Hi all, I visited an ENT couple of days ago because of my increased tinnitus / new tinnitus in right ear. I've had mild tinnitus for years but it's been equal on both ears, and now there has been a new increased tinnitus in right ear that's been going on for two months or so. It will come and go in intensity. Some days I feel like it's healed and then it comes back the next day. My tinnitus used to be very stable.
I'm a musician and it is very likely this is related to noise exposure, even though I protect my ears. But before this developed there was an instance where my ears were not protected and it spiked my tinnitus a little bit. This new tinnitus in the right ear started to slowly develop in the coming weeks of that (new tone first appeared maybe 2 weeks after), so there was really not much change of hitting a 48 hour window for prednisone treatment because the noise exposure at the time didn't seem THAT bad...
Now I feel my right ear has lost some high frequency hearing, and the ENT booked me for a hearing test which is in 8 days (long time to wait if things are acute). My right ear has had a slight dip in the very highest range since forever, but I feel it has got a bit worse now. And even with the previous slight hearing loss my tinnitus was always bilateral, not just in the right ear.
I straight up asked the ENT about prescribing steroid treatment for me, and she refused. She said it's only prescribed if it's "bad enough" like a gunshot next to my ear or something. That didn't make sense to me.
Another thing to mention, I have had a sense of fullness / dullness / inflammation in the right inner ear which comes and goes every now and then and is almost always accompanied by increase in tinnitus. This is why I feel things might be still in acute phase and a steroid treatment might be helpful. Also the fact that my tinnitus goes up and down and hasn't yet settled. During these two months I've even had moments where my right ear loses hearing in a sudden "whoom" and tinnitus appears and then the hearing slowly restores. So things seem kinda unstable.
Another thing to mention that these last two months or so I had worsened hyperacusis. I feel like it has now come down 80% but for a while it was quite bad.
I'm also taking bunch of supplements and vitamins for the last 4-5 weeks or so, including Ginkgo and NAC. Seems to have maybe helped a bit.
What I'm trying to figure out is if I should go to another doctor to demand steroid treatment, or if in my case it is indeed better to not go for that. I've read that in some rare cases Prednisone has made tinnitus worse, but in most cases it seems to have either temporary or even some kind of permanent positive effect? This has been going on for some time for me so there's that... But then again things still seem quite unstable and "acute" in a way. Would it be good idea to demand steroid treatment from a different doctor now?