Tinnitus After Falling from a Water Slide

[Amar]

I don't really know how to "introduce myself" but I thought I would just say whats on my mind about my tinnitus.

It was back in 2016, I was 20 years old. I went on a vacation to a resort that had a water slide. I went down a few times but the last time I fell from about 15 feet going pretty fast and hit my right ear on the water surface. I was in pain for about 5 minutes holding and pressing on my ear but then that subsided and I didn't think much of it.

2 days after coming home from the resort while sleeping I started to get tinnitus in my right ear. I was pretty sleepy so I fell asleep quickly but when I woke up and it was still there, I began to feel nervous. I don't really know how to explain the sounds its basically .... eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

So far it's been 5 years and it has not gotten any louder but sometimes it does get louder for a few days/weeks/months like right now which is why I wanted to check out this forum. I saw an ENT and did an MRI, the ENT said that my ear is fine and my hearing is "perfect" and the MRI didn't show anything.

I have not tried any treatment techniques apart from that one where you cover your ears with the palms of your hands and wack the back of your head but that never seemed to work for me, it didn't make it worse either. When the ENT told me that its something that you just have to live with, I decided to just try and ignore it, which has been pretty easy to do since thankfully my tinnitus is pretty low and doesn't really impact my day to day that much, its pretty annoying when sleeping but other than that it's fine. As mentioned however, it has been louder for about a month now and I wanted to see if I may be able to treat it some how.
I have been reading in the "success stories" sub-forum and in some cases tinnitus is due to underlying causes and a lot of people found success by treating the underlying cause which is what I thought I should try and do.

I am not even sure if falling from the water slide could cause tinnitus for 5 years but i found it odd that it happened right after the accident. The other thing that may be causing my tinnitus is TMJ, I have not been diagnosed with it but my jaw does ache sometimes when I wake up, aches when I first eat food, and sometimes I hear pops and weird noises when chewing.

The other thing I find odd is, my right ear in general has all my ear related problems, I have had 3 ear infections, all in my right ear, whenever my ear just has general pain its always in my right ear and my tinnitus is my right ear as well. It's odd but could there be something that's causing my right ear to be "sick" or "broken" which is causing all these issues (pain, infection, tinnitus).

If anyone who's had a similar case of tinnitus as me has any idea what might be the reason for my tinnitus, please please please indulge me and even if you don't, just rapid fire some things that can cause tinnitus that can be treated, I don't mind trial and error until I find the underlying cause. I know that my tinnitus could just be induced and might not be curable but I want to at least try my best to fight it.

Thanks everyone!

 

[InfiniteLoop]

@Amar, the cause of your tinnitus is likely a very mild head trauma and very bad luck. This combination can turn irrelevant accidents into tragedies. I consider myself to be on the same boat.

The mild trauma might have caused very high frequency hearing loss. Remember than in most cases audiologists only take data to 8 kHz, and one can pass that test easily having damage. Another clue is the frequency of your tinnitus. If you are hearing noise at very high frequency that will give you a clue of your hearing loss. In my case is in the 10-12 kHz range.

My recommendation after many fights, is not to fight it. The most likely outcome of the fights is the same tinnitus or even worse tinnitus, and each defeat will affect you negatively. The plain truth is that there is basically nothing to cure tinnitus, and that is very difficult to accept.

 

[Exit]

Check out David Schwimmer, from Friends. Similar event.

 

[Amar]

@InfiniteLoop, you seem to know a lot more about tinnitus than I do. How exactly do you know that your frequency is at 10 to 12 kHz? How can I go about finding out what mine is at? Moreover, does this mean as I age could I experience louder tinnitus? I'm only 25 but say when I'm 50 will it get louder as I begin to lose my hearing due to age?

I've only just started my attempt to see what I can do with my tinnitus but I will definitely take what you said and not try anything too daring because as I mentioned my tinnitus is rather low and for the most part isn't intrusive on my day to day.

Have you found any ways that helped you cope with it better? Maybe I should be looking more towards ways of coping with tinnitus then ways of eliminating it.

Thank you for your reply, it was blunt but I appreciate that.

 

[InfiniteLoop]

@Amar, there are many phone apps that generates tones and noise at user customer entered settings. Tinnitus Talk has an app (TinnitusPlay) that can do it, and has several sound therapies included. You can compare the sound generated and your tinnitus to find out the ballpark frequency. I read once that the average tinnitus frequency is 8 kHz, and many sufferers have very high frequency noise.

The mechanisms of trauma and aging are very different. The general story is that trauma produces a sudden loss of hearing, the brain can not accommodate fast enough, and the result is tinnitus. Aging is a very slow process, the brain can adapt to the very slow change, and tinnitus is much less likely. I have loss significant hearing (age related) since tinnitus onset, and my tinnitus is about the same (severe and a torture).

I can not give much advice about tinnitus management since I am an example of very slow habituation. Do not get fixated in tinnitus, think that 1% of your body might not be right, but the other 99% is still great. Why the 1% should ruin 100% of your life?