Hello Everyone,
I appreciate this may not be of use or of any interest to many on here. I will note now that my story relates to T and H caused by an inner ear infection. If you are in the midst of T due to an ear infection, I would advise reading my long winded account below
.
My main reason for posting on here is really to offer words of help/comfort to others as I trawled the internet for weeks in the height of suffering from T and found a real disparity of information and accounts. Much of what I read made me feel so much worse and I genuinely believe stressed me out to the point where my perceived T actually became much worse.
My ear issue started by taking a bath and trapping water in my left ear after washing my hair. I thought nothing of it - this has happened many times before. I then however found that my ear had pressure inside I constantly attempted to pop it with no success. I would advise against this, by the way.
This annoyance became more and more noticeable and I eventually went to my doctors when I started feeling dizzy. I was ushered to see a nurse and she (wrongly) diagnosed me as having a slight outer ear infection and Eustachian Tube Dysfunction. I was given a steroid ear drop and sent home.
That night the dreaded ear ringing started. It was fairly quiet and I thought nothing of it. The ringing continued and became louder and louder to the point where I could hear it over the television and over a stereo player. I became increasingly worried and then turned to google and looked up my symptoms....
This was my first mistake. I read several blogs and threads regarding tinnitus which scared me to the point that the ringing then became my entire focus - no longer the dizziness, the headaches nor the earache.
I suffered with constant anxiety whereby I was listening for it the whole time, measuring whether it was getting worse, taking online hearing tests and generally trawling through google. I convinced myself it was TMJ, that I had somehow been exposed to loud noise and that it was just something that happened to me.
I was beside myself for around 3 weeks, constantly panicking and breaking down in tears. Looking back now I feel a little embarrassed for those who saw me, but I really was suffering from anxiety and I wasn't sleeping for days because of this loud ringing. I should note though that it was my reaction to the ringing that was causing me all of this anguish - not the ringing itself. I then went to the out of hour clinic and saw an actual doctor who advised that I had been wrongly diagnosed and that I actually had a nasty viral inner ear infection causing all of these symptoms.
Her advice was excellent. She advised...
1) Get off the internet. The internet is never filled with the stories of the many people who do get better. She told me that since it was not noise induced T and directly a result of an inner ear infection... the ringing would almost definitely stop. The vast majority of people who do recover fully do not post... only those whom, unfortunately, do not.
2) Stop listening for it. She advised to mask it - as many of you have here. The less you focus on it, the better. Busy yourself. This was hard as it was very loud and also I was suffering from hyperacusis also so any noise was grating for my ears. I should also note that despite having the infection in only one ear, the ringing was very loud in both ears.
T is now at the point (touch wood) where it is barely audible. I often don't even hear it in a quiet room and I only hear it when I focus on it. The gap between the times in which I haven't thought about it has widened. I couldn't tell you when I noticed a significant drop in T level, but it has been very gradual. It is much quieter yes, but I just don't notice it despite it still being there somewhat.
Only when I drink alcohol has it returned to its original volume during a hangover and stuck around for two days. Moral of that story - avoid alcohol during recovery? Or do not binge drink during recovery as I did.
Key is to remember that viruses can stick around for a long time and ear infections can take months to clear. My ETD (which was as a result of an inner ear infection) has only now started to go and that's over 3 months.
If you have suffered with T due to an ear infection, it will in all likelihood leave you... eventually. But the most important thing is that you try your best to forget about it... you literally wont notice it. Then suddenly, you'll turn around as I have and realise that it's much quieter than it was. Think positively... do not despair or read horror stories on the internet - the vast majority of people who develop T during an ear infection find that it goes away with time.
I appreciate this may not be of use or of any interest to many on here. I will note now that my story relates to T and H caused by an inner ear infection. If you are in the midst of T due to an ear infection, I would advise reading my long winded account below
.My main reason for posting on here is really to offer words of help/comfort to others as I trawled the internet for weeks in the height of suffering from T and found a real disparity of information and accounts. Much of what I read made me feel so much worse and I genuinely believe stressed me out to the point where my perceived T actually became much worse.
My ear issue started by taking a bath and trapping water in my left ear after washing my hair. I thought nothing of it - this has happened many times before. I then however found that my ear had pressure inside I constantly attempted to pop it with no success. I would advise against this, by the way.
This annoyance became more and more noticeable and I eventually went to my doctors when I started feeling dizzy. I was ushered to see a nurse and she (wrongly) diagnosed me as having a slight outer ear infection and Eustachian Tube Dysfunction. I was given a steroid ear drop and sent home.
That night the dreaded ear ringing started. It was fairly quiet and I thought nothing of it. The ringing continued and became louder and louder to the point where I could hear it over the television and over a stereo player. I became increasingly worried and then turned to google and looked up my symptoms....
This was my first mistake. I read several blogs and threads regarding tinnitus which scared me to the point that the ringing then became my entire focus - no longer the dizziness, the headaches nor the earache.
I suffered with constant anxiety whereby I was listening for it the whole time, measuring whether it was getting worse, taking online hearing tests and generally trawling through google. I convinced myself it was TMJ, that I had somehow been exposed to loud noise and that it was just something that happened to me.
I was beside myself for around 3 weeks, constantly panicking and breaking down in tears. Looking back now I feel a little embarrassed for those who saw me, but I really was suffering from anxiety and I wasn't sleeping for days because of this loud ringing. I should note though that it was my reaction to the ringing that was causing me all of this anguish - not the ringing itself. I then went to the out of hour clinic and saw an actual doctor who advised that I had been wrongly diagnosed and that I actually had a nasty viral inner ear infection causing all of these symptoms.
Her advice was excellent. She advised...
1) Get off the internet. The internet is never filled with the stories of the many people who do get better. She told me that since it was not noise induced T and directly a result of an inner ear infection... the ringing would almost definitely stop. The vast majority of people who do recover fully do not post... only those whom, unfortunately, do not.
2) Stop listening for it. She advised to mask it - as many of you have here. The less you focus on it, the better. Busy yourself. This was hard as it was very loud and also I was suffering from hyperacusis also so any noise was grating for my ears. I should also note that despite having the infection in only one ear, the ringing was very loud in both ears.
T is now at the point (touch wood) where it is barely audible. I often don't even hear it in a quiet room and I only hear it when I focus on it. The gap between the times in which I haven't thought about it has widened. I couldn't tell you when I noticed a significant drop in T level, but it has been very gradual. It is much quieter yes, but I just don't notice it despite it still being there somewhat.
Only when I drink alcohol has it returned to its original volume during a hangover and stuck around for two days. Moral of that story - avoid alcohol during recovery? Or do not binge drink during recovery as I did.
Key is to remember that viruses can stick around for a long time and ear infections can take months to clear. My ETD (which was as a result of an inner ear infection) has only now started to go and that's over 3 months.
If you have suffered with T due to an ear infection, it will in all likelihood leave you... eventually. But the most important thing is that you try your best to forget about it... you literally wont notice it. Then suddenly, you'll turn around as I have and realise that it's much quieter than it was. Think positively... do not despair or read horror stories on the internet - the vast majority of people who develop T during an ear infection find that it goes away with time.
