Worst 2 Weeks of My Life: GP and ENT Didn't Find Anything Wrong with Me, Yet I Have Tinnitus

Hi all,

Just over 2 weeks ago I started going through a very stressful period, I was stressed to the point that I was feeling ill and shaky. The stress source went away but while going through this stress I noticed a ringing in one of my ears.

The ringing isn't constant as it is for what I've read most sufferers have. My ringing seems to react to sounds and is a high pitched sound whenever other sounds is present. If there is a constant sound such as a fan the ringing will oscillate while the sound of the fan is present. This makes it feel like habituation is almost impossible.

I've been to a general physician who could not see anything wrong and I've also been to an ENT who said he couldn't see anything wrong either. The ENT referred me to an audiologist who said my hearing is great. The ENT then said nothing is wrong with the ear and I should probably see someone to help me deal with the sound.

Obviously the sound has caused a huge amount of anxiety so I'm having trouble staying asleep, usually waking up after 4 hours of sleep and not being able to fall asleep again after that.

 

Hi there
Sorry to hear you're going through a hard time.
Looking at your case, it presents itself to me the following way:
Lots of stress --> tinnitus --> even more stress --> tinnitus not getting better

So I would try to lower stress. The brother of my boss had gotten tinnitus as well from stress and it went away after eliminating all stress sources and commiting to meditation. Took a while though.
Speaking of that, what have you tried to do to lower your stress? Like intense exercise, meditation, yoga? They help a lot with stress and exercise will also tire your body, so it should just by that improve sleep.
For sleeping I have previously taken valerian root, which helped me getting some good sleep. Maybe you should give it a try for a couple days. A good night of sleep helps a lot.

Is your tinnitus loud when not around other noise?
Also, having "reactive tinnitus" is something that some people in here have. For some the reactivity faded (like myself, twice actually).

 

If you have had no exposure to loud noise (the most common cause of tinnitus) or no new medications (known as "ototoxic" drugs) then the next thing to try is vitamin B12. A deficiency of B12 is known to cause ringing in the ears.
Chances are good that your tinnitus will resolve itself over the next 6-12 months.

 

Welcome to the forum. Some people with new tinnitus can develop hyperacusis if they have high pitched ringing, especially from acoustic trauma. Otherwise may report reactive tinnitus which to me seems to be mild form of hyperacusis. The good news is that these seem to fade over time when the T or the ears become more stable. So don't worry about the present state too much. That is what a new T can do for a new sufferer, getting very worried about the future, thereby generating more anxiety and stress which are bad for T. So try to stay as calm and positive as you humanly can. In the meantime, if your T is stress related, try to do relaxing exercise or go outdoor, even a vacation if you have time for it. Some people learn a new hobby to try to take away the attention to tinnitus. To each their own. But do something so you won't focus on T and get stressed.

Sleepwise, you may want to try the natural stuffs, like melatonin, to see if they can help. If the high pitched ringing bothers you, try masking it with Apps for tinnitus masking using your smart phone and connect to a bluetooth speaker. You can use earbuds or earphones but try to limit the time and the volume to avoid hurting your ears more. Good luck. Take care. God bless.

 

My story sounds similar, I had a nervous breakdown, stress and anxiety was so high, to the point a few times of blacking out. I'm told to relieve the stress to help myself but I can't do that or figure out how to when the ringing puts me in constant fight or flight mode and highly stressed.

Lying here now wishing it all to end. Can't survive this. It consumes and petrifies me. I'm existing, not living.
I'm 4 weeks in to this torture, no idea of the cause but a long list of possibilities. Can't see any doctors or specialists. Although I know they can't help me, but just for some reassurance. Torture, can't stop obsessing over the sound.

 

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I'm hoping for the best.

I'm trying to not obsess over it going away but rather trying to remember that it's just sound hoping I can learn to ignore it most of the time. Over the past few days all I would do is focus on it hoping it was getting less but I don't think it is which stresses me out when I think about it.

 

@AnxiouslyWaiting

Welcome to the forum.

I have had tinnitus since last July, no obvious cause although my ENT consultant reckoned it may be due to B12 deficiency or acid reflux causing possible ETD.

If there’s one piece of advice I can give then it’s TIME, give it TIME, TIME is a great healer, it WILL improve or even go away through TIME and if it doesn’t you WILL get used to it over... TIME

Best wishes to you and I really do hope it goes away for you.


Denise

 

Thanks @Deniseh not knowing the cause is the worst part.

Does anyone else experience tinnitus that reacts to sound? It sounds like all sound is accompanied by a high pitch ring that lasts about 200ms longer than the sound I would say.

When there is a low hum in the background it causes the high pitched ring to oscillate constantly.

 

Hi all,

For the past 2 weeks I've had tinnitus, I've seen an audiologist and ENT and neither could find anything.

The reason I'm concerned is that my tinnitus doesn't sound like what most people describe. My tinnitus is very reactive to sound, not in the sense that it is louder after exposure but rather that it comes with sounds.

E.g. if it is completely quiet I probably wouldn't experience much ringing but there is a high pitched as soon as there is another sound, even a soft one there will be a high pitched ringing that accompanies it and lasts slightly longer than it (a second max). I've read about Hyperacusis but that seams more like a sensitivity/pain to sound.

What I'm experiencing is that my tinnitus is like a overlay almost of sound. So a high pitched ring that is played along with any other sound.

 

Yes, quite a few people here have it. Some say it's hyperacusis, but a lot people just call it reactive tinnitus. Do a search using "reactive tinnitus" and you'll get plenty of results.

 

Do you go to concerts or places with loud noise?

 

@BuzzyBee

Thank you, do you know if it stops people from being able to habituate or be able to cope with it one day?

@Contrast

I haven’t been to a concert in over a year and don’t typically go anywhere loud. My audiologist said my hearing was good but I suppose it’s possible for there to be loss that they can’t detect.

 

If you don't mind answering the question, we'd really like to know.


Most of us are here because of loud noise.

 

Loud noise makes sense as a common cause but I don’t know if I could attribute mine to loud noise.

I have been to loud concerts but nothing recently (more than a year or 2 ago). I don’t typically go to clubs or anything loud like that either.

 

Many of us have (had) T that responds to external sound. For some it grows in volume, for others it results in ear pain, yet others hear their own sound "change" for a while because of it... it's different for all.

However, reactiveness also reduces (or even fades completely) for many. My T was highly reactive in the first six months, in the form of increasing in volume. After I found out the cause (neck trauma) and got it treated, the reactiveness quickly went down. These days sounds don't aggrevate my T anymore, and I guess I could say that I habituated to the baseline I currently have.

Life is pretty much normal again, despite of the remaining T. I uses to be "addicted" to silence, reading and working in full quietness daily. This was a conscious choice: I experienced T five years before because of clogged up earwax. After getting liberated from three months of torture at the time, I embraced silence like never before, and was actually always scared to get T at some point again.

This means that in a way, my current situation is actually better than before. When I encountered my "new" T last year (12+ sounds, hearing it 24/7), the first months felt like hell, and for the first time in life I preferred dying above living. I mainly kept going because I knew that things coúld improve, though I had no clue how at the time (thanks so much TinnitusTalk!). Skip forward a year to this point: I've experienced severe T, it improved with time once I found and treated the cause, I got to a state of mild T which I'm highly content with. I fear it no longer: been there, done that. I enjoy myself at work once more and have plenty of personal projects I'm currently working on.

Life is wonderful again. Sure, given the chance, I'd swallow that wonderpill that would fix T completely without side effects: having full control over silence and noise once more would be awesome. But what I have now, is more than many people here would ever wish for. I don't think I've ever been as grateful for my state of mind and body as I am now.

Give your body time to handle your T. Investigate it a bit, you might find out about its cause, which can help a lot: but focus on other things for the rest of the time. It's amazing how the human body and mind can adapt. You are human too (I assume), so you can get there as well. No matter how scary this condition currently is: trust that things will get better.

 

Thank you for the post, I’m glad you found the cause for you reactiveness.

If the reactiveness in mine would go down I think I could be okay. I’ve just run out of hope trying to find the underlying cause. Everything seems like a dead end.

 

A few months of physio exercises brought it down for me. Do you have any neck complaints? Pain, strain, stiffness etc.?

 

I haven’t noticed any problems with my neck so I don’t think they’ll help for me unfortunately.

 

Well, at least you can scrap those options of the list then. Keep the hope alive, research does have some progress these days

 

This is what I’m experiencing after a week of tinnitus. The first week wasn’t like that.

 

Mine started from clenching my teeth under stress. I was clamping down so hard that it must have been impinging the nerve in my jaw. So you might want to check if you are doing this.

When I wiggle that rear tooth, it changes the tone and intensity of the sound. So I'm hoping the doctors and dental experts can do something for me.

But otherwise, yeah. I had to figure everything out myself. Seems like most medical professionals don't have a clue with this. I gave my doctor MY OWN diagnosis and treatment plan. After I explained the cause and possible solution, she totally agreed. But before that, they were hunting around in the dark.