Unresolved Tinnitus Spike from a One-Hour Phone Call

I was talking with an aunt on my cellphone on January 9th 2020. I have had slight tinnitus in my left ear for the past 10 years. I spoke one hour with the right ear and one hour with the left ear. My cellphone is an LG giving off .64 SARs, low compared to iPhones at 1.56 SARs. She was not talking loud, but after the phone call, my tinnitus in my left ear spiked and has been like that ever since, and I am very depressed and worried I have done damage to my ear.

What do you think? Will it go away? It is truly affecting my life.

 

Hello @Harfang. I am sorry to hear that you are going through a rough patch with your tinnitus.

First of all, regarding damage: There is absolutely no way that you could possibly have damaged either ear or any other part of your auditory system as the result of the telephone conversation you describe. Period. Impossible. End of story.

Now as to why the volume of your tinnitus has increased, there are any number of possibilities (I could write a whole book chapter!) - but none of them has anything to do with damage. And by the way, you didn’t do anything "wrong," although I suspect that you have been beating yourself up over it anyway. It’s only human nature to do so!

If I had to guess, much of the problem has to do with your autonomic nervous system (protection) and your limbic system (emotion) feeding on each other in sort of a vicious circle.

As to what you should do about it ...

Let me start here with a FACT: Your tinnitus will likely settle back down over time, but even if it does not, you can get better. In other words, you can get better even if your tinnitus does not. Again, what I have just said is not a theory. It is a FACT.

Now I am going to assume that you have already had an ENT and audiological evaluation sometime over the past four weeks. If not, please do so.

So at this point, I suggest trying to keep things simple. Start by reading the three articles I am attaching to the bottom of this post. Let that material sink in for a few days - and then if you have further questions, feel free to ask them.

All the best with it -

Stephen M. Nagler, M.D.