Hello and Wow This Sucks

[MJT]

Hi All. I'm not sure where to begin. I first noticed a ringing in my left ear 4 days ago. I know about Tinnitus because my grandma suffered from it and she could never get passed it. It bothered her constantly. I am one of those people that didn't think much of it, what an ass hat I know, but after having this for only 4 days I am already at my wits end. I have never felt so alone, desperate and confused.

I'm not sure what caused the tinnitus. I was watching a commercial where an ad came on about tinnitus so I started to listen if I could hear anything ringing. HOLY Crap, there it is!! The worst part is that it is already changing me. I'm depressed, quiet and sullen. All things that I have never been. My wife is very concerned and says she has never seen me cry like this before, but I'm terrified. She is being great and very supportive, but I would love some advice.

I went and my GP 2 days after the ringing began. He said that my ear canals on both ears are almost swollen shut and that it looks like I may have an infection. I have no ear pain. He gave me a couple bottle of ear drops. Over the passed couple of days I have noticed a slight decrease in the volume of the ring. It is only in one ear and seems to be around a 14000Hz pitch. Yesterday when I woke up there was no ringing for the first 5 minutes and then constant all day. This morning when I woke up there was no ringing for 30 minutes and I have experienced moments of silence throughout the day, but other than that it has been constant.

I don't want to lose myself to this, but it is all I can think about. Thanks for reading and I hope you all are doing well.

 

[GregCA]

Your trending is encouraging. Good luck.

 

[Nordland90]

Hello @MJT how is it going? Do you have more silence today than yesterday?

 

[MJT]

I have not had any silence today, but the volume of the ringing seems to be lower and going in and out instead of 100% constant. Not sure if I'm getting more used to it our not, but the volume does seem lower.

I met with my normal GP today and he now says that it looks like I have white folded up noodles in my ear that he thinks is a fungal infection. Frustrating that one doctor says on what thing and then another something completely different. He prescribed acetic acid to get rid of the fungus. I also have an appointment with an ENT next week.

Thank you for your concern. I hope you are doing well.

 

[glynis]

Great news and hope after treatment your tinnitus goes.

Love glynis

 

[MJT]

Glynis,
Thank you for the kind words. I will keep posting as things progress.

 

[MJT]

Hey Everybody. I want to give an update. I met with an ENT yesterday. He said the white debris was not fungus, but was folded up dead skin. He suctioned and tweezered it out. I was upset because a fungal infection seemed treatable. The ringing continued in left ear all day. While my wife and I are watching Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, great movie, the ringing switched to in my head. Kind of left center region. It has changed from high pitched tone to now an in and out electrical buzzing. I have had a couple moments of silence so far today. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or if moving to the head indicates this becoming a more chronic issue. I will say that this is mich more manageable than before.

Hope you are all doing well.

 

[BuzzyBee]

Fungus likes to grow back, so that's actually good that it was just skin and not fungal. You probably just had some conductive hearing loss from the ear canal blockage and now that it's cleared out and your hearing is back to normal, your brain will stop making noises.

 

[NatureHiker]

@MJT You got tinnitus from watching a commercial about tinnitus then you listened for it and it appeared?

This is very common. I call it dehabituation. This is how i got tinnitus. In fact, most people have tinnitus. They just think it's normal and live their lives. There's a perfectly soundproof room in the guggenheim where people eventually hear tinnitus because the lack of sound.

What you did though was you learned about tinnitus as this Big Bad Wolf. And now you're thinking of it as an impairment, an illness, a stressor. You've done the psychological equivalent of giving yourself a very bothersome splinter. And now you're freaking out about it.

Good news is that if it's just stress response to learning you have tinnitus and not acoustic damage or nothing then taking care of the stress and focusing on your life and being happy will remove the perception of tinnitus. You'll rehabituate. I did. Took me 2 months. And it was a rollercoaster ride because of stresses in my life.

 

[Jaybeee]

@NatureHiker I like this idea. Gives me hope I caused this and I can cure it!

 

[Aaron_J]

@NatureHiker That's interesting. I only really noticed my tinnitus about a week after I had hearing loss, and that might actually be due to the fact that I had heard and example of tinnitus. I'm not completely confident that I had T before as I often complained that things were too silent for me at night.

Now that you mentioned that though I think it amplified the minor T that I incurred after my noise exposure.

 

[NatureHiker]

@Aaron_J Everyone has atleast some level of tinnitus. The founder of Frequency Therapeutics surmises that 95% of all people in a quiet enough room will hear ringing.

You can't get a lifetime of hearing damage and then tinnitus from reading a blog post about tinnitus, or watching a commercial about tinnitus, or someone telling you about tinnitus. It doesn't work like that.

What happens is that you focused on tinnitus. Became super-sensitive to it. Now you always focus on it. Your brain is stressed out and full of anxiety because you've labeled tinnitus as a problem, an illness, something that should not be there. They read horror stories online and that tinnitus is permanent and that it is debilitating and no cure, etc. and they freak out! I think this hypersensitivity is why many people often freak out about tinnitus, visual snow, and floaters around the same time.

I think my tinnitus was caused by acoustic damage too. But i did some research. I listened to no loud music for a week prior to noticing tinnitus. No hit on the head. Or drugs. Just high stress, reading about tinnitus, then focusing on tinnitus. Unless acoustic damage has a time-delayed response for atleast a week, then im sure my tinnitus was just stress amplifiying my low tinnitus.

If your tinnitus is stress based. Calm down. Tell yourself, "This is just a stress response". And try to move on. Eat stuff high in antioxidants, calm your CNS down, NAC maybe? but just need to calm down. It will go away. And stop thinking of it.

 

[Aaron_J]

@NatureHiker I agree with what you're saying, I'm generally a hypochondriac and I'm already on medication for anxiety. I'm sure if given enough time I'll probably have something other than my hearing loss/ tinnitus to worry about.

 

[NatureHiker]

@Aaron_J

I did a bunch of research into my own tussle with tinnitus. I first noticed it after reading about online on the night of Feb 13th. It was immediately before a trip to China. In China i was so busy and had so much fun i did not notice tinnitus.

When i returned to the USA it took me 8 days before i remembered i was worried about tinnitus. Then on March 12th i noticed tinnitus again. Then it was a whole month struggle with tinnitus and me freaking out.

If you took drugs, or hit your head, or had a flu, or cameback from a concert, shooting range, racetrack, heavy headphone session then tinnitus is probably a direct result of that. However i strongly believe that if you got tinnitus and it was immediately after learning about tinnitus and freaking yourself out about it then its probably just anxiety and stress.

About 75% of new cases are related to emotional stress as the trigger factor rather than to precipitants involving cochlear lesions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2686891/#B8

"All these stress-induced mental changes can also influence auditory phenomena, leading, for example to the development of tinnitus or the exacerbation of an existing tinnitus. In the ear, cortisol causes a massive release of glutamate into the neurons. This ultimately leads to a greater accumulation of calcium, which damages auditory sensory cells and nerve cells in the ear." http://www.deutsche-tinnitus-stiftung-charite.de/en/projects/tinnitus_and_stress/


You need to act quickly and efficiently to lower your stress levels otherwise high stress will lead to cortisol fucking up your hearing for real.

 

[Aaron_J]

You need to act quickly and efficiently to lower your stress levels otherwise high stress will lead to cortisol fucking up your hearing for real.

@NatureHiker

That's actually my fear that may have already manifested itself. My first run into T could have been/or not been caused by my hearing loss, only the second time I knew for sure it was related to acoustic trauma just because it happened within 20-30 seconds of putting on my headphones.

But yeah, definitely will try and keep it under control, and thanks for your response. Part of the reason why I decided not to post here for so long was partly due to me worrying that I might be focusing on this problem way too much. Posts like yours definitely helps though.