Tinnitus Spike After Allergy Attack? On Day 9 and Losing Hope

And sorry I didn't see this before to respond to -- I'm still not sure why my tinnitus spiked, as I've had allergies before. Maybe I sneezed and got some mucus in a place it didn't belong I don't know.

But I did start doing steam inhalation a few days a week, I kept up with my allergy pills and considered taking a decongestant like Sudafed but ended up not. I tried to change sheets more, especially pillow case, eat better, sleep better, and remove allergens from my room.

I also invested in air purifiers which have helped quite a bit I keep running in my room 24/7.

No idea if any of this helped or how much but just some things to try. I hope yours resolves soon, hang in there, I was ready to give up after 2 weeks as I figured a temporary spike would be a week max, but here I am 38 days later and doing better each week.

 

@Vicki14, hi, hope all is well.

Did your spike subside?

 

Day 56 Update

It's been 2.5 weeks from my last update and just wanted to post in case anyone is following along still or reads this in the future.

My tinnitus is not back to baseline yet but getting closer and closer. Today is a bad day, however the last 10 days were pretty good with 1 iffy day mixed in. I'd call that a positive trend. I had hoped it would completely fade back to baseline after a few weeks, as many people's have, but perhaps mine is on a longer timeline. Not giving up hope. Mornings and afternoons are usually the roughest, but by dinner time to late evening I sometimes get near complete silence.

One thing I'm struggling with still is the cause and being scared to live life. I haven't left my house not even to open the door in 56 days. I'm scared that maybe allergies will cause it to get worse again. I have protected my hearing and avoided loud events since I had a noise exposure incident 3 years ago. I've been careful with medication since thats what caused my initial downfall 7 years ago.

But what do I guard against now? This seemingly random spike... I wasn't stressed, wasn't depressed or anxious, no new meds, no loud noises. Just... had a bad day of allergies and BOOM. Maybe it was a 1 in 1000 event, but I've had colds before... allergies before... and never had anything like this happen.

I want to go out for walks again, and not feel like every sneeze is going to be the end of my world. I just don't know how to manage now going forward as this spike was so out of the blue and long lasting. It has definitely scarred me permanently, mentally at least.

Hope everyone is doing well and getting better. Y'all are the best.

 

In my first few months I was trying to find all spike factors from own experience and from what I read on this forum. So I avoided alcohol, coffee, salt, loud environments, you name it. But there was a turning point where I decided that I would not let tinnitus be the leader of the rest of my life. It can ride along, but I am not allowing it to steer. So I stopped the avoiding and was willing to accept the spikes and deal with them. I think this new mindset took away my fear of tinnitus and with that, the spikes did no longer cause anxiety. In my case the mindset of not trying to avoid spikes helped me a lot with getting used to tinnitus to a point that it no longer has an impact on my life. I am writing this because if it worked for me, there is a chance that it might work for you or any reader of this forum.

I hope you will keep improving. Thank you very much for sharing all your updates. I see that your posts are providing hope for many readers.

 

Day 68 Update

Hello again, things are much the same since my last post. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping for more improvement or more rapid improvement. I had two really good days around July 7th, one where I even noted "wow I feel 96% normal this is like my baseline again!" Gave me so much hope but then 2-3 bad days came again.

Not sure what to do anymore... Maybe this isn't a spike and it's my permanent new normal. People have told me I'm doing much better now than a month ago, so perhaps the change is so gradual I don't notice it within myself. I'm a little worried as I went through my old tinnitus journals and this spike/issue is way different. I would say how loud it is now, a 2.5 to 4, is as high as it ever got with my previous bouts that nearly drove me mad. But this is my "reduced" sound from the 7/8 at start.

Plus, after my last noise exposure bout I had normal days within 1 month, still had a few issues 3 months out, but by 6 I was largely normal again and it was always coverable with white noise. My onset from medicine took 6-7 months to get okay-ish and another year to get very low. But both of those were lower to start with, unless my mind and memory are playing tricks.

I guess I'm just getting a little scared again because I thought that surely by month 2 I'd have more improvement. And I've heard the first 3 months are the most critical. I don't want to be stuck like this but I have to remain positive. Just having 1-2 days of normalcy is a good sign that I can have more. Things are certainly not getting worse. I just have to power through it.

Sorry if this is rant-y but I hope documenting my experiences is helpful to some people.

Thank you for your kind words. I cut out alcohol and coffee when I had my noise induced spike 2.5 years ago. I was going to try adding them back into my diet this year until this new madness struck me. I'm glad you are able to accept your spikes and still enjoy the things you love. I dearly miss coffee and I hope someday soon I will get to taste it again.

Part of my fear is that I don't know what caused this in the first place. I was reasonably sure what happened the first time with medicine, the second time was noise, this time I am clueless and I don't want to do anything to make it worse because 2 months in it still isn't better.

Something must have triggered it ... I can't just believe it was totally out of my control and just randomly started when it was so good for years and years.

 

Day 99 Update

Just keeping my log updated in case anyone stumbles upon it. This past month was pretty good, I had some full weeks where I felt like I had it pretty well under control and close to baseline. Then some days where it was a real struggle and louder.

Hoping by 6 months I will be even farther along, the progress is still happening just at a much slower rate now as far as I can tell. Going to have to measure it more between months as opposed to between weeks. It's frustrating but way better than the alternative.

Thank you for all your support and don't give up people! Still have no real idea what started mine but on a normal day I can deal with it at least, and that is a true blessing.

 

Day 209 Update

I haven't updated in a while -- not sure if it was useful for anyone, but here I am nearing month 7 and things are looking up. Ear has gradually been getting better and better though I had many doubts between months 3 and 6. Yet just this past week my ear was lowest it has been.. had three days or so where it was basically what I consider a 0... not noticeable to me at all unless I muted all my sounds.

I was really fretting that 6-month milestone but I expect it only to get better as time goes on.

I still feel like I am stuck in my anxiety... can't move on if I don't know what caused this. The risk is just too great of doing whatever the trigger was and relapsing or making it worse. My first bout I knew it was a medicine injection, the second tinnitus huge bout I had was from noise, this third one... I remain clueless.

Apparently the week preceding the BIG SPIKE that set me on this path I had several days where my ears were wonky or weird. I didn't remember this at all. Only thing I can think of were going on a lot of walks during allergy season. Or this topical steroid cream I was using on my pinkies for a week or two. It was high potency and I had used it years before without issue. Yet I can't shake how the timing matches up...

And this is where the anxiety gets me. I need to use the cream again as it is the only thing that has worked for my palms. Yet I can't take it because what if it caused this and it will screw it all up again...

At any rate, this is a long journey but looking sort of up!

 

I read antihistamines can cause tinnitus. Just check it out.