Sorry, not sure if there’s a more fitting community for discussions, but 196 doesn’t have specific required content ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So, last Sunday I suddenly got high-pitched tinnitus, mostly in my left ear. I thought it would be gone when I wake up next day, but it was still there. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday I had some pain and pressure in both ears. Unfortunately, I’d need to get referred to ENT by my GP, and she was on vacation. The substitute was there for “acute cases only”.
So far this was just… quite annoying. I tested for possible changes I haven’t noticed with frequency generator on my phone. With medium volume, both ears went to 19.5kHz just fine.
Thursday it improved. Or so I thought. The tinnitus got quieter. Later during the day I went to check again. I started with 16kHz at lowest volume. Suddenly, I could only hear it on my right ear, so I started panicking.
Left ear fell from 19.5kHz to 15.5kHz in just 1 day. This was a fairly sudden change, and I am not exactly emotionally strong. I panicked and was crying and hyperventilating for about an hour.
So I decided I’ll go to the substitute doctor next day to get referred to ENT. I set up alarm for the morning, but I didn’t need it. I was too anxious too sleep much anyway.
So I got to the ENT right that day.
She visually inspected my ears and throat finding no signs of inflammation. Tympanometry OK. Audiogram just confirmed my feeling of right ear being muffled with slight low frequency hearing loss, but nothing for my left ear, primary source of my concern.
I explained the loss occurred in higher frequencies than I heard during the test. I asked what frequency they tested up to as it sounded fairly low. “6kHz.” Apparently, even 8kHz (worldwide standard) is considered “experimental” in my country… I hoped for possibility of EHF audiometry (9 - 20kHz).
Back to talking with ENT, I said that I could hear up to 19.5kHz on both ears ereyesterday, yet yesterday I couldn’t even hear 16kHz on my left ear. She re-assured me that we normally loose ability to hear these frequencies with age (I am 18).
I further explained that my concern is rather the sudden unilateral loss as opposed to gradual bilateral loss over longer timespan as it could continue worsening further.
She replied with “Hearing above 6kHz is not important to humans.” I wanted to tell her to resample all her music to 12kHz, then tell me how useless it was, but I didn’t want to be rude.
At last, I asked “What about the tinnitus?” with response being “Nothing.”
So, she just prescribed me vitamins B1, B12 and some Ginko extract pills for increasing blood flow to ears for 1 month which I still had to pay €30 for even with insurance.
Welp, I just apologized for bothering them (non-sarcastically) as they had more patients and left no less concerned.
I am pretty worried about this. I’ve been careful with my ears. I don’t listen to music loudly, I don’t go to concerts, hell, I didn’t even have to go to theatre with school the last time as my current class teacher noticed I wasn’t exactly OK with being in a room with lots of people, especially with loud noise.
I can only suspect some issue with inner ear, perhaps inflammation. That wouldn’t even be noticeable with just visual examination. However, I suppose that would also be accompanied by dizziness and vertigo.
So I have no idea what’s going on.
At least I distracted myself while typing this.
I also have ringing in my ears and took care of them same as you.
I have perfect hearing according to the typical “can you hear this beep” test - which is infuriating when dealing with my tinnitus. The ENTs said the same as yours did (nothing is wrong)- it took going to a specialist who fits people for hearing aids before they did an extended range hearing test and helped narrow down the range that my tinnitus is affecting.
With the new doctor, we figured out that my tinnitus is caused by the other medications that I’m on. They did research on it and found certain classes of meds increase tinnitus more than others.
Working with my other doctors, we changed some of the medications to try and see if that would help my tinnitus. I also noticed that if I don’t take my allergy meds (Zyrtec) then I have less tinnitus that day. If I do need to take it, then I get elevated tinnitus, more pain in my ears, almost can’t hear, etc. for the next 2-3 days.
As an aside, wearing hearing aids helps for two reasons.
A) if you get the right ones, they have a setting that equates to “white noise” so your brain focuses on that and helps drown out the ringing. There are a couple options for what your white noise could be - actual white noise, beach waves, rain falling.
B) this has been proven to re-teach your brain that it doesn’t need to create the ringing in your ears. Ringing in the ears is ultimately the brain trying to compensate for something - and this is teaching the brain to stop doing that. Meaning, the tinnitus gets better over time.
Note - the fancier hearing aids are blue tooth compatible, so you can use them to listen to music from your phone
Hopefully some of this helps!