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Tinnitus - mega thread

Mine in my right ear is almost certainly caused by the inner ear, as I had everything checked over, even an MRI to rule out anything suspicious. The good news is that no abnormalities found on the MRI. The bad news is they couldn't find out what caused the tinnitus. Also intermittent slight fullness in that ear, and strange sensations on the side of my face, nothing too alarming but certainly doesn't feel 100% normal at all.

My gut is that this was brought on by severe stress last year, along with tapering off carbamazepine (after I discovered it was quite ototoxic). Maybe the glutaminergic activity that increased after I weaned off carbamazepine worsened the problem that was already there. If you read my history I had a significant drop in my hearing in that ear which recovered on it's own - or at least I thought it did, perhaps it didn't fully recover 100% and this is the result because the tinnitus is identical to what I had for a few days after that happened. Some claim tinnitus can come a long time after such an event - even up to 2...fucking...years...later. Perhaps the carbamazepine, being a glutaminergic suppression agent, may have stopped excitotoxicity from eliciting the tinnitus for more than a few days and it went away because the carbamazepine was essentially blocking that effect. Then, when a few months later, I came off that shit, that damage became more apparent and was there the whole fucking time. As to whatever else may have caused it, no fucking idea whatsoever. This tinnitus all started on the 21st December last year. Read my post history. You'll understand what happened a lot better than what you might presume from this post.

Yes, I threw a hissy fit, but I'm an adult, I have the right to decide what medical attention I receive, and I had every right to be angry about this. Don't think any other human being would tolerate the way I was treated. Many of my friends would have sued the fucking daylights out of that doctor. Since most of them are musicians.
 
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I get noises in my head like when it starts to get dark and you hear crickets etc and just the sounds of night. I thought I was going crazy but my ENT Dr told me it was from constant ear infections when I was younger. I had tubes twice and a busted ear drum. I still hear it but I’ve gotten so used to it, I don’t even notice it unless it is really quiet.
 
I still hear it but I’ve gotten so used to it, I don’t even notice it unless it is really quiet.

Habituation usually lessens the impact and severity of the noise. Most people have tinnitus in one form or another, but probably don't notice it until they get older and the nerves inside their ears start deteriorating over time which increases the severity of the tinnitus.
 
I get it intermittently and with me it seems to be stress - related and is mostly the right ear. I find gingko extract helps and also playing some white noise to neutralize it when going to sleep (I play rain sounds which is nice and relaxing as well)
 
I get noises in my head like when it starts to get dark and you hear crickets etc and just the sounds of night. I thought I was going crazy but my ENT Dr told me it was from constant ear infections when I was younger. I had tubes twice and a busted ear drum. I still hear it but I’ve gotten so used to it, I don’t even notice it unless it is really quiet.
That is exactly what mine sounds like.
 
I am almost convinced that the caffeine could be helping this along. Jmo but concerning.

Yes, caffeine in excess can certainly increase tinnitus. Not sure if it causes it though, but it can make it worse in my experience.

Benzos seem to tamp it down quite a bit, but that's why I don't take benzos nowadays, because when the benzo runs out I think I'm going deaf because it returns and it can get gnarly.
 
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