Hello everyone,
I have an appointment tomorrow but was hoping to get opinions from other people on my situation. At the end of last month (July) I made a trip with a friend for a Drum corps concert (Think loud outdoor marching band concert with amplification at a football stadium.) and it was 3 days long about 3-4 hours each night. The trip was about 10 hours each way and the car we rode in also had an aftermarket exhaust and was quite loud when the drone was present, it averaged about 75 db cruising and 85-90 with the windows down or when flooring it. (measured with an Apple Watch after the fact). Here's my dilemma, if I woke up any of those days or a day or 2 later and started hearing the ringing in my ears I would suspect hearing damage, or if I heard muffled sounds etc. I had none of that.
What makes this hard to figure out for me is that the morning we started the drive up there, I had a super bad sore throat, and through the trip progressively got a cough, mucus in the back of my head and could hardly breathe etc. Well about a week after the trip, I'm starting to feel better. No breathing issues, just a minor cough which is normal for me when I'm coming out of it. Then about a week after I'm feeling better the Tinnitus comes out of nowhere. by the time that I started obsessing over it I realized I had been hearing it for about 3 days. and after the ringing I my ears start aching, feeling full, I'm noticing my ears pop when I swallow but I can't tell if its like the normal sound that you'd hear or something Eustachian tube related. Since its onset, I went to the urgent care and they said my ear drums looked fine and It was likely due to my upper respiratory illness. Since then my left ear gradually started to feel better and has been for awhile, but my right has slowly started feeling better as well. But I still feel the fullness in both ears on occasion. The ringing has always been the same exact pitch with the occasional 2nd tone that will pop in for a moment and leave maybe once a day.
To make matters worse, I am a stomach sleeper, and have always slept in a way that can cause my neck to be tense in the mornings. I have noticed that sometimes when I look all the way left or right the pitch doesn't change, but the intensity of the sound does. Same for certain times when I move my jaw all the way down or forward. It's driven me crazy enough to where I have been using copilot to bounce ideas off with and the general consensus from there is that I either have a post viral Eustachian tube dysfunction which would fit the timeline about a week after feeling better, or that coupled with the neck/jaw movement means it is somatic tinnitus. I have taken a "hearing test" with my airpod pros and they state I have little to no measurable loss in both ears.
So my question is, how likely is the tinnitus related to an acoustic trauma where damage from all the sound caused a 2 week delayed ringing and ear discomfort, sharp and dull aches, and fullness in the ear. Ive read that delayed ringing CAN happen from hearing damage but that it is rare especially paired with it the other ear symptoms. Should I ask for a prednisone regimen even though I am outside of the "golden window" since the actual exposure at this point happened a month ago. Do any of you have any similar examples of ringing in the ears from ETD issues after getting sick and starting to feel better? Copilot seems to think I did not do any meaningful damage to my hearing that would cause tinnitus and the person that rode with me on this trip has has no ill effects to their hearing and we were exposed to practically the same thing the whole week. So in my madness I'm hoping that I have an ETD condition that will eventually clear up and once the inflammation goes away the tinnitus will subside.
Thank you all that Took the time to read this and gave me advice!