the miracle of healing as you get busy with your life. Take good care. God bless.

 

Thank you @billie48 for your kind message and advice.

An update on my condition:

Shortly after posting here I got set up with an ENT who has tinnitus and specializes in it. He gave me prednisone and although I was "near the end of the window for it to work," it did lower my tinnitus back down to a 3. Had to stop after day 5 however because of some side effects, including a couple serious ones.

After that I was fine for two months. The higher pitched tone would "click on" for brief periods, a few hours at most. Largely, I went about life not thinking about or noticing my tinnitus much.

Then, just after midnight 8/12, it clicked on and hasn't truly clicked off again. It's not the terrible 6+ I had a couple months ago but waivers between a 4-5.5. That little pain I mentioned in my first post came back. It's been doing a fade in/fade out over the last few days. I'm set up to see an ENT again tomorrow (sadly couldn't get the ENT with tinnitus this time). I have tried to stay optimistic through this but I am emotionally back to where I was a couple months ago. Will make another update post after I see the doctor tomorrow. Hopefully he can help.