Will My Tinnitus Get Better? It Started After a Single Noise Exposure Through My Headphones

Hello everyone,

I have been reading the posts of different members on this forum since my tinnitus started 2 and half months ago. Finally I decided to put a post myself.

My tinnitus started due to a one time noise exposure through my headphones at work. The volume was on max level and I forgot about it. I put my headphones on and played and BOOM! I paused it right away so it lasted only about a second but I immediately felt that sth was wrong.

The next day I visited my GP where she checked my ears and my eardrums were normal so she said I needed to wait and it will go away on its own.

After 3 days my tinnitus started with a middle ear infection. I took a course of Azithromycin. It helped clear the infection but my tinnitus stayed still.

I visited and ENT doctor and he prescribed Methylprednisolone and a nasal spray which didn’t help at all. I’ve done hearing test twice and both came out to be normal.

About 3 weeks ago I started to feel better but I went out one day and I wasn’t wearing my earplugs for only ten minutes. It was a restaurant with music playing but it wasn’t loud. Still I came home with a loud spike and thought it would go away in the morning but it stayed the same until now. I also have this feeling of fullness mostly in my right ear which has nonstop ringing. I am taking vitamins and trying to avoid noisy places and wear earplugs but this spike is still torturing me.

I can’t stop thinking about it and even think suicidal thoughts. I am so scared if its gonna get worse anyone here had a similar experience? Any tips?

 

The middle ear infection could be a misdiagnosis, ear fullness after loud noise injury can be mistaken for ETD and ear infections.

Do you experience pain from noise?

 

@Contrast At that time I had mild ear pain with dizziness and tinnitus. So when they checked ny ears at ER they said your ears are infected from inside. I’m sure the noise exposure caused the inflammation and infection in my ears but the antibiotics cleared that. My tinnitus has stayed still until today. I am really scared. I have another ENT appt coming up but I am not so hopeful as I dont think they can help I am only 21 and I feel like I have lost my life already

 

I am sorry that you ended up getting a tinnitus spike. Most tinnitus spikes are temporary. Temporary spikes can last for over three months. If you make sure to learn from your mistake and to not expose yourself to the kind of noise that gives you tinnitus spikes, chances are that eventually your tinnitus will fade and it will either go away, or you will get to the "can hear it only in a quiet room" stage.

I believe you will find some of the tips in the thread below to be useful to you
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...eone-else-who-has-tinnitus.26850/#post-307822

 

Acoustic shock (extremely loud noise exposure) is poorly researched, the ENTs usually don't know shit about this problem, just read through countless pages on this website and /r/tinnitus of the same problem.

Did they find any hearing loss?

 

Linda if it makes you feel any better I had a very similar problem to you in late 2017 and I made a good recovery, but I still have mild tinnitus. It took like 10-12 months for my ear pain discomfort to go away. I still get facial numbness from certain noises but no ear pain or muscle spasms in my ear.

I had bad pain from noise the first two months.

 

@Contrast no I’ve done two hearing tests already but no hearing loss was found. I have been reading and researching almost everyday and I’m going crazy. All I see is there’s no cure or habituation. I feel like I am stuck in this situation and my good days are already gone.

 

Was yours caused by a loud noise exposure too? Do you think ears recover from that? I sometimes get the muscle spasm in my ears too. Like yesterday I put a plate in the sink and it sled off and made a noise (not that loud tho) but I heard a pop in my right ear (the one that's clogged). I also hear popping and crackling sounds everytime I swallow. And my tinnitus gets worse whenever I yawn.

 

So you already know about hidden hearing loss? If not read this post.
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/posts/430734/

I'm glad you get the idea audiologists are useless for this condition, they don't even test for hearing loss outside of the bare vitals of human speech.

 

No one knows exactly what that is, probably multiple things. Something is wrong in the middle ear or inner causing the middle ear muscles and tiny bones to mess up from their normal behavior. Please just let your ears rest and it could go away like my middle ear muscle spasms did.

Loud noise is like poison to a damaged ear, avoid it at all cost.

 

@Bill Bauer Thank you. It is a relief to know that it can be temporary. I am hoping it is if not I dont know what will happen to me. I am trying so hard to avoid noise exposure and wear earplugs almost everywhere even in my classrooms but sometimes it gets out of my control. My ears are so sensitive now I feel like it’s impossible to protect them completely.

 

Yes mine was caused by extremely loud noise through headphones lasting a few minutes.

 

Did you had the popping and crackling sounds as well? I feel like something is physically wrong in my ears too. I also have this pressure imbalance feeling in my ears. I’m just praying it will go away. So you are still wearing protection and avoiding noisy places?

 

You need to get a leave of absence.

Show this to a doctor if you can, tell a doctor what happened. I cannot give any further advice.
http://www.hyperacusis.net/other-factors/acoustic-shock-disorder/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17114144

 

Everyone experiences setbacks - they are unavoidable. If you try to minimize the times when you get a tinnitus spike (as of course they don't promote your healing), you ought to be ok. Ears take forever to heal, but after 18-24 months, your ears ought to be a lot more resilient.

You want to wear earplugs where/when you are likely to be exposed to the kind of noises that give you spikes. Otherwise, you want to maximize the time when you don't wear any ear protection. It is also possible to feel compelled to protect 24/7, and you definitely don't want that.

 

I wear ear protection when around loud traffic or maybe a loud restaurant, my ears are better though.

I never had cracking, just muscle spasms and an annoying opening and closing noise the muscle in my middle ear made. It really sucked, I'm glad it's gone. I do still avoid noisy places.

 

@Contrast thank you for your help. I hope I can pass through this and survive.

 

All will be, just rest your ears as much as possible and take some magnesium to hopefully help things along. If you're unsure about a place being safe, and you feel in your gut it isn't, then avoid it and don't attend it, because at this point in time - it's not worth further damaging your ears or making it worse. If you're having issues with inflammation still, try a steamer, or apple cider vinegar with the mother. Just breathe in and breathe out, avoidance of loud noise will make this far easier for you - along with some avoidance of moderate ones.

 

I spent a lot of time with doctors and psychologists and next one is a neurologist. There is a common pattern among their opinions.

If it's a one time trauma, either like an explosion or a loudness of a longer time around 90 dB, the chances are high that you will recover. This has to do with the regeneration process that our ears seem to have. It depends from person to person, if you have a very unhealthy life with drugs and alcohol, it's harder to recover though.

Overall, protect your ears as well as possible.

If you expose your ears to constant loud noise like going into clubs every night for a few years, the inner ear will start to develop a chronic hearing loss, which is based on what I was told, a much bigger issue and often a lifetime issue.

That's why many musicians and factory workers have tinnitus, they are exposed to it every day. Also if you took meds that poison the ear, it will take 3 weeks before it will slowly get better.

What I have been told is that you need to believe and hope, that your hearing loss is temporary and not chronic. I had an MRI about 3 and a half weeks ago, I believe it's getting better every day. It also overlaps with my ototoxic poisoning which my doctor said starts fading off this weekend, but will take more time of course.

I read in a German forum about a DJ, he had had tinnitus for 3 months, then it went away, he only took Ginkgo and Paracetamol.

It's also important to remember that the loudness of the tinnitus, seems to be a big factor. If it's mild, then the damage is smaller than when it's terribly loud. So if yours is ok and not too crazy, you might have a higher chance for recovery.

I have lost my original tinnitus from the MRI almost, it was a very high frequency tone, what's left is a mid frequency tone, kind of an alarm bell, but it fades more and more. I had terrible sounds last Friday and Saturday, so loud that I wanted to jump off a building, maybe this can give you a small piece of hope, even though I am not through this yet at all.

Just be very careful, take supplements, drink a lot of water and hope. Good Luck.

 

It varies. Try not to think about it. I had several days at a about a 1-2 /10and then after doing some semi-strenuous volunteer work today as a porter and a nap it's at about a 5-6/10. Still, listening to some music and trying to drown it out. I didn't notice it at all until the volunteer work was over. T sucks, but not living your life sucks more.

 

Loudness of the tinnitus indicates greater damage? :-(

 

My tinnitus is often between 8 and 9. I also have other complications like inflammation, redness and ear pain.

Yet, some people think I can solve everything with CBT and that I am overreacting when I say I don't think I can take much more and that offing myself is an option.

 

Not solve everything, but help you cope better.

 

I used to do video editing for 2 years which means I was using headphones everyday but I was super careful with the volume. I quit my job right after this and haven’t listened to any kind of music since then. I don't even watch tv with a volume higher than 5. I was only exposed to noise in a restaurant that had music playing and also it was a bit crowded. I started getting worse after that. This was 3 weeks ago. My tinnitus started almost 2/5 months ago so I don't know how to be hopeful as it is getting worse everyday.

 

@Linda_na give yourself time and avoid loud places for a while.

When you feel like it sometimes helping out works for people. @Markku and @Hazel and Tinnitus Hub/Tinnitus Talk need people to help out with video editing for various projects.

You can still listen to music or watch television using a moderate sound level.

 

@Linda_na

Habituation is real and it takes that initial moment when you realize you actually forgot about the noise for a time. I was quite depressed until one night it just clicked that tinnitus is a noise I can block out like any other (fan, traffic, etc). My depression stopped that night and today, one month later, I don’t notice my Tinnitus 33% of the time.

 

I was told that noise is often just the final straw, but other stuff comes first.

In my case, I was on antibiotics for 3 weeks, just 50 mg, but it seemed to have weakened my ear. I also was a bit crippled inside the MRI; so the blood flow was less good.

It seems to be have just added up in my case and I would guess that is the case with most people, if we exclude the loud explosion trauma.

My advice is to really calm down your ears, drink a lot, take supplements for the blood flow and avoid any kind of stress. I also took meds like prednisolone, it has helped me a lot as it significantly lowered the volume of my tinnitus. At first it was only temporary for a few hours, but today, it is very mild and I improve every day, with prednisolone running out in 3 days.

It does help talking to specialists and doctors, I have read a lot about tinnitus, tried to understand it and it is a slow process of recovery, but I believe it is possible. Of course, you need to sacrifice a lot in that period of time, I have not watched TV since 4 weeks, not played on my PC or listened to any music.

In my case, it has helped and I am in a much better state today, than just 10 days ago. The first two weeks were a nightmare though.

 

@SashaG I took prednisolone two weeks after the noise exposure but it was a low dose (4mg each tablet). I’m not sure if it did anything. I felt as if I was getting worse while taking them. When was your onset? Watching tv with low volume is bad too? It’s kind of difficult for me to avoid everything as I’m a college student and can’t drop my classes just to stay home and heal. I also have depression and anxiety after this and if I stay home and do nothing I’ll get worse. I honestly don’t know how to deal with this.

 

That is very low dose. I was having 80mg daily...but those gave me terrible mood swings.