Tinnitus... Confused

[Alex2018]

Hi everyone,

I've never written on a forum about this before but I'm here posting for my OH who has had Tinnitus for the last few years and I'm trying to work out what the cause is so I can investigate further.

Basically a few years ago she got a large amount of impacted ear wax build up in her ear. Whilst she was waiting for the appointment to clean her ears the build up got worse and she developed Tinnitus. My assumption was that once the ears were cleaned the ringing would go away but this didn't happen. Anyway she has adjusted to it and uses white noise at night to sleep and the ringing continues.

Last night she woke up in the night completely deaf in one ear and this morning went to the doctors who said her ear was deeply impacted with wax. They said they'd never seen so much. Now bizarrely the Tinnitus in that ear has pretty much completely gone and she can barely hear it. This is what I'm confused about as I would assume the blocked ear would increase the ringing in her ear not deaden it.

Does this make sense to any of you and have you experienced this yourself? I'm convinced that the Tinnitus is related to wax but she's had several cleaning sessions with the ENT and none have stopped the ringing.

I'm just curious if anyone could shed a light on this. She also gets pulsatile Tinnitus but this may be due to something else so I'm really asking as to why the ear wax would make the Tinnitus quieter rather than louder. I expect when she has her ears cleaned it will come fully back.

 

[Alex2018]

Nobody?

 

[glynis]

Wax removal can lower tinnitus but for some people the treatment can cause tinnitus if the wax was crusted and not softened with olive oil etc prior to wax removal.
The inflamation it causes can take a week or month to settle.
If your OH has hearing loss then tinnitus can be heard and when tinnitus is loud it can cause hearing loss and pick up your pulse from your Caroted artery.
Allergies can also cause extra mucous to spike tinnitus.
Keep posting on here together to get support and information and we can support you around the clock.
Love glynis

 

[Samantha R]

@Alex2018
That's very bizarre to be honest.
I cannot think why this would be happening as usually it would be the other way around.
I can say that at the very start of my tinnitus journey, I had a low humming noise that lasted about a week and it would stop and start.
I did notice that when I wore ear muffs in the hearing test, the sound was gone. I tried with ear plugs, same result. I can only suspect that something mechanical was going on in the ear, but of course I was told I had tinnitus and to learn to live with it, no doctor cared that it seemed to be an unusual case. Now with my high pitch tinnitus, wearing ear plugs makes the noise so much louder!
Is her tinnitus low or high pitch?

 

[Alex2018]

Thanks for your replies and it's really helpful. It is a bit of an odd one as it seems to go against the norm i.e now the ear is blocked the T is deadened but once the ear is cleared the T will be much louder. Her T is high pitched but has been constant since the last wax impaction about 3 years ago.

 

[Gman]

@Alex2018 mine started with impacted ear wax. But once it was removed it went quieter, but unfortunately never stopped.