I had my first experience with tinnitus around 2009 or so. I was a dumb teenager and was blasting music way too loud directly into my ears with my ipod, I played in various garage bands where we practiced with cranked up electric guitar amps and full sized drum sets in small garages and rooms with absolutely zero hearing protection. One day I noticed that I had ringing in one of my ears and it was really bothering me to the point where I couldn't get to sleep and I needed to drown it out with some white noise every night. However, it only bothered me for a few weeks, maybe a month or 2 it's hard to remember back then. It was very mild tinnitus and I could really only detect it when trying to sleep, my day to day activities were not affected at all. I don't really remember when, but I pretty quickly fully habituated to the tinnitus, and throughout the rest of the next 16 or so years, it truly very very rarely crossed my mind at all, even in a quiet room it would no longer bother me or even get noticed. There were some nights, maybe once or twice in an entire year, that I would remember that I had it, and when I looked for it, it was in fact still there. But the very next day I'd forget about it again and went about my business completely as usual. Initial onset I'd say was a 2/10 in terms of intrusiveness, and over the course of living with it, it quickly became a 0.1/10. Pretty much a complete non-factor.
Fast forward to September 2025, I had visited a dermatologist to get prescribed Accutane (more specifically it was a different brand of isotretinoin under the name Absorica, but Accutane is the brand most recognizable) as I was now in my 30s and had dealt with acne problems since puberty. Nothing over the counter would ever clear it up completely, so I finally got fed up and decided to go with the best acne medication on the market, which many people have had success stories about and completely cleared their acne, and permanently. I was prescribed 40mg of this Absorica, to be taken daily with a full meal. I took it for a total of 20 days, and the first 19 days were smooth sailing, no major side effects other than very dry lips and dry nose which caused some nose bleeds. No big deal, these side effects are to be expected and they were easily manageable. And my acne was clearing up very nicely even though it had only been 19 days, and most courses are to be taken for a period of 6-9 months.
On day 20, October 4th, is when the nightmare started, my alarm for work woke me up and as I cracked awake I immediately noticed that my left ear, where my original tinnitus had always been, was ringing much much louder than it ever had. Initially I didn't panic or care that much as I assumed it was just temporary, but I did do some reading on if tinnitus was a side effect of Accutane, and as I'd come to discover, it was. It's a potentially ototoxic medication, along with a long list of other medications. I didn't even know ototoxicity was a thing before this event, so I was surprised to learn just how many commonly prescribed and even OTC medications can damage your hearing/cause tinnitus. More reading through forums and such I started to see more and more stories of people getting tinnitus from Accutane and other drugs that never went away. After I learned this is when I started to panic.
I called my dermatologist the next day and she explained that this can happen sometimes and to stop taking the medication and we'd follow up in 3 weeks, to which I agreed. The tinnitus had started getting louder as well. I would confidently say at this point it was easily a 10/10 loudness, to be able to sleep I needed 4 large fans running in my room + white noise playing fairly loudly on my phone speaker right under my head while I laid in bed, and even then I could still hear it. Eventually I'd somehow fall asleep, but only briefly. I work from home, and I could hardly concentrate at all on my duties so I took some time off. During my time off I would get in my car and drive around town with all windows down, and radio music pretty loud. I did this for 4-5 hours a day, just driving in big circles around my city just to kill time and to keep my mind off the ringing. But I'd eventually get home and lose my mind again. I could hardly stomach food or drink due to nerves/anxiety, couldn't indulge in any of my hobbies since I couldn't focus on anything but the extremely loud ringing, couldn't sleep because of the ringing, I couldn't do anything at all. I felt like I was no longer a real person but instead just a husk that was barely keeping itself alive.
This continued for about 8 days, and on the 8th night, I was pacing around my backyard thinking that I could not possibly live the rest of my life like this. I was thinking of ways to end my life, and pondering how it would affect my family, and my friends. I really did not want to die, and it was tearing me up emotionally going back and forth between "There's no cure or treatments, the only way to stop the ringing is to die" and "I can't do that to everyone that I love". I just paced around my backyard crying my eyes out for a couple hours. That night my roommate had let me know he was going to stay at a friends house for a few days, and so I decided I needed some way to get my head out of this spiral, so I contacted him and asked if I could come hang out with them for a while. They said sure, so I headed over.
I explained to them what I'd been going through and how much it was affecting me, and being in the presence of friends and talking it out helped me to calm down my nerves a bit, although throughout the entire time we were all talking and watching stuff on the TV, the ringing was ever present and didn't leave my mind for a single second. My friend offered me a couple Clonazepam, an anti-depressant, to help me calm down and to help me sleep. I was skeptical of taking any more medications and googled Clonazepam if it was ototoxic, and turns out it was. Some people had their T caused by it, so I ultimately turned it down, and at the end of the night I headed home. Back to the 4 fans and white noise, but that night I felt a bit better and not as anxious after hanging out with some friends, so I got to sleep a little bit easier, even without taking the anti-depressant.
Day 9 was when I first noticed a major change, the extremely loud blaring tone in my left ear had started to ease up. It was not as loud as the previous 8 days, this gave me a bit of hope. Day 10 it started changing from a loud tone to more of a static, a static that I swear I could feel in the back of my neck. As if a CRT TV had been connected to my head, and that static visual you see when you're on a channel with no signal, I could feel that sensation on my neck. It was an extremely weird feeling. Shortly after, it then also spread to my right ear as well, which had always been tinnitus free. The static and static feeling, while still loud and very much obnoxious and intrusive, was much more bearable than the screaming loud tone. By Day 14, the static had changed again to now being like an extremely high pitched ultrasonic hiss in both ears, and I could no longer feel any static sensation.
On Day 15, I started noticing that not only was the tinnitus now this ultrasonic hiss, but it was also reactive to other sounds. The fans that I had needed on the previous 2 weeks to drown out the ringing/static were no longer effective. This hiss would get louder and louder to compete with the fans, and would actually get quieter when I'd turn the fans off. This was very distressing. I had also noticed that when I turned on my faucet in the bathroom, the water was making a completely different sound than I had ever heard, it was whistling. A phenomenon that I've come to learn is called Dysacusis. This whistling accompanies many sounds, faucets running, plastic bags being ruffled, running my hands over my jeans, certain tones in music, people talking, shooting guns in a video game. Many many things in my daily life are now tainted and sound weird because of this whistling overtone that I hear over them. Just when I thought I had gotten a break and that my tinnitus was calming down, these new effects started up my anxiety spiral again and I was once again feeling the suicidal thoughts.
Where previously my days were consisting of driving around town and immersing myself in as much sound as possible to drown out the ringing, now I found myself in the exact opposite position. I now needed to avoid sounds to have the hissing not get louder. I was spending most of my day inside my car, which was in the garage. It was almost silent in there, and the hissing was very minimal. It felt almost like nothing, like I was almost normal again when sitting inside my car in silence. But as soon as I would leave the car and return to the house, the hissing would just get louder and louder. I continued this routine of sitting in my car for about a week.
It's now day 39 and the situation with the T has not gotten much better, if at all, since day 15. The dysacusis seems to have calmed down just a tiny bit, but not by much and it's definitely still there. But I am starting to cope with things somewhat better. I'm no longer spending most of my day in my car, I've been able to stomach food and keep myself hydrated, and I'm not feeling the intense dread that I had been feeling, although this may be because I still have hope that it's only temporary and will either go away or become less intrusive at some point. This hope is getting slightly weaker as each day goes by without any changes. I am still very much struggling to sleep well, and it's still affecting my ability to enjoy many things that I loved doing, but day by day I'm inching closer to normalcy despite this terrible ringing.
Fast forward to September 2025, I had visited a dermatologist to get prescribed Accutane (more specifically it was a different brand of isotretinoin under the name Absorica, but Accutane is the brand most recognizable) as I was now in my 30s and had dealt with acne problems since puberty. Nothing over the counter would ever clear it up completely, so I finally got fed up and decided to go with the best acne medication on the market, which many people have had success stories about and completely cleared their acne, and permanently. I was prescribed 40mg of this Absorica, to be taken daily with a full meal. I took it for a total of 20 days, and the first 19 days were smooth sailing, no major side effects other than very dry lips and dry nose which caused some nose bleeds. No big deal, these side effects are to be expected and they were easily manageable. And my acne was clearing up very nicely even though it had only been 19 days, and most courses are to be taken for a period of 6-9 months.
On day 20, October 4th, is when the nightmare started, my alarm for work woke me up and as I cracked awake I immediately noticed that my left ear, where my original tinnitus had always been, was ringing much much louder than it ever had. Initially I didn't panic or care that much as I assumed it was just temporary, but I did do some reading on if tinnitus was a side effect of Accutane, and as I'd come to discover, it was. It's a potentially ototoxic medication, along with a long list of other medications. I didn't even know ototoxicity was a thing before this event, so I was surprised to learn just how many commonly prescribed and even OTC medications can damage your hearing/cause tinnitus. More reading through forums and such I started to see more and more stories of people getting tinnitus from Accutane and other drugs that never went away. After I learned this is when I started to panic.
I called my dermatologist the next day and she explained that this can happen sometimes and to stop taking the medication and we'd follow up in 3 weeks, to which I agreed. The tinnitus had started getting louder as well. I would confidently say at this point it was easily a 10/10 loudness, to be able to sleep I needed 4 large fans running in my room + white noise playing fairly loudly on my phone speaker right under my head while I laid in bed, and even then I could still hear it. Eventually I'd somehow fall asleep, but only briefly. I work from home, and I could hardly concentrate at all on my duties so I took some time off. During my time off I would get in my car and drive around town with all windows down, and radio music pretty loud. I did this for 4-5 hours a day, just driving in big circles around my city just to kill time and to keep my mind off the ringing. But I'd eventually get home and lose my mind again. I could hardly stomach food or drink due to nerves/anxiety, couldn't indulge in any of my hobbies since I couldn't focus on anything but the extremely loud ringing, couldn't sleep because of the ringing, I couldn't do anything at all. I felt like I was no longer a real person but instead just a husk that was barely keeping itself alive.
This continued for about 8 days, and on the 8th night, I was pacing around my backyard thinking that I could not possibly live the rest of my life like this. I was thinking of ways to end my life, and pondering how it would affect my family, and my friends. I really did not want to die, and it was tearing me up emotionally going back and forth between "There's no cure or treatments, the only way to stop the ringing is to die" and "I can't do that to everyone that I love". I just paced around my backyard crying my eyes out for a couple hours. That night my roommate had let me know he was going to stay at a friends house for a few days, and so I decided I needed some way to get my head out of this spiral, so I contacted him and asked if I could come hang out with them for a while. They said sure, so I headed over.
I explained to them what I'd been going through and how much it was affecting me, and being in the presence of friends and talking it out helped me to calm down my nerves a bit, although throughout the entire time we were all talking and watching stuff on the TV, the ringing was ever present and didn't leave my mind for a single second. My friend offered me a couple Clonazepam, an anti-depressant, to help me calm down and to help me sleep. I was skeptical of taking any more medications and googled Clonazepam if it was ototoxic, and turns out it was. Some people had their T caused by it, so I ultimately turned it down, and at the end of the night I headed home. Back to the 4 fans and white noise, but that night I felt a bit better and not as anxious after hanging out with some friends, so I got to sleep a little bit easier, even without taking the anti-depressant.
Day 9 was when I first noticed a major change, the extremely loud blaring tone in my left ear had started to ease up. It was not as loud as the previous 8 days, this gave me a bit of hope. Day 10 it started changing from a loud tone to more of a static, a static that I swear I could feel in the back of my neck. As if a CRT TV had been connected to my head, and that static visual you see when you're on a channel with no signal, I could feel that sensation on my neck. It was an extremely weird feeling. Shortly after, it then also spread to my right ear as well, which had always been tinnitus free. The static and static feeling, while still loud and very much obnoxious and intrusive, was much more bearable than the screaming loud tone. By Day 14, the static had changed again to now being like an extremely high pitched ultrasonic hiss in both ears, and I could no longer feel any static sensation.
On Day 15, I started noticing that not only was the tinnitus now this ultrasonic hiss, but it was also reactive to other sounds. The fans that I had needed on the previous 2 weeks to drown out the ringing/static were no longer effective. This hiss would get louder and louder to compete with the fans, and would actually get quieter when I'd turn the fans off. This was very distressing. I had also noticed that when I turned on my faucet in the bathroom, the water was making a completely different sound than I had ever heard, it was whistling. A phenomenon that I've come to learn is called Dysacusis. This whistling accompanies many sounds, faucets running, plastic bags being ruffled, running my hands over my jeans, certain tones in music, people talking, shooting guns in a video game. Many many things in my daily life are now tainted and sound weird because of this whistling overtone that I hear over them. Just when I thought I had gotten a break and that my tinnitus was calming down, these new effects started up my anxiety spiral again and I was once again feeling the suicidal thoughts.
Where previously my days were consisting of driving around town and immersing myself in as much sound as possible to drown out the ringing, now I found myself in the exact opposite position. I now needed to avoid sounds to have the hissing not get louder. I was spending most of my day inside my car, which was in the garage. It was almost silent in there, and the hissing was very minimal. It felt almost like nothing, like I was almost normal again when sitting inside my car in silence. But as soon as I would leave the car and return to the house, the hissing would just get louder and louder. I continued this routine of sitting in my car for about a week.
It's now day 39 and the situation with the T has not gotten much better, if at all, since day 15. The dysacusis seems to have calmed down just a tiny bit, but not by much and it's definitely still there. But I am starting to cope with things somewhat better. I'm no longer spending most of my day in my car, I've been able to stomach food and keep myself hydrated, and I'm not feeling the intense dread that I had been feeling, although this may be because I still have hope that it's only temporary and will either go away or become less intrusive at some point. This hope is getting slightly weaker as each day goes by without any changes. I am still very much struggling to sleep well, and it's still affecting my ability to enjoy many things that I loved doing, but day by day I'm inching closer to normalcy despite this terrible ringing.