Tinnitus in One Ear After a Nasty Cold — Now It's Spread to the Other Ear Too

Hey everyone. I’ve been lurking here every now and then but I feel like I finally needed to post myself because I’m really anxious right now.

My tinnitus in my left ear began at the end of February last year after a particularly nasty cold. I went through the standard testing, everything looked fine. I’ve more or less come to terms with it and made the best out of the situation.

A couple of months ago I noticed a sort of static buzz that’d become really high in pitch or sound like crickets sometimes. It was all over my head, I couldn’t pinpoint an ear.

Around two weeks ago, I noticed two things: I’d sometimes have intermittent noises in my previously good, right ear, and I’d have new noises on top of my old one in my left ear. I was already getting worried then.

Fast forward to yesterday, there was a new noise in my previously noiseless ear. It’s similar to the one I’d have on top of my old noise in left ear, almost like it jumped around between my ears and then settled in my right one. I went to bed in hopes of it going away by morning as it did before.

Couldn’t fall asleep because the noise was so loud and intrusive, which hasn’t happened to me since the early months last year. When I woke up, the noise was still there.

I’m at my wits’ end. I’ve done my best to take care of my ears. No headphones, no overly loud music in my car or going to super noisy places. I have no idea where this new, awful noise is coming from.

I’ve read so many times that after a while your tinnitus usually settles down and becomes more stable. Instead I’m getting new noises after a year. If this trend continues I might as well off myself.

I haven’t visited a neurologist yet because I was never referred to one and I’ve read that MRIs rarely turn anything useful up, but now I’m worried.

I do have a cold right now so I’m desperate to believe that’s the reason and the new noise will go away again but I’m also not naive enough anymore to buy into that anymore...

 

I would still recommend getting all the tests done to eliminate some potential issues. Praying for you.

 

If there's no obvious trigger, I'd be getting tests especially if you've been worsening.

 

I’m not going to an ENT again, that’s for sure. I’ve been to three and all they did was a hearing test and send me on my way. No one’s even ordered an MRI or referred me to a neurologist, so it’s not like I refused to have tests done that were actually ordered.

I’m so confused. I’m fine otherwise. I just cannot fathom where this coming from.

Also right now my head sounds like a space ship and the new noise is jumping from ear to ear...

 

Welcome to the forum. Perhaps the cold is making the tinnitus worse. Give it some time for the cold to go away. You may be having a spike which can settle down to baseline.

You may want to have something that will help calm your nerves as stress and anxiety will aggravate tinnitus. Try natural calming supplement such as Lemon Balm, Kava Kava, Chamomile tea etc. Also Melatonin for sleep. You can also mask the tinnitus by installing tinnitus masking apps. Use a Bluetooth speaker instead of using earbuds or headphones.

If nothing else works, you can always try some prescription drugs which may lower your tinnitus but leave that as a last resort and make sure you phase it out to prevent withdrawal problem.

All the best to your recovery. God bless.

 

@billie48, thank you for your kind words. I would like to try out Kava Kava, but sadly it’s not available in the EU, so it’s hard for me to get my hands on it. I’ve been taking Melatonin for sleep and it definitely made falling asleep easier. I still wake up in the middle of the night, which hasn’t happened to me since the original onset back last year.

I think I might have to resort to taking some sort of anxiety medication. In addition to the new noise in my previously unaffected ear, I now have a low hum in my other ear and my original noise has spiked since the weekend for no apparent reason. I only had three or four hours of sleep on Saturday and could barely hear it despite that, but now it seems to be getting louder and louder.

I really don’t get why this is happening. I have friends who have had mild tinnitus for years and they’ve never experienced anything like this.

I’ve done pretty good since the onset of my original tinnitus but now I find it harder and harder to cope and stay positive...