Before 01/2022 I had been an avid listener of music; I would listen to all sorts of things from loud to silent and beautiful. Because of my love for music, I took care of my ears as if they were my firstborn—I would be sure to take breaks, I listened to music below 50% volume, I mixed my headphones to remove frequencies I found to be to harsh...
It's been 4 months since I got tinnitus. Although I took care of my ears in terms of volume, what gave me this ringing was an ear infection. Needless to say, I was horrified; not only did it ring, it stung, and pulsated all day and night.
I had gone to my first doctor, which looked in my ears and pretty much immediately deduced that I had an ear infection, fair enough. She gave me ear drops—Neomycin, if my memory serves me right—and sent me on my way for 2 weeks.
Now, the Neomycin got rid of that pulsating, and with it, most of the pain was gone—leaving me with just the ringing. You're likely aware that if I was happy with that, then I wouldn't be typing this in the first place.
At the start of February, I scheduled an ENT appointment set for early March. To save the details, I went a month with ringing, and the ENT did nothing.
Early–Mid march was easily the worst part of my suffering so far. The pain came back, and it seemed like I developed some sort of hyperacusis as I was not able to listen to most noises without reflexively covering my ears or crying into a pillow. I used to consider myself a hard worker who would get things done all day while listening to my favorite albums; it became that music was painful in a physical manner, while lying down was painful mentally.
This is when I started to notice clicking in my ears. First it was just many rapid clicks while chewing, and to counteract this I chewed gum all day until the clicking "ran out", so to speak. It used to also click when I stretched my neck or pulled down on my ears and opened my mouth.
As it stands now, my ears have this strange soreness to them, I'm fatigued, and the clicking happens when I do simple things like yawning or breathing. There is a very slight fullness to them, and of course, it rings and is sensitive to noise.
The sensitivity isn't as bad as it was in March, but March was worse than February, so on the hierarchy of the most hopeful people on the seven continents, I'm pushing for last place. Emotionally, I'm certainly doing better than March, but if there's ever a moment in a song where things are silent, or a song is supposed to be silent and beautiful in general, I will often break down for about an hour wishing I could understand what the composer was trying to covey with the silence that clashes with the soreness, popping, and ringing.
And so now, rant aside, I want the truth: Is there any hope of this getting better for me? Is there some sort of cure for this popping and ringing out there? What do I need to say to a doctor for them to help me with ETD or middle ear fluid or whatever I have? How do I habituate and stop these emotional breakdowns?
I've tried the Flonase tricks, humidifiers, Valsalva, the whole TinnitusTalkTM cure extravaganza, to no avail. My usual doctor now has me on Ciprofloxacin and Dexamethasone, but it's not doing much for me.
It's been 4 months since I got tinnitus. Although I took care of my ears in terms of volume, what gave me this ringing was an ear infection. Needless to say, I was horrified; not only did it ring, it stung, and pulsated all day and night.
I had gone to my first doctor, which looked in my ears and pretty much immediately deduced that I had an ear infection, fair enough. She gave me ear drops—Neomycin, if my memory serves me right—and sent me on my way for 2 weeks.
Now, the Neomycin got rid of that pulsating, and with it, most of the pain was gone—leaving me with just the ringing. You're likely aware that if I was happy with that, then I wouldn't be typing this in the first place.
At the start of February, I scheduled an ENT appointment set for early March. To save the details, I went a month with ringing, and the ENT did nothing.
Early–Mid march was easily the worst part of my suffering so far. The pain came back, and it seemed like I developed some sort of hyperacusis as I was not able to listen to most noises without reflexively covering my ears or crying into a pillow. I used to consider myself a hard worker who would get things done all day while listening to my favorite albums; it became that music was painful in a physical manner, while lying down was painful mentally.
This is when I started to notice clicking in my ears. First it was just many rapid clicks while chewing, and to counteract this I chewed gum all day until the clicking "ran out", so to speak. It used to also click when I stretched my neck or pulled down on my ears and opened my mouth.
As it stands now, my ears have this strange soreness to them, I'm fatigued, and the clicking happens when I do simple things like yawning or breathing. There is a very slight fullness to them, and of course, it rings and is sensitive to noise.
The sensitivity isn't as bad as it was in March, but March was worse than February, so on the hierarchy of the most hopeful people on the seven continents, I'm pushing for last place. Emotionally, I'm certainly doing better than March, but if there's ever a moment in a song where things are silent, or a song is supposed to be silent and beautiful in general, I will often break down for about an hour wishing I could understand what the composer was trying to covey with the silence that clashes with the soreness, popping, and ringing.
And so now, rant aside, I want the truth: Is there any hope of this getting better for me? Is there some sort of cure for this popping and ringing out there? What do I need to say to a doctor for them to help me with ETD or middle ear fluid or whatever I have? How do I habituate and stop these emotional breakdowns?
I've tried the Flonase tricks, humidifiers, Valsalva, the whole TinnitusTalkTM cure extravaganza, to no avail. My usual doctor now has me on Ciprofloxacin and Dexamethasone, but it's not doing much for me.
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