Woke Up to Tinnitus and Anxiety: Previous Night Used Q-Tips and Advil

Hello, I’m Michael. I’m 27. Struggling hard to survive. About a week and a day ago I used a Q-tip to get some ear wax out, nothing major, and later that night took an Advil and went to sleep. No ringing. At 4 am I woke up to immense amounts of anxiety and noticed ringing in my ears. I panicked and took a .25 Xanax and tried to sleep. I woke up and still had ringing.

I went to an ENT who checked out my ear and said there’s some wax so he removed it with microsuction, about 4 seconds in each ear. He then prescribed me Prednisone for any inflammation I may have that he couldn’t see.

3 days in I couldn’t take the Prednisone anymore. It was making me fatigued and crazy and he said that’s fine, stop it. The ringing in my ears is about a 4/10 I guess? I always hear it even when the tv is on and it’s like high pitch rustling leaves I guess, but when I’m in a quiet room it becomes so loud, like a 10/10 which is scaring me because if it’s that loud I’m screwed.

I suffer from OCD anxiety and depression and I have no idea how this even started. What did I do to get this, I don’t get it, how did I just magically wake up one day and my brain said BOOM you are gonna suffer eternally.

So it’s been a week and a day and I don’t see any light at the end. I’m having suicidal thoughts, crying constantly, complete panic all the time. No enjoyment of anything anymore.

Is this going to get better? Is it going to go away over time? Is it going to reduce overtime?

Please if anyone could help, I feel a hostage to my own body and it seems pointless.

 

Hi! I'm really feeling your pain from reading this.

I have been suffering from a high pitched ringing in my ears since November.

It just suddenly, and randomly, was in my head after a shower.

I have no clue why this happened, but I am going to try Nasonex (a nasal spray) if this is partly from an inflammation.

But the thing is that if you are stressing like hell, this is going to increase your tinnitus! You are saying that you are in panic all the time, so you have to deal with your stress and anxiety! High levels of cortisol is absolutely not your best friend if you want the tinnitus to go away. I am myself struggling with panic and stress about this quite often, but I have noticed that this is the way to remind my brain to understand that tinnitus is not «a threat».