Member- Nov 1, 2022
- 187
- Tinnitus Since
- 09/2022
- Cause of Tinnitus
- being a caregiver for an elderly lady who is hard of hearing
Hello, I'm back after a five-month hiatus from TinnitusTalk. I took a break from being here partly because I had nothing new to share, and partly because I was dealing with a new and unrelated health concern that I needed to look into.
I had hoped my ear problems would stabilize and improve in 2025, but I experienced a horrible setback earlier this month, and now I don't know what to do. I was lying on my right side in bed, with my right ear pressed against the pillow and my left ear facing the ceiling. All the lights were off. My husband reached for something on my nightstand and accidentally grabbed the portable LED book light that was sitting there. It is the kind of light that has a spring-operated clamp for attaching to a book so you can read in the dark. Unaware of what he was holding, he squeezed the clamp open, then let go of it, causing it to snap shut less than three feet from my head. The snapping sound was so piercing that it caused instant pain to my unprotected left ear.
My right ear was the one that had noxacusis for the past two and a half years, but now, as a result of what happened that night, I have it in my left ear as well.
It's too early to tell whether this symptom spike will be permanent, but I am really scared. The tinnitus in both ears is much louder, with anywhere from two to four different tones going on at the same time, including musical tinnitus, which I had not experienced since last summer. The brain fog and suicidal ideation have returned too. Like many of you, I find myself making hourly decisions about when to put on ear protection and when to take it off, constantly weighing the risks of overprotecting versus underprotecting.
I'm not angry at my husband, but he is still wracked with guilt for erasing the two and a half years of progress I had made.
Here is what I would like to know:
I had hoped my ear problems would stabilize and improve in 2025, but I experienced a horrible setback earlier this month, and now I don't know what to do. I was lying on my right side in bed, with my right ear pressed against the pillow and my left ear facing the ceiling. All the lights were off. My husband reached for something on my nightstand and accidentally grabbed the portable LED book light that was sitting there. It is the kind of light that has a spring-operated clamp for attaching to a book so you can read in the dark. Unaware of what he was holding, he squeezed the clamp open, then let go of it, causing it to snap shut less than three feet from my head. The snapping sound was so piercing that it caused instant pain to my unprotected left ear.
My right ear was the one that had noxacusis for the past two and a half years, but now, as a result of what happened that night, I have it in my left ear as well.
It's too early to tell whether this symptom spike will be permanent, but I am really scared. The tinnitus in both ears is much louder, with anywhere from two to four different tones going on at the same time, including musical tinnitus, which I had not experienced since last summer. The brain fog and suicidal ideation have returned too. Like many of you, I find myself making hourly decisions about when to put on ear protection and when to take it off, constantly weighing the risks of overprotecting versus underprotecting.
I'm not angry at my husband, but he is still wracked with guilt for erasing the two and a half years of progress I had made.
Here is what I would like to know:
- If one ear is temporarily protected by something as simple as a pillow, does that make the other ear more vulnerable to pain? Is the brain making that ear listen more intently to compensate?
- Short of wearing earplugs to bed every night, how do you protect yourself from injury while lying on your side? I have been trying to sleep on my back so that both ears are equally exposed to sound, but as a lifelong side sleeper, that has been really difficult. Right now, every noise my husband makes is painful to me, whether it is his snoring, the sound of him opening and closing the closet, or his footsteps on our creaky floorboards. In the past, I coped by lying on my left side to shield the right ear that had the noxacusis, but now that I have it in both ears, all I can do is press the pillow against both sides of my head.
- Have any of you tried sleeping in a separate bedroom from your partner for a few weeks to reduce the chance of accidental noise triggers? This was actually my husband's suggestion, and I am still unsure whether I should try it.
