Viral Acute Otitis Media Giving Birth to Tinnitus

Hi everyone,

Beginning of May I had a very painful viral acute otitis media that made me suffering during about 5 days before my ear-drum start trickling. Since the first day of this otitis I've been under classical medical treatment for this disease. When the pain disappeared, it let place for sound distortion and perceptible hearing loss during a few days. Then sound distortion moved away, the hearing loss apparently disappeared and tinnitus took its place, an everlasting high frequencies (about 8 Khz and above). My doctor reassured me: after such an otitis tinnitus are definitely normal and would disappear by itself in the following weeks. She told me to see an ENT doctor only if tinnitus would be lasting for more than 6 weaks.

Documenting me over the Internet I began to stress: there was many expert advices to treat tinnitus without any delay when they appear if you want to have a change to get rid off them... But even with some doubts if trust my doctor: actually I'm not an health expert and there are so many contradictory informations over the Net.

6 weeks later tinnitus was still here so I hurried up to my ENT consultation. He measured a 4% audition loss on the ear that was infected by the virus. He prescribed me cortisone pills for 6 days, telling me everything should be back to the normal shortly. After the 6 days treatment, there was definitely no change... This neutral result seemed to irritate a bit my ENT who examined my neck looking for ganglia or other suspect anomalies... But nothing. He told me that my outer and middle ear were fine. In a confusing explication he then told me that our brain is very programmatically flexible and it will adjust. He finally pleased me to come back in 6 months for a new audition test. That's all.

I contacted tinnitus association, worrying about having definitely no treatment in the short run for this tinnitus. They recommended me to see another ENT with tinnitus knowledge in order to get a second diagnostic. Unfortunately it was not possible to have an appointment to this ENT before 6 weeks because of summer holidays...

So I decided to try to call another ENT specialized only on ear diseases I discovered through his extremely well documented web site explaining all the main ear disorder, without a lot of hope to get an appointment earlier than to the other one. But when I explained to her secretary the reason of asking for an appointment, she immediately told me : "I see. You come tomorrow."

This ENT made me a new audition test and measured my tinnitus frequency after I explained why I was here. His prognosis was clear and without appeal : "Your tinnitus will disappear but it could take a long time before this will happen, sorry. Your hearing audition is still slightly improving and it will continue during the following months. Your tinnitus has the same frequency as the audition loss."

6 weeks after this conclusion, my tinnitus being still here, I went to the other ENT who was suggested to me by the association. As it was 3 months after my tinnitus started, this doctor was not optimist : "Unfortunately it's too late and there are very few chances your tinnitus will disappear."

He did a neuro audition test to check if the cause of tinnitus was auditory nerve damage. But he concluded that this nerve was working perfectly. He told that the main cause of my tinnitus is certainly a damage at my inner ear due to the virus infection. He added he could send me to a psychologist having knowledge on tinnitus to help me. And at my question: "Could this tinnitus had been caused by a possible brain tumor?", he answered that the probability that I have a tumor is extremely low and not to worry about it." I left him relieved, thanking him for his support and telling him that having to take care of my two lovely young children that takes, with my job, all my attention and energy, I've not really time to fight against this tinnitus that is not a priority at this moment.

But a few days later, I've got sometimes the Blues, especially when I go to sleep after a very long and intensive day, realizing I could never again feel the peace of silence I loved to feel going to bed. And I again have some doubt about cancer cause of tinnitus, knowing that if my ENT wants to make an new audition test after 6 months (this seems very late to me...) is to see if there would be some signs of an eventual increasing tumor having caused all this mess. So sometime I tell myself that I will be able to forget this tinnitus when I would be certain not to worry if in the following years I still will be here to take care of my children...

Thanks you for your precious attention and patience having read this testimony until the end ;o)

Take care

 

Hi Laurent

Cancer is quite rare, however to put your mine at rest u can get an MRI scan.
Hope u feel better soon, how are u coping during th day? Bed time is notoriously difficult for all sufferers initially.

Take care

 

Since you have been monitored by so many good doctors and ENTs, and they have examined you to conclude your T is due to the hearing loss frequency, you should rest your heart that cancer has no part with it. Cancer is also not known to cause T. Perhaps the treatment of cancer can weaken the individual, and the side effects of those drugs and chemo can cause T, but a tumor causing T is not something common to cause T at all, and I have not read any case of that from posters of T forums all these years. So rest you heart to enjoy your children and get busy with living. If you just ignore your T and distract it with things, and not treating T as a mortal threat, your brain will eventually learn to fade it out. Take good care. God bless.

 

Thanks a lot Billie and Candie for your nice support message ! During the day, coping is not too hard because between work and family I'm very busy (but sometimes it's difficult not to hear: the T is maybe not to loud but is very high frequency). Usually I'm someone that is very concentrated on the activity I do, so depending of the day I usually ignore T most of the time, but of course there's up and down, especially if I've got thought like "Still here..." and "it could last until the end of my life". I know I should avoid this pessimist thoughts and projection in the futur. What sometimes weighs me is what I've often read: "After 3 months it's too late, T has definitely entered in your brain and will never leave it". Luckily on the other hand I've also optimistic thoughts remembering my family doctor words telling me it's not what se has observed with her patients, some of them having had their T stopped definitely after 6 months or even 2 years. The most experimented ONT I met told me with serious the T will stop but it could take a very long time. A 60 years old woman who also had a viral ottitis with exactly same symptoms as me wrote in a forum it took 8 months until the T disappeared definitely. And almost all medical article or book I've read tell that most of the time T caused by a viral ottitis will naturally disappear. So I keep little hope. During the night, I must say it's not very confortable when going to bed and having T loud in your head when you just need silence and peace. All the doctors asked me about impact of T on my sleep. I joked asking them if they have or had to take care of very young children: after a long work/family day, you're so tired you cannot do anything other than to fall asleep on your bed... Ok, I exaggerate, it can sometimes takes me more time to fall asleep if I've got some thoughts in my head. But it does not take me more time than usually before I had T. Actually T in my head can even sometimes accelerate falling asleep: it's a tiresome continuous white noise... Whatever happens - will it one day stop or not - I know the best things to do is to continue enjoy life and become progressively accustomed. That's the reason why I need not to worry about the hypothesis of cancer. And your testimonies help me in that way even if there still a doubt that would be too long to explain now.

Thanks again a lot

Laurent

 

ya, I first got T when I was 22, noise induced, but it was super minor and I could only hear it in bed. I'd call it a 2/10. Fast forward to now, 38 and a round of antibiotics along with a full course of Advil, and my T has tripled. Now I can hear it in a noisy room, sometimes driving, etc. Maybe a 6/10 at one point. Anyways, problems aside, the easiest part is falling asleep because I've become so accustomed to hearing that noise already. I'm about, 4-5 weeks now, hoping that I'll see a decrease.