Whelp, it's been a wild ride. He had pre-existing tinnitus and managed it for seven years and then his symptoms blew up when he took an antibiotic for an infection. He's triple jabbed for what it's worth, despite my begging and pleading.
Short story is after the antibiotic thing he was in 24/7 fight or flight panic mode with no sleep and airplane engine noise raging in his head, so he then tried to test his own hearing to investigate whether a certain device awaiting FDA approval might work, and it turns out that at least anecdotal evidence suggests that listening to "pure tones" if you have Tinnitus (and even if you don't), is not a good idea. Now he's convinced that he would have recovered from the antibiotic incident and gone at least back to his baseline, but he's totally "fucked himself" by listening to the pure tones. His Tinnitus is extremely high frequency and he has dysacusis which is noise distortion.
He is very situationally depressed. It's like he is a totally different person. I am trying to help him stay positive to no avail. He is seeing a cognitive behavioral therapist so we will see what happens with that. He's seen numerous ENT's and It's been 8 weeks or so of total hell TBH. We are seeing an Oto-neurologist hopefully soon. The guy in Chicago we were referred to's first available is January 2026. So we are shopping that around. Hard to believe that there is limited things you can do for this, but it's true. Please pray. Appreciate you all so much.
If you are willing to entertain unusual alternative treatments, you will be interested in Darko Velcek. I suggest you read his intro first: https://darkovelcek.wordpress.com/introduction/
And then maybe one of his articles that addresses tinnitus: https://darkovelcek.wordpress.com/?s=Tinnitus
The quick advice is to adopt a keto or carnivore diet while keeping yourself well hydrated with plenty of electrolytes (i.e., sea salt). The blog articles explain why this works. I have found his advice to be remarkably sound and accurate.
I'll add my prayers for you and your Andrew as well. 🙏