Tinnitus Has Gotten Worse After Sinusitis / Ear Infection

[Jim C.]

Hi Everybody,

I've had tinnitus off and on for years. I suffer from allergies to Planet Earth. It would be easier to list what I'm not allergic to than what I am allergic to.

I have routinely gotten sinusitis every Oct./Nov. for maybe 40 years. You could mark it on a calendar it was that routine. During that time, I have had small bouts with tinnitus. Usually 30 seconds or so. Nothing that wasn't tolerable, just annoying when it hit. Until this past year fall.

In November I came down with my usual sinusitis infection but with an incredible earache and acute tinnitus. The noise had me clasping my hands over my ears. It was God awful. Thankfully, I'm also an incredibly sound sleeper. I was told by my doctor that I had my usual sinusitis along with an infection in my left ear. I was told Flonase, nasal rinses and a round of antibiotics. Things improved for about a month and then the earaches and tinnitus returned in a fury. Unfortunately I had to travel and could not get to a doctor for two weeks.

I went back and he diagnosed it as ETD. He prescribed Nasacort, Afrin, Claritin and nasal rinses. Well things did not improve. I then went to an ENT and he concurred with the ENT issue. He's also concerned with a family history of deafness in my older relatives.

He put me on Xyzal, nasal rinses and prednisone. Things improved greatly until I went off the prednisone. A week later the tinnitus has roared back in full force. My allergy symptoms are not evident.

They've put me on Astelin and Nasacort until they can do a hearing test and put tubes in my Eustachian tubes. They also want to do SLIT allergy therapy as I stopped my shot therapy a few years ago due to the inconvenience.

I'm just started Mullein Garlic Oil. Hopefully it helps.

Any advice because the high pitched siren in my ears are driving me nuts. Thank God I can sleep since it would be intolerable otherwise.

Any ideas?

 

[billie48]

Any advice because the high pitched siren in my ears are driving me nuts

Welcome to the forum Jim. Have you tried to mask the screaming tinnitus? It can be as simple as downloading APPs for tinnitus masking on your smart phone and then connect to a bluetooth speaker. Most of them have a variety of sound schemes to choose from, from rain shower, bubbling creek, bird sounds in forest to waves and thunders etc. High pitched sounds like heavy rain, shower, waterfall, cicadas, constant waves etc will help to shield the ringing. My tinnitus was also very high pitched and honestly at one time I had to depend on squeaky faucet sound to try to mask the spiking ringing. So masking will help to buy time before your body heals the source of the tinnitus, perhaps ETD. Have you done some ETD drain exercises? If not, try search these videos out on youtube. Some doctors are showing people how to drain blocked eustachian tube due to ETD or sinusitis. Anyway, the initial period will be quite intrusive and suffering heavy. So be patient. I also had servere hyperacusis on top of tinnitus. So it was a nightmare for me at the start. But I am living a happy, normal, productive and absolutely enjoyable life (cruising much until this stupid virus hit us, sad). I have shared some strategies on my success story. If you have time, check it out. Don't be too worried. Good life will come back. Take care, God bless.

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...w-i-recovered-from-tinnitus-hyperacusis.3148/