Tinnitus with External Trigger (?)

Dear Forum

I have been reading along for a while but now decided that I would appreciate hearing some other opinions regarding my personal case. Let me start with a short summary of what happened so far:

The event
What: Overdose of load music
For how long: About 2.5h
When: August 2015
Where: Wedding party overseas, stood too close to the (very big) speakers

Symptoms
Heavy ringing in both ears (left one worse than the right one), weird reception of sounds and the odd feeling of having “swollen middle ears", all for several weeks.

Medical steps taken
Flew home two days after the party, followed by an immediate visit at the doctor. Received cortisone pills for one week. Started with Tebokan after 4 weeks (still going)

Progress
After 2 weeks of acute, constant T the intensity went down (left 7 -> 4 left and right 5 -> 3) and had kept decreasing further the month after. Suffered no noticeable hearing loss, so hearing is fine.

Current situation
The original, acute T which I experienced is mostly gone. One thing that has remained is a high-pitched sound. The sound itself is very similar to the frequency of an old CRT TV. There is a constant baseline of it, about 2/10 (loud), so I really only notice it when I cover my ears or in quiet surroundings. Different than what I experienced right after the event, I can no longer identify any direction i.e. I do not know which ear the sound originates in, even if I try to locate it. From my perception it feels like the source has shifted to the center of my head (difficult to explain).

When I get up in the morning, T volume is quite low, and usually it is only slighly increased when I get back home in the evening (meaning, I am not affected more when in quiet places). HOWEVER, during the day, volume and intensity increase quite a bit (approx. 5/10). Especially around the office it behaves quite “aggressively”. I am not sure, but I cannot shake the feeling that this TV- like ear ringing is not fully independent but actively triggered by other constant high frequency noises such as neon-lamps, printers in standby and maybe even WIFI. I can tell that the computer fan has an negative impact...

Now my questions:

1. Is there anyone who experienced a similar behavior after noise exposure recovery?
2. Could this be a special form of Hyperacusis rather than tinnitus? Or is this just the daily pattern in my case?
3. Is anyone here who did the AM-101 trial with this sort of pattern? Currently I am looking at the phase III but since I cannot assign the noise to either ear, I would need to treat both ears which I am not too enhusiastic about.

Glad for any advice.
Thanks in advance

 

If you are considering AM-101 you must act quickly as they only accept patients up to 6 months in some places.

As for your questions:

1) Yes these are common symptoms of acoustic over-exposure.

2) As of your specific T, it looks like what people here call ''Reactive Tinnitus''.

3) I beleived both ears may be treated.

 

My T started in 1974 from loud music. At first it was like a whistle. After a year or two I decided I'd better cool it with the loud music. It settled down to different hiss sounds in each ear. Through the years, after loud music exposure, the T sounds became lower for periods of a few days up to 2 years once. Loud music will always make my T louder with lower frequencies. And after each of these spikes, the baseline sound was always a little louder.
I wrote a story about the awful 2 year spike. It's here on the forum, called "Mega Tinnitus."

 

Thank you very much for the swift responses!

This information help me a lot. I was aware that some people experience fluctuating T, but did not know that this is often influenced by external factors. Will search the forum for threads with "reactive tinnitus".

One thing which puzzles me, however, is that when I contract my jaw muscles (heavy chewing or yawning, etc.), I experience a sharp increase until muscles are relaxed again. Does that sound familiar to anyone?

 

It's totally common occurrence, which isn't a symptom of any pathology. I'm not sure whether the exact mechanism by which the loudness increases has been resolved.

I remember I red that there was a paper published, which got down to a point that part of brain which controls these face muscles is located near auditory cortex, so when there is a lot of agitation there, it leaks to the neighboring auditory cortex, hence the increase.

 

Join the club I have the same awful symptoms. I wonder if Tinnitus sufferers who have had the illness longer get this symptom. I orginally didnt have it, but now with four years under my belt I have it big time.