If I Stop Using Cotton Buds, and My Ear Canal Skin Heals, Will the Tinnitus Stop?

[DeepS]

Hi all, new to the forum and just wanted to share my experience with my first bout of tinnitus. It started in November last year. I get a humming sound in my left ear which I can only hear in a quiet setting.

I visited an audiologist a couple of weeks ago as I've never suffered with this before and he checked my ears etc. Now, I have been using cotton buds in my ears daily for a couple of ears. He found my ears to be healthy except my ear canal skin was red raw which he said was due to my cotton bud use.

I was given Earol ear drops which I have now been using for a couple of days.

I just wanted to know if I stop using cotton buds, which I have, will my the skin of my ear canal heal and therefore stop the annoying humming?

On some days I can hear it but then it might be a few days where I don't hear it. I am just a little confused as I have never suffered with this before.

Any feedback would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[Ben Winders]

I'm struggling to see why having an irritated ear canal (before the eardrum) would cause humming. Unless maybe you have damaged the ear canal thoroughly to the point where you damaged the blood vessels or nerves, but a simple cotton bud wouldn't be able to do that imho.

Nothing happened in November or a couple weeks before you started hearing the humming? Like an acoustic incident, change in medication, etc? The usual suspects.

 

[one-light]

Hi, welcome here...

 

[DeepS]

Hi, thanks for your reply.

I don't recall anything out of the ordinary happening prior to this and as for medication, I am not taking any for anything.

Also, when he looked inside my ear he showed me the blood vessels which were irritated in both ears so I think I may have damaged these by being too aggressive with the cotton buds, but would this alone cause the humming sound? Apart from this my ears were healthy, there was a little bit of wax but I was told this was normal.

Thanks.

 

[Ben Winders]

I also have these bloodshot veins. I bought an USB in-ear camera on Amazon to see what's going on. I also showed this to the number #1 tinnitus specialist in Belgium and he said: nope, that's nothing.

I have acoustic trauma as the instigator for my tinnitus.

In general: you say some days you hear it, other days you don't. Do me a favor. Stop focusing on it and live your life.
If ENTs find nothing and you have no clear hearing loss / damage or have no clear drug infused tinnitus then I would try to ignore it... if it really becomes a problem you'll know.

I know this sounds like silly advice but so much of tinnitus is your brain tuning into it... that's why I'm giving you the advice to not tune into it (if you know for certain there is nothing physically wrong with your ears that you need to look at).