Hello,
About 12 years ago, I went to the doctor because I thought I had some bad earwax buildup causing constant ringing in my ears, but worse on one side. Turns out, I was wrong. I saw an ENT and was told I had mild hearing loss, probably from being around lots of noise when I was younger.
Over the years, I've learned to cope with it, and it was fairly mild, although I did experience times where it "reached a new level". That all changed about two weeks ago. Out of absolutely nowhere, my tinnitus started to increase on one side. Within 2 days, it worsened on the other side as well. Before I could even wrap my head around it, my tinnitus had gotten 10 times worse almost overnight.
I called my doctor, and saw him. He gave me a Z-Pack and some Prednisone, thinking it was probably an infection. I did the entire course of both, and still felt no relief. I went to an ENT again, hoping they would have some answer or anything that could help. They did tests. "Nothing we can do." I walked away with eardrops, which I'm now using. It still hasn't helped.
I haven't changed anything about my daily routine at all. I started thinking about every possibility of how this could happen. I did notice roughly around the same time I started having the worsened tinnitus, I had a wisdom tooth growing in on that same side. I have never had my wisdom teeth removed before. I brought this up with both my doctor and my ENT, however, and neither of them seemed to think it had anything to do with it. Even when I brought up my TMJ, both my doctor and ENT told me that if anything, it may be the TMJ, but not the tooth. I have no pain in my jaw or anything like that. No swelling. Nothing. I did briefly have headaches but I think that was mostly just from my intense crying sessions on wondering why this was happening to me, again.
I have literally combed my mind for every single thing imaginable that could have changed it. Did I use the wrong soap cleaning my CPAP? Did I eat something wrong or too much of something? Did some loud noises I heard in recent weeks bring it on? Did one of my kids screaming finally do it? I mean, I have had these thoughts over and over and over, but I can't get an answer and it's frustrating.
I have also noticed that doing things I normally do now make it worse, which was never a problem before. My ears are now suddenly more sensitive and any sudden loud noise "hurts". I also have severe PTSD so I use a medical marijuana vape a few times a day to calm my nerves and function properly. I have used it for years and NEVER had this issue. It only ever helped me. As I type this, I am crying. Using my vape was the only real thing that ever helped me with the rest of my issues, and now, using it is only worsening my tinnitus, which is causing even more problems. My therapist told me I should try reaching out to others, who may be in the same spot as I am, so here I am.
I didn't want to make an extremely long post, and as I've been typing this it's been increasingly harder to fully express just how much this is having an impact on my life.
Member