New to Tinnitus -- ENT Visit Today

[Jonathan Kent]

Hello Dr. Nagler,

After experiencing this constant high pitch ringing in my ears for about 10 days now, I went to an ENT here in Los Angeles, who other than cleaning wax from my ears and having an audiologist give me a hearing test, offered me no suggestions or course of action other than a booklet. I can not trace the beginning of the ringing to any one event. It was just sort of there one day. It is the type of ringing I recall experiencing in my younger days after going to a rock concert....the ringing going away by morning. I just turned 50 in August. It seems odd that this Tinnitus would just start seemingly overnight vs. a gradual onset. What are your suggestions? Should I get another opinion/examination from another ENT? I just went on this forum today, so I have not had a chance to read more discussions.
Thanks very much for any help you can provide.
Jonathan

 

[Dr. Nagler]

After experiencing this constant high pitch ringing in my ears for about 10 days now, I went to an ENT here in Los Angeles, who other than cleaning wax from my ears and having an audiologist give me a hearing test, offered me no suggestions or course of action other than a booklet. I can not trace the beginning of the ringing to any one event. It was just sort of there one day. It is the type of ringing I recall experiencing in my younger days after going to a rock concert....the ringing going away by morning. I just turned 50 in August. It seems odd that this Tinnitus would just start seemingly overnight vs. a gradual onset. What are your suggestions? Should I get another opinion/examination from another ENT? I just went on this forum today, so I have not had a chance to read more discussions.

Hi Jonathan -

Perhaps look at it this way. The ENT sees his job as to rule out those few causes of tinnitus that can be medically or surgically corrected and to rule out those very few causes that represent a threat to health, life, or well-being. That having been accomplished, there is really nothing left for him to do in terms of directing therapy specifically at your tinnitus. And from that perspective, whether your tinnitus came on slowly or suddenly is really irrelevant.

As I mentioned in my response in the "Waking" thread just below, please realize that there's a very good chance your tinnitus will just fade away on its own within the next several weeks. For the fine folks on this board, that was not the case. But they are not at all representative of the tinnitus experience in general!

So my suggestion at this point would be to just try to give it a little bit of time before considering other approaches.

Dr. Stephen Nagler