my wife is tired of hearing about it so I'm putting this here.
I've mentioned around here that I have tinnitus, first about 14 years ago. I had no significant hearing loss at the time but the onset was within a day or two of taking doctor-prescribed large doses of ibuprofen for a back injury....learning some time later that NSAID's are ototoxic.
For the most part I was used to it, never really noticing it and could sleep just fine in perfect silence. It would occasionally get aggravated if I neglected to use hearing protection in a loud environment, or when I had fever and elevated heart rate or a lot of sinus congestion from an illness like COVID, or if I took any NSAID at any dosage (only did that once in 14 years). Generally I'm pretty cognizant of taking care of my ears since it started...the only power tool I haven't been wearing earing protection for is my drill, and I wear plugs if I'm taking the Jeep over 50mph.
In May it spiked up again. Being that I couldn't pinpoint any recent loud noise exposure (other than the ultrasonic cleaner at the dentist which is about in the right frequency range but both ENT and audiologist have expressed doubt that it would have been the cause), but I live on 4 acres in Oklahoma surrounded by allergens, and had some mild sinus drainage and things like nose bleeds in the afternoons after I'd mowed the lawn, I figured I might have some eustachian tube dysfunction and tried a couple of allergy meds and oral decongestants, but nothing really changed. I was sleeping ok most of the time but after a couple of months of not really clearing up I brought it up at a doctors appointment that I'd actually made to look into the nosebleeds. I was advised to take Flonase to help clear up the sinuses. I've generally avoided nasal corticosteroids due to a possible link to eye issues like cataracts and glaucoma but I figured if it would help, I could use it short term.
Not only did the tinnitus not improve, my concern and anxiety surrounding it continued to build until I started losing significant sleep over it...it started with only getting 3-4 hours and gradually reached the point where a couple of nights last week I literally got zero sleep. on 7/17 I went into a walkin clinic because I felt pain inserting ear plugs at work and found middle ear infections on both sides. Got a z-pack for that, but still no significant improvement, and I thought that was somewhat confirming of my eustachian tube self-diagnosis because I don't know how I would have had the conditions to develop an ear infection otherwise without having any other upper respiratory illness. I got into an ENT on 7/23 who said the infection was cleared up and didn't really see any reason to suspect eustachian tube issues but prescribed prednisone, and gave me a regimen of nasal decongestant consisting of Afrin, saline spray, and increasing my flonase to twice a day, but also ordered an audiogram to evaluate hearing loss. The night before I had started resorting to benadryl to help me sleep, but it only worked for 3 nights before I became tolerant of it and all it did was make me feel sluggish and groggy.
Yesterday (7/25) I got into my primary again for what was supposed to be a routine physical and talked about all this stuff, and she prescribed trazodone to help me sleep. Then I went and took the audiogram, confirmed my eardrums are moving fine (so probably no eustachian tube issues) and I have mild hearing loss at 6k and 8k Hz. I haven't had an audiogram in 14 years so it's hard to tell how new that is but ENT seems settled that is the source of the tinnitus and that it'll fade or I'll get used to it in "weeks to months". TBH just having some more answers relieved a lot of the anxiety about it and I was paying less attention to it already...but even with the trazodone (which made me FEEL sleepy as hell) I got maybe 2 hours of sleep last night. My body just settles into that phase right above sleep where I get some weird random thoughts but won't go down into the next level. Once I finally gave up trying I pulled out my phone and start researching and find that the flonase is probably the cause of sleeplessness all along. Strangely insomnia isn't listed as a side effect in any of the official channels but a sleep help website and a lot of forum information connect them. I'm not sure why...it is a steroid, which affects cortisol and suppresses melatonin which are both relevant to the sleep cycle so it seems kindof obvious. And prednisone is the same class of drug, just administered orally, so I'm basically tripling up on the sleeplessness drugs.
It's time to stop the afrin because it will cause rebound congestion if taken for too long...but it caused it anyway so I was totally stopped up all night. It's a little improved now but I'm still more congested than I was before any of this started.
Not taking Flonase today, gonna taper the prednisone down by half tomorrow....hopefully I can get back to sleeping normally again within a few days and register this as an event I'm not sure I ever should have even taken to the medical profession to begin with. and I'll be wearing ear plugs for my drill and driving the Jeep at any speed from now on.
I've mentioned around here that I have tinnitus, first about 14 years ago. I had no significant hearing loss at the time but the onset was within a day or two of taking doctor-prescribed large doses of ibuprofen for a back injury....learning some time later that NSAID's are ototoxic.
For the most part I was used to it, never really noticing it and could sleep just fine in perfect silence. It would occasionally get aggravated if I neglected to use hearing protection in a loud environment, or when I had fever and elevated heart rate or a lot of sinus congestion from an illness like COVID, or if I took any NSAID at any dosage (only did that once in 14 years). Generally I'm pretty cognizant of taking care of my ears since it started...the only power tool I haven't been wearing earing protection for is my drill, and I wear plugs if I'm taking the Jeep over 50mph.
In May it spiked up again. Being that I couldn't pinpoint any recent loud noise exposure (other than the ultrasonic cleaner at the dentist which is about in the right frequency range but both ENT and audiologist have expressed doubt that it would have been the cause), but I live on 4 acres in Oklahoma surrounded by allergens, and had some mild sinus drainage and things like nose bleeds in the afternoons after I'd mowed the lawn, I figured I might have some eustachian tube dysfunction and tried a couple of allergy meds and oral decongestants, but nothing really changed. I was sleeping ok most of the time but after a couple of months of not really clearing up I brought it up at a doctors appointment that I'd actually made to look into the nosebleeds. I was advised to take Flonase to help clear up the sinuses. I've generally avoided nasal corticosteroids due to a possible link to eye issues like cataracts and glaucoma but I figured if it would help, I could use it short term.
Not only did the tinnitus not improve, my concern and anxiety surrounding it continued to build until I started losing significant sleep over it...it started with only getting 3-4 hours and gradually reached the point where a couple of nights last week I literally got zero sleep. on 7/17 I went into a walkin clinic because I felt pain inserting ear plugs at work and found middle ear infections on both sides. Got a z-pack for that, but still no significant improvement, and I thought that was somewhat confirming of my eustachian tube self-diagnosis because I don't know how I would have had the conditions to develop an ear infection otherwise without having any other upper respiratory illness. I got into an ENT on 7/23 who said the infection was cleared up and didn't really see any reason to suspect eustachian tube issues but prescribed prednisone, and gave me a regimen of nasal decongestant consisting of Afrin, saline spray, and increasing my flonase to twice a day, but also ordered an audiogram to evaluate hearing loss. The night before I had started resorting to benadryl to help me sleep, but it only worked for 3 nights before I became tolerant of it and all it did was make me feel sluggish and groggy.
Yesterday (7/25) I got into my primary again for what was supposed to be a routine physical and talked about all this stuff, and she prescribed trazodone to help me sleep. Then I went and took the audiogram, confirmed my eardrums are moving fine (so probably no eustachian tube issues) and I have mild hearing loss at 6k and 8k Hz. I haven't had an audiogram in 14 years so it's hard to tell how new that is but ENT seems settled that is the source of the tinnitus and that it'll fade or I'll get used to it in "weeks to months". TBH just having some more answers relieved a lot of the anxiety about it and I was paying less attention to it already...but even with the trazodone (which made me FEEL sleepy as hell) I got maybe 2 hours of sleep last night. My body just settles into that phase right above sleep where I get some weird random thoughts but won't go down into the next level. Once I finally gave up trying I pulled out my phone and start researching and find that the flonase is probably the cause of sleeplessness all along. Strangely insomnia isn't listed as a side effect in any of the official channels but a sleep help website and a lot of forum information connect them. I'm not sure why...it is a steroid, which affects cortisol and suppresses melatonin which are both relevant to the sleep cycle so it seems kindof obvious. And prednisone is the same class of drug, just administered orally, so I'm basically tripling up on the sleeplessness drugs.
It's time to stop the afrin because it will cause rebound congestion if taken for too long...but it caused it anyway so I was totally stopped up all night. It's a little improved now but I'm still more congested than I was before any of this started.
Not taking Flonase today, gonna taper the prednisone down by half tomorrow....hopefully I can get back to sleeping normally again within a few days and register this as an event I'm not sure I ever should have even taken to the medical profession to begin with. and I'll be wearing ear plugs for my drill and driving the Jeep at any speed from now on.
