Tinnitus from a Slap When 6-7 Men Attacked Me and My Friend

Hi all.

On Sunday night my friend and I were attacked by about 6-7 men while we were walking past a park. They approached us and one of them slapped me on the left side of the head causing immediate pain and ringing in my left ear. Another one of them punched me on the left side of my head.

The ringing initially died down, but came back 2 days later and got progressively worse. I have not noticed any hearing loss. I started to read about tinnitus and sudden hearing loss and began to panic when I realised it is an emergency which requires immediate treatment.

I went to a GP Thursday night and they refused to prescribe Prednisone, giving me eardrops instead. They did give me a referral to an ENT though. I then drove straight to the ER to see if maybe an emergency doctor could recognise the emergency situation I was in. I waited 5 hours and spoke to the doctor who refused to prescribe Prednisone.

I contacted an ENT Friday morning and they were fully booked, but realised the emergency situation I was in and found a spot for me on Monday.

It has now been 6 days. The ringing is mostly from my left ear, but also fills it my entire head. It is extremely loud. It overpowers the sound my shower when I have the shower going full pressure. The sound is completely consuming me and I find it extremely difficult to focus on anything, as well as finding it extremely difficult to go to sleep.

I have read the tinnitus horror stories, and I am hoping mine is not going to be one of them.

I will update after my ENT appointment on Monday.

 

Terrible experience, and sorry to hear of your trauma. What is the ear exam? Is your eardrum intact or ruptured?

 

I am so sorry that this has happened to you... What did they want?

You will need to wait 3-6 months. If you don't experience any fading in that time, it will be a bad sign. If there is fading, it ought to continue to fade. It can take a year or two of fading for it to get to the "can hear it only in quiet rooms" stage.

For now, try not to think about the future. Wait 3-6 months and then you will have more information. It is the case that the first 3-6 months are the worst (even when tinnitus begins to fade). All you can do is try to ride it out. It gets better, and that includes even the people whose tinnitus never fades. It could take 2 years or more, but eventually many/most(?)people habituate, and it stops feeling as horrible as it feels early on.

It is a horrible predicament, but right now there is still a reasonable chance that you might get better, and in the worst case scenario there is a chance that you will adjust and learn to live with it.

You did the right thing asking for Prednisone. It is shocking that your doctors let you down...

In any case, you might consider looking into HBOT treatments (search this site).

You might want to avoid exposing yourself to loud noises and to ototoxic medication during this vulnerable time of healing. For more information, see the post below
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...eone-else-who-has-tinnitus.26850/#post-307822

 

Hi mate. Neither doctor detected any rupture. The first doctor stated my ear canal appeared irritated. The second doctor stated I had fluid behind my eardrum.

 

Get your jaw checked up by a specialist as well. Tinnitus is not always related to the ear, TMJ is a possible cause as well. Alternatively it can be a result of continuous muscle strain, but I guess that is less likely in your case.

Just to put this in perspective a bit: though early diagnosis is important, with a clear physical cause, appropriate treatment can usually still help even years later. It all depends on the exact origin. Of course, if an immediate fix is possible, anyone would go for it. I know I would.

 

Sounds like more of an acoustic trauma.

 

Ask your ENT for steroid injections. They may be able to help with any inflammation that may have been induced by the slap.

 

@Feelsbadman69

You should get an Audiometry test to check for asymmetric hearing loss. It will be even better if you can get it up to 16KHz instead of the traditional 8KHz. Very high frequencies are very delicate and the fist ones to go. Also, high frequency hearing loss is not obvious in every day life.

 

Thanks for the responses guys.

I just had my ENT appointment. Both ears were tested with no hearing loss detected.

The ENT refused to prescribe Prednisone and told me the tinnitus should improve within weeks to months.

I have booked a follow-up appointment for 6 weeks.

My tinnitus has not settled down at all at this point.

I am currently looking into alternative treatments such as hyperbaric oxygen therapy. I will keep the thread updated with any changes.

 

@Feelsbadman69

What is the approximated frequency of your T? It can give you an idea of where the problem is located. You can informally check your very high frequency range using the iPhone/iPad app HighFrequencySounds. You will find out easily if you have loss in your damaged ear. Just test each ear by plugging the other one with your finger. Note again that the audiologist most likely only tested to 8KHz (human communication range), and the section above that is very important for a complete diagnosis.

 

why would they refuse ? I guess this is in the UK, where ENT are not very helpful

 

What the fuck?! Report him to your state's medical board! In what universe would a slap, an acoustic trauma, cause any type of problem that eardrops would solve???

You just got tag teamed by violent idiots and next by your dumbass doctor.

 

after my acoustic trauma I was also refused prednisone and instead convinced it was somehow an earwax problem even though I had none.

 

Yes, we are an abused class. We do not get the attention we need. There are early interventions that could have saved many of us from this becoming permanent.

 

Hearing about these responses can enrage me so much. Seriously, if the ENT can't fix it, that's one thing... but to deny the other possible causes in itself? If earwax is nowhere to be found, then either be open to suggestions or at least say "I don't know, sorry".

I honestly hope you went to get a second opinion somewhere else.

 

My GP refused to give me an ENT referral based on my audiogram. I eventually paid out of pocket to see a private one but it was too late for them to do anything.

 

I also had a secondary acoustic trauma and I begged my GP for prednisone and he still refused to give it to me.

 

WTFF!

It's not like you were asking for Oxycontin™ or something!

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The frequency of my T appears to be around 15-16k hertz. I can't hear sounds around the 16k hertz frequency.

In other news my ENT just left me a message saying he has had a discussion with a colleague and has decided to prescribe Prednisone.

I will be picking the prescription up tomorrow and will update once I've taken it.

 

As you might recall I saw an ENT 2 days after the onset of my tinnitus. When he asked me "how are you?" I burst into tears. This prompted the ENT to deny giving me a Prednisone prescription, as he felt that I was stressed out and was worried that Prednisone would make me more stressed out.

 

sorry this happens to you Feelsbadman, but don't spend time playing all the ifs and buts over in your head; the window for prednisone is closed, but even when it's given right away.... well, some studies show a benefit, others don't, but the odds of that being the big thing making a life-changing difference here seem very low to me based on the studies we have. The evidence that prednisone does anything outside of SSHL is spotty, and the best evidence (from military trials) shows that the window for maximum effectiveness is minutes to hours, and also when the steroids are injected through the eardrum, which isn't generally offered anywhere; dangerous and lack of data. (They can do dangerous, evidence-lacking things in research, especially when working with military `volunteers`....)

it's pretty much guaranteed to make you an insomniac wreck for a couple weeks, which definitely isn't where you want to be when you're in recovery from an acute injury

if there were anything like equivocal evidence that oral steroids were very safe and effective, then I'd agree it would be barbaric for them to be denied, but in fact they are not the silver bullets they are often made out to be here, and do come with a significant set of associated side effects

 

The published evidence for oral prednisone isn't that great. I did persuade an ENT to give me it in the first month but it didn't help. I know one American woman who got tinnitus the same time as me who had what I think where steroid shots to the eardrum that lowered her tinnitus and it stayed lowered. She also did HBOT early days which she says helped. HBOT runs a small (unknown) risk of possibly worsening things too I heard.

Bill is right that a lot of people have fading, some to nothing, some to only in a quiet room which is soooooooo different to loud tinnitus. Some people it stays loud, no one knows the proportions. Most seem to experience at least some fading.

Jeez the people who come on here with tinnitus after a slap to the ear! Terrible! More often it's from a partner! Can only hope the law or karma catches up with the folk who beat you up.

 

Hello! So sorry to hear what has happened to you, I hope it will get better soon.
I have had T for a little more than 3 weeks now from a bike tire exploding very close to my ears (in a tiny bike garage). I have since then read for hours online about noise induced tinnitus treatments and I am not convinced prednisone is a cure for acoustic trauma. I only got a small dose of it from my GP, but stopped after only one day since I couldn't find any data supporting prednisone as a cure. I believe that if prednisone worked for noise trauma tinnitus there would be evidence for it by now, and also a standard drug to give to all tinnitus patients all over the world, but that is not the case... I think there's a reason why a lot of doctors are hesitant prescribing prednisone for tinnitus patients, and that is that the evidence for it working is not there. If you decide to take it despite the side effects please write your experience here, because I still haven't found anyone that it has worked for, and the doctors and ENT I talked to haven't heard any success stories from the prednisone either.

 

That is CRAZY. We are abused.

 

I got Prednisone on day 12, and it immediately helped.

 

Even after the prednisone? Did the T disappear from taking the prednisone?

 

Yes it was gone within the hour, but it came back over the next 2 days, just not as ferocious. Tinnitus went on a scale I made from a 400 (day 1-2) to about 200 before taking the prednisone (which was on day 12)... to zero right away and then up to 100, and then drifted to about 50 after the prednisone course was done. Then from 50, it has gotten to 20 and then mostly under 10 since.

 

Wow! I would consider you cured then, that's a 98% decrease (400 to 10) in your T. If I were you I would write in the Prednisone thread in treatments and tell your story. This is amazing results from the prednisone, I haven't heard anything like this and now I feel really sad I didn't take prednisone myself. I am almost one month in to this and I think it's too late for me. Maybe if I've just gotten to prednisone I would also have a decrease in sound with 98%. I hate my life right now so much.

 

My T is far lower, but I am also almost 20 months out from the event, I can't know how much decline there was from naturally factors or the other things I've done and taken. I actually argued with myself about getting the prednisone at all at the time. Like maybe it will go away on its own, maybe this is temporary, or maybe even that it's too late. But I decided even a week out I'd rather get on it and pray for any positive benefits. My ENT said even 30 days out it can be beneficial to a person, so you still might chase it down.

My early days, I recorded what I was doing and experiencing in the following thread:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/coming-into-new-awareness.27547/

My advice would be not to beat yourself up over things you were ignorant of. @Winter - We all were, and of all kinds of helpful information*, and yours was a freak accident on top of all other factors. Keep open to healing and new attitudes. I have found keeping very busy keeps me from focusing on the noise. Good luck.


* Since coming here, I eventually found the Navy uses protocols of steroids, NAC and Magnesium for severe auditory impairment immediately upon the incident.

ps Also to say, steroids...for me...never gave me bad reactions. Maybe I felt 5% funny, but so what. For other people maybe that's an issue (more severe).

 

Sounds similar to my experience 3 and a half years ago after being assaulted and still have the tinnitus to this day. I don't know if it's got quieter or if I've got used to it, but I can go days without thinking about it.

I had the same useless experience from so called experts just fobbing you off because they don't have answers.

I'm currently trying to get investigated a lump in my TMJ region right in front of my ear, on the tinnitus affected side, but this is proving difficult to get lazy professionals to investigate. I'm adamant this lump has something to do with my tinnitus.

Like you I have no apparent hearing loss. Can you make your tinnitus louder by opening your jaw or moving your neck ? Have a feel around your TMJ region, maybe something might feel off or out of place that could be worth investigating?

Something other than your ear may have got damaged that day and the ringing in your ear is throwing yourself and doctors off the real cause. That's what I believe has happened to me and I'm now currently trying to get that investigated.

Be prepared for doctors to fob you off and feed you bullshit of things they don't know about. You are the expert of your own body so be prepared to battle with them.

Hope all works out for you