Tinnitus from a Very Loud 3-Hour Concert

Hi all,

I’m 34F. I attended a rock concert in an enclosed venue on 22 July 2023. The muffled hearing and tinnitus after that never went away, and it is 4.5 weeks post event now. I had no awareness of dangerous sound levels or what could happen. I wore no hearing protection.

I realised after the fact that my watch had a decibel meter. The concert was between 80-110 dB and I was there for 3 hours. There was once a peak of 118 dB that I think would have been less than a minute.

I did a 7 day course of Prednisolone (still tapering), and 7 sessions of hyperbaric oxygen therapy. My hearing is less muffled now but I have clearly lost hearing despite being told my hearing is perfect on tests. I have oderate tinnitus in both ears plus hyperacusis. I have a 2-year-old - timing could not be worse!

Thanks for reading, glad to be able to read everyone’s stories and advice.

 

Hey. Unfortunately, the only thing that can help noise-induced tinnitus is avoiding noise and lots of time.

I have gotten better over the course of 1.5-2 years and can live mostly as I did before, being cautious of course.

Give yourself lord of time, avoid loud noise. Statistics are on your side. Also, Susan Shore's tinnitus device is coming relatively soon. Keep your anxiety under control. Don't listen to scammers, protect your ears.

 

What @AnthonyMcDonald said.

It's a new concept - for me at last - usually when something hurts/is broken on your body that has the ability to heal itself it will go "relatively" fast.

This tinnitus thing, however, takes years for even the slightest progress.

Progress could come in the form of actual volume going down (only thing you can do there is stay away from loud noises and protect (don't over-protect).

Progress could come in the form of being able to cope better (only thing you have to do here is fight with yourself until you find that balance/strength within you).

 

How long after the onset did you start Prednisolone and the hyperbaric oxygen therapy? Did you notice improvements from the hyperbaric oxygen therapy?

 

Hi @Kerrie8, pretty much what has been said. Time. Do not waste money on supplements, patches and potions. Not a penny. Counselling can help with the distress, as well as an antidepressant like Mirtazapine maybe.

As for volume reduction, Clonazepam and Gabapentin help some. The former is dependence forming.

Depending where you are, you could enrol in a clinical trial.

 

Hi - I'm sorry you have had to join the club that no-one wants to join. Unfortunately with concerts becoming louder, there seems to be a never ending conveyor belt of people just like you ending up here for the same reason. The world is becoming louder but our ears are not becoming stronger.

It must be so hard being around a 2-year-old. You may find earplugs helpful, particularly if he or she is prone to loud piercing screams.

The majority of people do improve over time.

Follow what @AnthonyMcDonald has said - 100% - avoid loud noise as much as you can and give it time. When people get better and symptoms improve, it's usually following these two pieces of advice.

Hope you get better.

 

Despite going to a doctor a few days after, I was not taken seriously and was told to give it time. I went to another doctor in desperation and was given low dose Prednisolone which I started 1.5 weeks after the exposure. Then I presented to the hospital even more desperate and was finally given high dose Prednisolone but I was 2 weeks post exposure. I do think it recovered a small amount of high frequency hearing. I started hyperbaric oxygen therapy just over two weeks after so I was doing that while on the high dose Prednisolone. After the 3rd session I had an improvement in hearing that I almost couldn’t believe, but then the next day it was gone again. I think overall it made a small difference to hearing, but tinnitus volume was the same after if not worse (though I think it was going to get worse anyway).

Thank you. I am curious if you had pain and fullness in your ears and, if so, whether that improved? It feels to me if I had just tinnitus I would be more likely to improve, but since I also have hyperacusis, fullness and aching pain it’s hard to believe it will get much better. I am trying to remain hopeful, as others have said, it seems like people mostly improve over time.

Thanks for your reply. I am currently on Temazepam to cope with the side effects of Prednisolone and tapering. I did not want to take it but I didn’t have another option, I’m sure it will be hard to taper off. It does reduce the volume by about 50% which is amazing, such a pity I can’t take it long-term.

Mirtazapine doesn’t affect tinnitus volume, does it? I have taken Amitriptyline in the past pre-tinnitus but it seems like while it improves tinnitus for some, it makes it worse for others. Really shocked there are not many options which aren’t without life-changing risk!

 

Absolutely. I had aural fullness, had extremely severe hyperacusis (couldn't listen to a piece of Lego drop on the floor), and noxacusis to an extent (burning acid ears, stabbing). Now I'm left with tinnitus and hyperacusis, still shitty, but more stable than before. Now I can easily walk next to a road with no hearing protection.

 

All antidepressants have the potential to affect tinnitus, but that doesn't mean that they will affect yours. It's really a trial and error process to figure out what affects yours and what doesn't.

 

That’s great you have had so much progress! I am wondering if it was just gradual, consistent improvement over time, or more improvement in the beginning? And did you ever get a volume reduction of your tinnitus?

Sorry for all the questions, your symptoms just sound quite similar to mine and I am very curious about possible improvement timelines. Trying to stay positive!

 

No volume reduction. Just a reduction in number of tones and improvement in quality of the sound/stability. I was worsening daily for 1.5 years before it stabilized a bit and turned around and the hyperacusis started improving.

 

You're still an amazing case of "recovery" given how bad you had it. I really wonder how you'll fare given you've been exposing yourself fair bit. Or should I say - we will - since I did not go hermit, either, and, while I am careful, I do out and drive a car, occasionally go to a restaurant and even took a flight month ago. I am only 7 months in but I still get paralyzed when I read about continuously worsening people who got tinnitus from acoustic trauma experience.

 

1) Reduction in number of tones.
2) Improvement of hearing quality.
3) Stabilising.
4) Hyperacusis improving.

All great winning advances.

Well done!

Hopefully you'll continue to notice more improvements as the months roll on.

Please continue to enjoy your new appreciation of life and living it.

Please try to remember and post back regularly and let us know how you are doing.

 

It’s impossible for me to measure my volume fluctuations but what I can measure is tones. I went two months or so without acquiring a new tone and maybe I pushed too much and have started acquiring them again. Some have disappeared or became less frequent in just over a week. Others have stayed for now.

How long were you still acquiring new tones? And at what point did you start to lose some of them?

 

I'd say I started losing them at around the 1.5 year mark. Before that it was constantly changing. It plateaued, then the tones started merging together. Now I have about 1-3, before I had 9-12.

 

Interesting about the number of tones coming and going. Tone-wise I guess I am not that bad. I only have following:

1. Static/hiss only, sometimes with "metallic" undertone, less so these days (it was "metallic" all time early on). This is usually the loudest, but it varies. ~95% of time.
2. Ringing/pure tone mix. This tends to be the quietest. ~4% time.
3. Pure tone only. On the quieter side, too. ~1% of time (I am not talking fleeting tinnitus episodes).

The tonal variety came later, a good few months in.

 

I've experienced something similar to this. I had about 13-15 tones in the beginning, which eventually dwindled down to 6-9. Not as good as yours though, but pretty decent nonetheless.

I think some of my tones did in fact merge with one another to lessen the number as well.

 

Appreciate that bud, I’ve got no idea if mine will remotely follow your path. But the chance I may lose some of these tones is the optimism I need about right now.

The multiple tones are certainly an issue, when you make ‘peace’ with what you have. Another one joins the symphony and you restart the whole process again.

 

How are you doing now, @Kerrie8?

 

@Kerrie8, how do you manage noise with a 2-year-old? I am in the same situation, so was wondering, thanks!

 

You just have to get on with it. My tinnitus changed from intermittent to permanent 2 weeks before my son turned 1. The screaming sucks, and so does when he hits objects with other objects. But there isn't anything you can change so you have to work at it. Try not to beat yourself up when you get annoyed with the noise the child makes.

I always try to keep doing better and staying present with my child.

 

I got tinnitus and hypercusis 5 years ago. 4 months after my twin boys were born. I keep a pair of earmuffs handy!

 

At about the three month mark my tinnitus suddenly stopped bothering me almost at all. This was around October 20th. It got a bit quieter, some tones merged, it stopped changing so much and I just stopped thinking about it. Bizarre! My hyperacusis also almost completely went away.

However, now for some reason it is louder again and more bothersome. I am a bit sick so I am hoping that’s why, or else I must be experiencing my first spike. The hyperacusis is slightly increased but still way lower than it was, thank god.

My mental health is MUCH better than two months ago. I can absolutely see how I can live with this and be happy. Unfortunately, I do have more difficult understanding what people are saying now, especially when there is background noise. So still learning to cope with that.

A couple of months ago I would often have to leave the room or put in earplugs when she was yelling, crying loudly, or banging objects together. Now my hyperacusis is so reduced that I mostly don’t need to do anything, except sometimes ask her to be quieter when appropriate.

I would say use earplugs selectively as much as you feel you need to! Really though, you do just have to get on with things and deal with it. I have accepted I can’t protect myself from loud noises 100% of the time because I have a toddler.

 

Congrats! Lucky you! Indeed the temporary sickness may exasperate tinnitus, that's common. Looks like you are on the way out of this hell. Keep going.

 

It's crazy, even folk festivals and church conferences hit the 110 dB mark frequently. That's louder than a Slipknot concert.

The world's gone mad.

 

How long did it take for the aural fullness to go away?

I have had mine for two and a half months after acoustic trauma at a music festival. Just working out if there is hope that it might go.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

About 6-7 months to go away completely. But I was sitting in pure silence for the final 3 months.

 

Thanks very much for the message.

Just a very final question. When the aural fullness went away, did you feel that you could then hear better?

Although my audiogram says that my hearing in the full ear is in the normal range, my hearing doesn't feel good at all.

I am just wondering whether, if the aural fullness goes, my hearing will improve too?

Thanks.

 

I don't think so, not that I remember. Hearing stayed the same.

 

Hi everyone, I'm new to tinnitus. About 9 days ago, I attended a concert where the noise level reached over 110 dB. A few days after the concert, I had an audiology test, and it showed mild hearing loss in my left ear (the side closest to the stage), along with tinnitus. It's really driving me crazy.

I’m hopeful it will go away with time because, even after just 9 days, one of the two tones seems to have disappeared, and the feeling of fullness in my ear is starting to subside. However, I’m concerned because I've been reading online — I really need to stay off these forums — that a temporary threshold shift usually resolves within a few days, but it’s already been 9 days for me.

I need to find a way to adapt to this. Otherwise, I will lose my mind.