Sorry if this gets a bit long, but it isn't easy to answer in a short sentence.
Mine was a rare allergic reaction to Levothyroxine. I had all manner of symptoms from it before tinnitus developed and was in and out of hospital for months for other inflammatory conditions, ranging from skin rashes at the mild end, through to appalling allergic reactions that would make my nose stream for hours, to facial, throat and jaw pain and even the lining of my mouth pealing away leaving open sores - there were more, but you get the idea. I was prodded and probed for everything and I kept asking if it could be the Levothyroxine, but was repeatedly told no, even though all of these symptoms started around 1 month after starting treatment.
Eventually, I told the doctors that I believed it to be the Levothyroxine and against their judgment, went for private treatment to receive something called NDT (it is thyroid hormones that has been extracted from pigs, rather than synthetic) - it is not licensed in the UK. The endocrinologist I saw was aware of many of the issues that some people suffer, although he acknowledged that the severity of my problems was at the extreme end of the scale.
24 hours after I changed drug, for the first 3 days, my hearing was completely normal, my skin started to feel less sore and I thought "wow, why didn't I just stop taking this crap sooner?", but then, all hell broke loose and I had screaming, jet engine noises etc and I thought I was going to lose my hearing - I was terrified.
Out of fear, after 3 more days of screaming in my head, I took a Levothyroxine tablet to see what happened and within 24 hours, the tinnitus was back to its previous level and I took it for a couple more days, but other issues returned. I tried this cycle several times, until eventually, I could see such a repeatable link between the two. I went to see an ENT about this and was given absolutely nothing and despite the evidence, told it was unrelated. Realising that there was no hope from the medical profession, I just went for it on my own. 3 months of absolute misery followed. I stopped sleeping and instead used to pass out once every 3-4 days through exhaustion.
Over time, this started to improve - albeit slowly - until eventually I find myself where I am today. I still have hearing issues and flare ups and have moments of weakness where I find myself really depressed and low about it, but no-where near where I used to be.
I no longer have any of the other inflammatory conditions outside of my nose and sinuses, they have all gone and after suffering with them for the 2 years solidly that I was taking Levothyroxine, there is a very clear link. Some doctors I have seen accept it, but others still refute the connection - amazing when I was suffering from 15, known, albeit rare, side effects (something that I was not aware of at the time).
Link if you're at all interested in the side effects of Levothyroxine:
http://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-1433/levothyroxine-oral/details/list-sideeffects
I still have a lot of congestion around my head as a result of the severe allergies and get flare ups in m sinuses and nasal passages which in turn result in worsening of tinnitus whilst they are present. My audiologist agrees that it is an unusual case and may have even offered some useful information about tinnitus in general if regular scans and tests had been taken from the start to try and understand the processes occurring in its development and healing. Although she considers it too late for much , she has written to and recommended that the local eNT department shows a bit more interest, so I have another appointment in 4 weeks (it should have been 2 weeks but they moved it - you couldn't make this stuff up).
Has an ENT had a look up your nose or taken any sort of X-rays or scans? If not, they can honestly tell almost nothing by looking in your ears. There are so many problems linked with hearing that are utterly invisible by looking in the ear.
Unless through noise induced hearing loss, hearing tests are useless for tinnitus and even then, don't always reveal very much - loads of people with apparently good hearing have tinnitus.
Unless a middle ear infection is present, or lots of fluid build up, looking in the ears is useless. There are lots of middle ear problems that don't show up from looking in the ear.
I can of course give you no indication as to whether or not it will go, but it might. I know you are in the early stages of it and at the moment and you're looking from reassurance from people further down the road, so hopefully the amount of information I have shared with you shows that it can improve. I promise that I am not embellishing how bad mine was at the start, it really was unbelievably loud, but now, when it goes for a while, it genuinely is gone, it isn't that background noises are masking it. I remain hopeful that I will be someone writing my own success story on here in a few months time. It took over a year of taking Levothyroxine for tinnitus to develop, so at the very least I believe it will take a full year after stopping for it to resolve. That take me to mid-June this year. Even then though, the total time I took it for was 2 years and 2 months, so it would not be wholly unreasonable for it to take that long for everything to return to normal.
One last thing to share with you over my case that I have not made clear is that some of the noises I hear are concentrated seemingly in the ear, whilst others appear to be somewhere centrally in my head. At ties, neither are present and at others both, or one or the other. I believe the central ones to relate to a slightly different mechanism from Levothyroxine than those in the ear. The ear tinnitus first appeared in my left ear and it was there for 4 months before transitioning to my right ear. Other than the odd tinkle that appears now and again, the left ear has remained free from tinnitus for a year now. What caused the transition is anyone's guess, but if it can go from one ear, surely it can go from the other.
Finally - and I promise this is it, I must admit, a lot of the advice I have read doesn't really apply to me. Food stuffs make no difference to me. I can eat and drink what I like and it makes no difference - with the exception of alcohol, but then alcohol does dry out the nasal membranes and I feel bunged up and whenever this happens the ringing in my ear is worse so it isn't surprising that it has some effect on me. Being stressed or tired doesn't make mine worse - in fact, I have been at my absolute wits end about it and wanted to scream and suddenly, it just fades away to nothing. What I would say though, is eat well and look after yourself. Not because it is going to have any profound affect on improving your hearing, but it will put you in a better position to cope with it when it is bothering you. For me, the emotional response to tinnitus can be worse than the tinnitus itself.
Again, apologies that it is such a long reply, but you did ask
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