Tinnitus Started a Few days After Toradol (Ketorolac) Injection — Is This Permanent?

Hi everyone,

I'm a 20-year-old college student (just turned 20 about a month ago), and I've had ongoing/intermittent tinnitus for about six weeks now.

As many of you on this feed understand, tinnitus can be a very debilitating condition to many. For me, these last two months (more specifically, the last five weeks) have been a nightmare that I feel as if I can never wake up from. A little bit of background history: around three months ago, I started having eye pain. At first, it was tolerable, but then it got so bad I could barely sleep at night, and I couldn't see straight in front of me. I went to a variety of doctors who told me that my eyes were perfectly normal. There was nothing wrong with me (later, I found out that my eye pain was primarily caused by the overnight Ortho-K lenses I was searing in my sleep, and my optometrist didn't tell me the whole truth about them). One day, my eye pain as so. I decided to go to the student medical center at my college. The doctor there told me I had ocular migraines and decided to give me a shot of pain medication. She never told me the name of the drug or what the side effects of it would be. I later found out that the medicine she gave was called Toradol/Ketorolac (30 mg of it in total). I'm extremely sensitive to NSAIDs, and Toradol is basically a much stronger version of this type of medication. However, I was dumb, and in so much pain I forgot to ask her for the name of the medicine she was about to give me.

Around four days after I got the Toradol shot, the high-pitched wheezing sound started in my ears one night. I still distinctly remember the night I got it (just one day before my 20th birthday). The ringing got worse within a few days. Within one week, I had about 3-4 panic attacks. I remember laying on the bathroom ground with my fingers in my ears; I cried so much, I physically felt my heart hurting. For about the next two weeks, I physically couldn't function. Getting out of bed was hard, and I had a hard time listening in classes and focusing on conversations. What makes it harder is that I'm in college, so I naturally have a lot of work to do. I started falling behind in class and missing classes due to medical visits and the anxiety caused by the ringing. Despite having formal medical accommodations from the school, my teachers are still not very understanding of the situation. The good news is that over the next few weeks, my tinnitus got better slightly. I used to have the ringing sound in both ears, but now it's mostly in my left ear. The sound has changed from a high-pitched wheezing sound to mostly a white noise sound. I don't have much trouble sleeping or anything. Some days I might not even hear it at all. However, sometimes my tinnitus will spike, and it will get much louder for a few days, and I start worrying, feeling as if my tinnitus hasn't improved at all or that my tinnitus will never go away.

I've seen one ENT and an audiologist during this time period. The audiologist told me that she believes it will go away since I'm young and mostly healthy. I've had a history of tinnitus in the past. Once when I was 11, the tinnitus lasted for two months, and another time just a few months ago after a micro-suction earwax cleaning. My tinnitus lasted for around three weeks after the earwax cleaning. She says that my history of tinnitus disappearing is promising as there's a good chance my tinnitus can disappear this time around as well. I did an extended hearing test with the audiologist (250 Hz all the way to 20000 Hz) She said I have no hearing loss, even in the upper frequencies; she believes it should go away. However, if there's one thing that is certain about tinnitus is that it's unpredictable, so no one can pinpoint whether or not or when it will go away. My tinnitus has persisted for quite some time now, and I'm getting very worried.

I really hope that there's still a chance my tinnitus will go. These last few weeks have been a living hell. Every night I go to bed, I feel so much at ease because I'm dreaming, and in my dreams, I'm laughing and dancing. I feel so free, and nothing is burdening me. However, when I wake up, I snap back into reality, and the nightmare starts again. It's even harder because I'm in college pursuing music. IF this tinnitus persists, it can definitely affect whether I stay in his field or not. I've been so desperate for help. Most of my friends have never experienced anything like tinnitus and are either too busy to listen to me or completely unempathetic. People who have never experienced tinnitus will never understand the pain unless they ever, hopefully not, get it themselves. I've been lied to by quite a few medical professionals at this point, so I don't know who to trust. I've gone to psychics to do medium readings and sought help from random strangers.

I was wondering I anyone has ever had experiences with tinnitus, more specifically, drug-induced tinnitus. Did it ever go away? If so, how long did it take, and what did you do to help it leave? In your experience, do most tinnitus sufferers ever have their tinnitus go away?

Thank you so much for your time.

 

I’m 22, and doctors suspect I have one of the most painful conditions in the world: RSD. I have a very bad ankle injury that hasn’t improved for a long time and it recently became worse and is very inflamed. An ER doctor gave me Toradol for the swelling, 3 x a day for 5 days.

I’m on day 2, and my tinnitus got much louder. I’m also feeling ear pain and fullness.

I’m so terrified right now. The inability to walk, the pain, and the screaming in my ear. I’m crying nonstop.

I want to know if Toradol spikes can be temporary or permanent. I just want this ankle to heal. I don’t want to significantly worsen my tinnitus permanently and make sleeping even harder because I need to sleep due to the ankle.

I’m losing my mind.

 

Most likely your tinnitus will go away over time maybe a year or a bit more.

The first months with tinnitus are horrendous but something happens usually around the 6 months mark.

You stop being afraid of the sounds. This acts as a kind of positive feedback loop and you pay less and less attention to the sounds.

It is a process we all have to go through.

You are young and your brain should have a lot of neuroplasticity to help you along.

Read my posts from around 2016 to see how it happened for me.

Good luck!

 

I actually already have tinnitus. I’ve had it for years. Mine is noise induced. The Toradol worsened my tinnitus.

 

Hi Lisa
I'm in the same boat - I took 3 Toradol pills (10 mg each) - over a 24 hour period. I stopped after realizing that my ears were ringing. Also lost about half my hearing in my one ear (thankfully looks like my hearing all came back). The tinnitus was unbearable at first - thankfully its quieted down a lot - but I have been living with it for 5 years now. The first year was the roughest - I've been to lots of ENT/Audiologist/Otologists...tried supplements, diets, acupuncture, hyperbaric oxygen treatments, Dexmeth injections in my ear. I believe all of these helped - but nothing cured me.

I scoured the web for MONTHS looking for people who had permanent T from Toradol - its seems extremely rare.

The best advice I've received on it is to NEVER think/talk/read about Tinnitus. I know it sounds like dumb advice - and probably doesn't work for everyone - but honestly I've found that to help the most - if you never think about it - for many people they hardly notice it. It took me about a year to come to grips that it's probably not going away - and I'm ok with that now. If it flares up a bit - i listen to music/podcasts - and dont let my mind go there.

Best of luck with yours.