Hello everybody, my first post and wondering of anyone has had the same experience as me. I have had tinnitus for a few years of the low rumbling kind but I didn’t realise I had it as I thought it was the hum of a motorway about 2 miles away! I spent over 20 years working in data centres and 40 years and counting with a music habit so I am used to background noise. A couple of years ago I started suffering infrequent dizzy spells and was eventually diagnosed with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. On the road to this I had just about everything checked. I wasn’t really surprised to find out that I needed a hearing aid for my right ear (on the waiting list now) and was happy to find my left ear didn’t need one.
Then in November 2017 I was driving home from work and suddenly could only hear low frequency ranges from my music. This gradually got worse and next day I could barely hear at all. Visited my GP who said I had an ear infection and gave me antibiotics. As luck would have it I had a scheduled ENT appointment a few days later at which the consultant told me I did not have an infection but that I needed a dose of steroids (prednisolone) that would shame a Russian athlete!
Just over a week later my hearing was restored and a hearing test confirmed that my left ear was back to normal and still didn’t need a hearing aid. Consultant wrote to my GP to ensure that if happened again I could get the steroids. Just before the New Year it has happened to me again except this time my tinnitus gets really loud sometimes. Went to my GP and she wouldn’t give me the steroids and wanted to speak to my consultant before agreeing to anything. Now as an asthma sufferer I am aware that you can’t use these long term but I know they worked last time. Now have an ENT visit next week.
In terms of easing the racket I have resorted to music on headphones to make my mind off it (although sound quality isn’t great) and I have even tried some of the masking sounds on the web some of which seem to work and some not. I can live with the low level rumble and I’m hoping it will calm down again. The sudden loss of hearing in my ‘good’ ear was a little scary.