Tinnitus for No Reason

[laurac101]

Hello I am 17 year old and would like some advice on whether my Tinnitus is likely to improve. I noticted the noise after school and work there were no loud music and I haven't suffered from any colds. I do suffer from Anxiety which has made this experience worse as I been worrying so much that it is never going to get better and how I am going to cope at school and I struggle to relax. The noise is high pitched and only comes from my right ear it is not particularly loud but I can hear it at home most of the time and it also appears to become more noticeable when I am watching a video on my laptop.
I went to my doctor two days after I noticed it and she noticed that my ear canal in my right (the one where the noise is coming from) is slightly different to the left, I can't quite remember what she said about it but I think that it means that it is more sensitive to noise. After two weeks of the noise not going although it has most definitely become less noticeable and not as clear I was prescribed with Otrivine nasal spray as my doctor believe it may be caused by Eustachian Tube Dysfunction. I would love to hear if anyone has any advice on if the nasal spray is likely to make any difference and if I have any chance of it improving.

 

[Richard zurowski]

Hi. Your very young it goes to show that tinnitus can hit anybody at any age. But try not to worry, you said that you haven't been exposed to loud noises or had any cold virus, I think there is a high chance that it will just go in time. Wish you all the best.

 

[billie48]

Welcome to TT. If spraying the nasal spray is not going to hurt T, why not just use it to see if it makes a difference? ETD has symptoms such as vertigo, ear fullness and pain besides T. So if you don't have those, then it is hard to say. I am not a doctor so I can't say if you have ETD. Here is a good site on ETD and its symptoms.

http://patient.info/health/eustachian-tube-dysfunction

 

[billie48]

I do suffer from Anxiety which has made this experience worse as I been worrying so much that it is never going to get better and how I am going to cope at school and I struggle to relax

I understand your feeling there. I have suffered from anxiety and panic disorders for decades prior to T & H. So when I got T & H, my anxiety just went through the roof and panic attacks greeted me every time when loud T would wake me up. No amount of will power could stop the panic attacks and I had to use meds to survive each day. So yes, I understand how tough it is. Saying that, try not to buy in what the anxious mind is suggesting to you at this tough stage of T suffering. Don't project the doom and gloom of a future based on the worst time of T suffering. I made that mistake myself and paid dearly with immense mental sufferings, enough to have the big S word dangling in front of this tired and stressed out mind. If I have any comforting words for you, it is that people do survive T & H, anxiety and panic attacks and all, and write their success stories after some time. You need to give yourself time and learn some strategies to guide your T journey. Explore the success stories to give yourself hope for the future. That was what I did to read as many stories as I can to help my anxiety about my situation. You can get better and do believe that. Get masking going asap to help reduce the anxiety of T. Take care & God bless. Here are some stories of young people like you with T:

success story of 17 years old Zach:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/fake-it-until-you-make-it.7590/

success story of Jari with T since 12 years old:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/new.7670/


Honeybee's success story with good tips:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/3-months-in-and-going-strong.9747/

College age AnneG success story:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/came-back-to-say-it-really-does-get-better.6166/

 

[Hariz Nonis]

Hello OP. I am just like you. I'm 18 and it happened to me suddenly one day. I too, am using a nasal spray for ETD albeit a different one. Mine's been going on for close to three months, but it has gotten better over the past two-three weeks. I do hope that things get better for you, take care of yourself alright. Prayer helps too, no matter what you believe in

 

[laurac101]

Thank you all so much for your advice it makes me feel reassured and calmed. I have noticed that the noise has changed and wonder if this has any indication of wether it will improve. In the first week it was a high pitched noise that just came from my right ear but did inprove rapidly until being only noticeable in silence. However in the second week it became less clear and high pitched and sounds more fuzzy and more like background noise however I am less able to tell if it's just coming from my right earl but it is slowly improving.

 

[laurac101]

Update
It has been 3 months after my tinnitus started. The noise is still present but is a lot quieter to the point where on good days I can only hear it when trying to get to sleep. I went to an ENT and he found no cause for it and said that it is likely to get better. There are days particularly when my ears are quite blocked with wax and the tinnitus is worse however my anxiety about it has also improved and I am just grateful that it is not as bad as it used to be. My main concerns now is firstly I will be flying in a couple on months on a long haul flight and I am rather nervous about the flying causing more problems and I have also completely avoided using earphones and going to loud places such as the cinema. Should I still refrain from theses and does any one have any advice on flying?

 

[Hariz Nonis]

my ears are quite blocked with wax and the tinnitus is worse

May I know how you get the wax removed? Or do you leave it as it is?
And about the flying part, you shouldn't worry if you don't have Eustachian Tube issues. I have Eustachian Tube Dysfunction and I recently went on a flight without any issues

 

[laurac101]

May I know how you get the wax removed? Or do you leave it as it is?
And about the flying part, you shouldn't worry if you don't have Eustachian Tube issues. I have Eustachian Tube Dysfunction and I recently went on a flight without any issues

The wax does generally clean itself, however my ENT who I think is a tinnitus specialist said that the only was you can clean them is using a cotton wool bud to gently clean the outsides. I have done this very carefully when my ears are very full and have had no problems. I did use olive oil drops but after a couple of tries, they actually made my ears feel even more blocked as the oil didn't come out of my ear. Did you do anything differently when you were flying to protect your ears? and what did you do when the pressure was changing?

 

[Hariz Nonis]

Did you do anything differently when you were flying to protect your ears? and what did you do when the pressure was changing?

I definitely didn't use earphones haha. I got some advice from a fellow T Talk user here and what I did was during ascending and descending, I opened my mouth wide and breathed through my mouth. It helped a lot, my affected ear kept 'popping' on its own. It only did that for the ascent though.