Tinnitus from Launching Fireworks without Earplugs

[Hammers]

The night of July 3rd I was finally allowed to launch fireworks with my uncle for the fireworks show we always do. I didn't use earplugs. I was launching them, basically right next to me, lighting new ones while the others exploded right next to my ears.

I have extremely high pitched noises in my ear. I can't tell if it's 4 or 5. They're all somewhere above 10 kHz. The highest of them wasn't originally there. It started after I took a shower. I fear I may have made it even worse because I figured it would go away within a day. I listened to music and played games through my headphones (not at extreme volumes - I've always listened to them quietly.)

The third day I started googling all about tinnitus and freaking myself out... I haven't slept at all since the ringing and nothing can really mask it. It has not quieted at all. I had a panic attack yesterday and my mom took me to the ER and they gave me some Lorazepam.

I have an ENT appointment tomorrow. Is there anything I should know/not let them do/suggestions I should give/questions I should ask?

What's my outlook on this? Doomed forever? I really hate taking drugs but I don't think I will ever sleep without a pill.

Please help. Thanks for reading.

 

[Mister Muso]

Hi @Hammers

Welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear about this. Everyone here will tell you the first weeks are always the hardest. You are quite likely to find your tinnitus can be helped by the prompt treatment you have planned, and by protecting your hearing from further damage. This is so important as you wouldnt believe how easy it is to spike your tinnitus further while it's in its damaged state. So avoid loud movies, concerts, restaurants for now.

I would put the headphones in the bottom drawer or use them as ear muffs for now, and don't leave home without ear plugs at least for the next few weeks.

There are people here who swear by the oral steroid called prednisone for such traumas, so ask at your ENT appointment.

Good luck!

 

[Digital Doc]

Totally agree with no further headphone use after the acoustic trauma of the fireworks. Take care to avoid further noise exposure over the next several months, and give this all a chance to settle down and improve. You are currently experiencing a tinnitus spike, and it sounds like it came on in a somewhat delayed fashion, which is common. They can last for months to years, but often improve without further noise exposure/damage.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Please help.

There is a good chance that sometime in the next 12-24 months you will get to the "can hear it only in quiet rooms" stage. Just make sure to be easy on your ears.

Check out the posts below:

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...eone-else-who-has-tinnitus.26850/#post-307822

I didn't read all the above comments, but did peruse a fair amount of it, and ran across many good points on both sides of the argument. What strikes me is there seems to be an underlying assumption (of course I may be wrong on this) that all brains and neurological systems are created equal. The way I see it, that's simply not the case, so everybody's way of dealing with tinnitus and/or hyperacusis is going to have to be highly individualized.

I read a book many years ago called "Adrenal Syndrome". A lot of the book touched on the residual resiliency of people's adrenal glands as they respond to life's stresses. Very low resiliency often resulted in months/years of chronic debilitating exhaustion following a stressful event(s) in their lives. Very high resiliency indicated essentially the opposite. The author broke this down into some rough numbers:

25% of people have low resiliency, meaning normal life stressors will often send them into some degree of a tailspin.
25% of people have high resiliency, meaning that no matter how severe a stressor comes into their lives, they will be able to cope without becoming debilitated to any degree.
50% of people fall somewhere inbetween.

I believe there are some kind of corresponding numbers for a person's brain and neurological resiliency as well, which can greatly affect the ability to cope with tinnitus. (I believe adrenal resiliency also plays a major role in our ability to cope). -- Based on these assumptions, it's pretty easy for me to conclude that what may be overprotection for one person will be underprotection for another, and vice versa.

I think the main point to understand for someone new to tinnitus is that their path forward is going to be a lot of "testing the waters". Generally, IMHO, it's going to take a few weeks or months to get important insights that will help us achieve a healthy balance. In all likelihood, most people are going to learn from experience when their over-protecting or under-protecting.

I've come to believe however, that in those early months, if one is going to err in either direction, it should be toward overprotection. It just seems to me the consequences of underprotection (which could result in permanent injury) in those early times are much more dire than the consequences of overprotection--which as I understand, generally results in temporary setbacks.

Doing a number of things to better support the brain and neurological system and the body's stress response (adrenal glands) is quite high on my list of recommendations I would make to anybody with tinnitus. Doing so might even prevent phonophobia or OCD, etc., as we go through our learning curves -- Just my 2 cents worth.

Relative newbies to tinnitus are likely to find all the information/opinions above quite confusing. So here are a few common-sense rules to follow:

1. The best protection of all is avoidance. Even the best earplugs can't guarantee complete hearing protection so those relatively new to tinnitus are best advised to avoid prolonged loud noise exposure - especially amplified sound at for example live concerts and sports events. This may involve lifestyle changes.

2. When in doubt, use hearing protection. In the many tasks we all do through the week, some will inevitably involve exposure to noise - which may be at higher levels than we at first realise - so using hearing protection for many of these is only sensible.

3. Build quiet into your day. It's not a good idea to be wearing hearing protection all the time - so you need to give your ears a break by ensuring that there will be quieter times during your day when hearing protection isn't necessary.This may involve changing your routine. Use soft masking noise and light music (not using headphones) to avoid "silence" where tinnitus is most noticeable.

4. Don't stress about stress. Tinnitus newbies are forever being told that the thing which makes tinnitus worse is stress. But while it's true that how you are feeling at a particular moment can make tinnitus temporarily louder, it won't have a lasting effect. But prolonged loud noise exposure can make tinnitus permanently louder. So don't stress about stress - but do be concerned about noise.

 

[ChrisBoyMonkey]

Do whatever you can to try to keep it from becoming permanent or getting worse. Maybe the prednisone would help, but even if it doesn't and it stays there are success stories where it goes away on its own. Even if that's not happening, you should also check out the treatments page where we keep track of things in the way to help us. Neuromod Lenire is probably the first real thing that will actually help us to hit the market, and they are rolling out now. Also, a full on cure may have been found but it needs to be verified in humans and trialed before release, so that may be a few years (it's in research news, neuroinflammation).

 

[eagerUser]

Sorry to see you here!

They say NAC(n acetyl cysteine) and magnesium are otoprotective.

Animals treated with N-acetylcysteine showed a similar temporary threshold shift but a clear improvement in the recovery of compound action potential thresholds, with significantly reduced permanent threshold shift and hair cell loss

In conclusion, NAC is a safe and effective molecule which provides protective effects against acoustic trauma in our NIHL animal model. Nevertheless, further information concerning the most beneficial methods of administration, the dose of NAC and an eventual association with other compounds are essential in order to offer adequate protection against all components of noise trauma.

And its effects on the human cochlea:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22122955

The most striking finding was that the non-linearity of the cochlea, that was strongly reduced in the group without NAC, as manifested by the PMTF-results, was practically unchanged in the NAC-group throughout the study. NAC treatment directly after shooting in a bunkerlike room seems to give some protection of the cochlea.

These are OTC but do talk with your doctor before taking ANYTHING NEW as they may have NEGATIVE effects on you depending on your medical history.

Make sure you take a good care of your EARS in the future and right now chances are you will be Ok(only hear it in quiet rooms) if not completely rid of your tinnitus.

 

[Hammers]

I just got back from the ENT. He took an audiogram and my hearing is completely fine, really good actually. So my guess is I completely obliterated the high frequency hair cells and those are causing the tinnitus. Because of the hearing test he would not prescribe me anything. So it looks like any treatments are out of the question. I am only 19 and I live at home so I don't even have a primary care doctor set up yet.

 

[GSC]

I just got back from the ENT. He took an audiogram and my hearing is completely fine, really good actually. So my guess is I completely obliterated the high frequency hair cells and those are causing the tinnitus. Because of the hearing test he would not prescribe me anything. So it looks like any treatments are out of the question. I am only 19 and I live at home so I don't even have a primary care doctor set up yet.

Glycinated/Chelated Magnesium and NAC.

 

[Hammers]

Glycinated/Chelated Magnesium and NAC.

How do I get that? What are the risks? I have no doctors to talk to and I don't want to make anything worse.

 

[GSC]

How do I get that? What are the risks? I have no doctors to talk to and I don't want to make anything worse.

Amazon, I think grocery stores, there shouldn't be any risks on taking them if you take them within the recommended dosage range. Though, you have a fresh trauma, so it'd be best to do the high end of the rec'd dosage.

 

[Hammers]

Amazon, I think grocery stores, there shouldn't be any risks on taking them if you take them within the recommended dosage range. Though, you have a fresh trauma, so it'd be best to do the high end of the rec'd dosage.

Would it even be worth it? It has been a week since the trauma so I think I'm boned.

 

[GSC]

Would it even be worth it? It has been a week since the trauma so I think I'm boned.

I think it's worth taking to further protect your hearing, yes.