Waitress Smashed a Stack of Plates Onto a Solid Floor — Followed by a Tinnitus Spike

Been a while since I've signed into Tinnitus Talk, life got busy, I returned to the office after working remotely for the best part of a year and just got on with things.

Unfortunately last Thursday we went out to a restaurant for a friend's birthday. The place was loud already and that should have been reason enough to put my ear plugs in... I didn't.

Well the waitress collected plates from our tables and as she shuffled between my chair and the wall, she dropped and smashed the entire stack of plates onto a solid floor. The noise was so loud even my friends who don't have tinnitus winced and the rest of the restaurant went completely silent.

That night my tinnitus was higher pitched than usual but not a significant spike... until Friday night/Saturday. Now it's unbearably loud and is spiking up and down multiple times a day. My usual sound therapy machine and fan do nothing to help now, I can hear it well over the sound of my car while driving and even taking Diazepam at night hasn't helped me get any sleep due to the volume.

Has anyone experienced spikes that last longer than a week and then had their tinnitus go back to normal volume?

My main concern here is due to how significantly loud the plate incident was is that it's caused a permanent hike in the severity of my tinnitus. We're a year down the line since it got worse and quite literally back to square one.

Hoping for some guidance

Cheers,
Jack

 

That should have been reason enough for you to leave right away.

Yes, temporary spikes can last over three months. If you don't experience any fading after 6 weeks, it would be a bad sign.

 

I would say it was a good thing she was behind you rather than in front of you because of the way your outer ear directs the sound. Especially higher pitch sounds are very directional and taper off quicker with distance. The story made me cringe a bit because I think we can all relate. These unfortunate events happen every now and then and there's not much one can do short of wearing earplugs all the time. Not something I would recommend. I hope it settles. I believe it will. I don't think such an event is likely to cause any permanent damage. You should probably take your total noise dose over the day into account too. As you said the restaurant was noisy this might also be responsible for your spike.

Maybe next time try to wear plugs?

That said I haven't found any that work for protection and still allow you to hear properly and especially speak without occlusion effect. I found deeply inserted foam plugs work well for occlusion but make speech impossible to understand.

All the best and let us know how you get on. Best of luck with your second attempt with Lenire too!

 

Hope you recover from this. You would hope this only happens in Greek restaurants, but I guess no restaurant is completely safe.

 

having worked in a couple restaurants, it happens in all of them, and anyone who's worked in one long enough in a server or bussing capacity has dumped a load at some point. In my case it happened when I was working as a dishwasher and my boss just looked up and said "okay, everyone gets one freebie, get the broom"

 

Same boat here, 7 years of tinnitus and been managing well. 4 days ago I attended our Christmas party and stayed 45 minutes when dance music started, I was wearing my Etymotics and I felt safe but now I have a new hiss in my left ear and the tinnitus is loud. Now I'm just riding it out hoping it’ll come down or at least I can habituate to it again. Please let me know how you are.