u/Horrible_Ives

I’ve been on Mirtazapine since April 2017 after experiencing very sudden sleep problems. Started off with 15mg a night, which went up to 30mg in 2019. Dropped back down to 15mg in 2022 and stayed that way since. I’ve also been taking 100mg Pregabalin with the Mirtazapine since 2023. I was also prescribed 10mg of Propranolol four times a day, which i gradually tapered off and now no longer take.

Last October, i went to my first ever rock concert. No one warned me beforehand that i should take some form of ear protection, and i don’t recall seeing anyone else in the audience wearing anything. I had ringing in my ears when i got back to my hotel, but didn’t think anything of it as i always had tinnitus for a few hours after being around loud music in clubs and that, but it was always gone when i woke up. I thought the same had happened the next day, as i didn’t hear anything when i woke up and headed home, but when i got home that night, i noticed a dogwhistle sound that i knew immediately was tinnitus. I went to the GP for a checkup and they found my left eardrum had burst, so they prescribed me antibiotics. I asked if the burst eardrum caused the tinnitus and if it would go away when the eardrum healed, but the GP said it was unlikely. I realised i had to make peace with it, and to be fair it didn’t bother me that much until this May, when an additional ringing that sounded like a distant siren outside came on, accompanied by my ears popping every time i swallowed and a bad sinus headache. I consulted a pharmacist, ANP and private ENT who all agreed it was most likely ETD and would go away in a few weeks. We’re on week 13 now and there’s been no change. In fact, the ringing had got worse. On Sunday night i had five different types of ringing all going on at once, and i’ve not slept more than an hour or so each night since as my brain just can’t seem to adjust to the new ringing.

I’ve told my story to another tinnitus community on here and one of them suggested i bring it to this one to see if any of you have had a similar experience. The user in question suggested the concert may not have been the root cause of all this after all and that it’s most likely a side effect of the meds i’ve been on, as Mirtazapine in particular has been known to cause tinnitus. The pharmacist at the GP i spoke to a few weeks back said tinnitus was a known withdrawal symptom for Mirtazapine but not that Mirtazapine itself causes tinnitus. So my question is, has anyone on here developed tinnitus whilst on these meds, and if you have and have come off the pills, did it make a difference?

Thank you.

Had tinnitus for 10 months now. First got it after attending a concert, like a lot of people on here. It sounds like a dogwhistle and has been constant every day since. As much as i wished i didn’t have it, it’s not been that severe, and i did adapt to it quite quickly and it didn’t really bother me.

I usually use the sauna after a gym workout. I only workout two days a week, and always used the sauna for 20 mins if it was working afterwards. I’ve almost always had sinus headaches after a sauna session, but electrolytes helped to postpone them until the nighttime if not prevent them completely. I treated the headaches with painkillers, mint tea, and sleep. Usually did the trick, unless the weather changed and barometric pressure brought it back.

In May of this year, i used the sauna after the gym one Sunday morning and got a headache, even though i took an electrolyte. Carried it around with me all day, then when i went to bed that night, i noticed an additional ringing on top of my regular tinnitus. I initially thought that it was from my dog barking at me (his barks are really sharp and loud). Didn’t sleep that night as i wasn’t used to this new noise, which i can only describe as a distant siren, or the noise Tarzan makes. Next day, i noticed my ears popped every time i swallowed and my appetite had dropped (i had to throw most of my dinner away, which really isn’t like me). I was very cold and shivery and felt extremely nauseous. Went to bed that night but struggled to sleep again. Managed a few hours (i take sleep aids as i have sleeping problems anyway) but woke up feeling the same as the day before. Went into work, everyone told me i looked unwell and should take the day off. Went home and told my mother about my symptoms. When i said my ears popped every time i swallowed, she advised me to hold my nose and blow. I did that and just like that the secondary ringing went away.

I slept well that night and went back to work next day feeling much better. Thought it was gone, but while in a board meeting that afternoon, the secondary ringing randomly came back. I tried holding my nose and blowing, but it didn’t do anything. Ears popped every time i swallowed. Figured it was an ear infection and went to the pharmacy, but the pharmacist looked in my ears and found nothing wrong. Said my symptoms were consistent with ETD and that there was no treatment he could offer me. Assured me it would clear up in 4-6 weeks and definitely wasn’t permanent. He advised me to go over the road and see a GP if i felt i needed a second opinion, so i went. They wouldn’t let me see a GP as they were too busy and it wasn’t life-threatening, so they made me see an ANP instead. She looked in my ears, agreed that it was most likely ETD, and assured me it would be gone in 10-14 days. I told her the pharmacist said it would be 4-6 weeks. She laughed and said ‘Then it’s 4-6 weeks.’ I asked which she thought was more likely. She said the pharmacist probably just said 4-6 weeks so i wouldn’t come back for that long, so 10-14 days was more likely.

When nothing changed in 4 weeks, i saw a private ENT consultant who was more interested in the primary tinnitus from the concert, which she thought might be a tumour and made me have an MRI. Ignored the ETD completely. The MRI tests were negative and her letter basically told me to just try and live with it. Didn’t say anything about the ETD. Told me to just use the ‘strategies’ the on-site audiologist gave me for the primary tinnitus while i was there, but the only ‘strategy’ the audiologist (who assessed my hearing and found no signs of loss or damage) gave me was ‘It’s permanent, there’s nothing you can do about it, i know because i have it as well, just listen to this meditation app for 10 minutes a day, eat spicy food and inhale steam.’ That was it. I booked another appointment with the consultant to try and get something done about the ETD but i’ve had to wait weeks for an appointment, which is next week.

I’m on week 13 and the ETD is still here, as is the associated ringing. Volume-wise, it’s not been too loud and is easily masked by environmental sounds outside my house, but last night when i went to bed, i noticed three additional sounds, bringing the total up to 5. As well as the dogwhistle and siren, which had gotten louder than it had ever been before, i had what sounded like a school bell and whooshing in my left ear, as well as another siren-like noise in my right. I tossed and turned for a couple of hours, then did this massage technique i saw on YT a few days ago where you put your palms over your ears and rotate anticlockwise 30 times then clockwise 30 times. I also did ten reps of yanking up my earlobes, which i’d also seen on YT. That seemed to get rid of the noises in my right year and slightly reduced the ones in my left. In the shower this morning, i had a scratch in my left ear and found brownish gunk (could have been bloody, not sure).

I’m really worried about the appearance of these additional sounds. Hoping it was just a one-off, but this whole thing is so hard to predict and understand. Please, if anyone’s reading this and has had the same experience, is there anything i can do to treat this and make the additional sounds (most likely from the ETD) go away? It’s likely the consultant next week won’t have any solutions, so i feel like this community is all i’ve got.

Thank you.

I have had ETD since May of this year. Despite a pharmacist, GP and private ENT consultant assuring me it wasn’t permanent and would go away ‘in a few weeks’, there has been no change. It came out of nowhere, but is most probably linked to a bad sinus headache i had that day that hasn’t entirely cleared up.

I have had a perforated septum since December 2024. After a lengthy referral process and two painful biopsies, i ultimately turned down the offer of a nasal plug as the consultant (same one as with the ETD) told me in her experience they weren’t effective and she tended to ‘take more out than she put in’. It’s not bothered me at all in the last 18 months, but my mother was wondering if the ETD might be linked. Anyone on here also have a perforated septum and chronic ETD, and do you think it might be linked?

I’m new to this community, so please forgive me if this has been asked or settled before, but i have a personal theory about the inexplicable absence of Jimmy McCavern in S6 despite S5 building him up as this big bad who would have a big showdown with Arthur.

It’s likely that IRL, Steven Knight and the producers of the show decided not to invite Brian Gleeson back because his Glaswegian accent was the subject of ridicule in the wider viewership, despite fans appreciating his character and looking forward to the inevitable showdown with Arthur. They probably didn’t feel the need to explain it in S6 because enough time had passed in-universe for it not to matter and were banking on people not caring enough about the character to ask.

In-universe though, my theory about why Jimmy just vanishes from the plot, never to be mentioned again, is this: Jimmy was the leader of a gang of Ulster-Scots Prods that terrorised 1920s Glasgow, densely populated with Ulster-Scots Prods and Irish Catholics both. He’ll have spent most of his criminal career clashing with Catholic gangs and IRA boys on the streets of Glasgow. I’ve read enough about the Troubles to know that for some people in the Protestant and Catholic communities, mere associations and fraternisation with the other side is considered treacherous and punishable by death.

IRL, Oswald Mosley was a staunch supporter of a restored Ireland. He left the Tory Party in 1920 in opposition to the Tory government’s policy on Ireland, which was to suppress and antagonise the native population with forces like the Black and Tans. In the show, Mosley makes an alliance with the IRA, while simultaneously associating with Jimmy and the Billy Boys.

Given how tribally loyalist the Billy Boys are, it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense that they would condone Mosley’s association with the IRA, because that would associate them with the IRA too. My theory is that when Jimmy realised how in-deep Mosley was with the IRA, who helped foil the assassination plot in the theatre, he made the executive decision as leader of the Billy Boys to call off the deal with Mosley. He couldn’t have his organisation be associated with Irish nationalist terrorists who had killed Protestants in Ulster; if nothing else, their street cred in Glasgow and NI would collapse and allow their rivals to gather support from the Ulster-Scots Prod community to replace them. The conversation was probably very brief and ended with Jimmy and the Billy Boys going hame with nae hard feelings. Mosley had enough support from the IRA and the Boston crew to feel like he wouldn’t need the Billy Boys when he finally took control. Aberama was dead and Arthur too preoccupied with his demons to follow him back to Glasgow for revenge, so we didn’t miss anything good.

So that’s my theory. Again, apologies if it’s rehashing old ground, but thought it was worth a discussion.

TL;DR: After the theatre incident, Jimmy called off his arrangement to support Mosley when he realised how close Mosley was to the IRA and he couldn’t have his Ulster-Scots Prod crew associated with Irish nationalists who had killed Protestants on the streets of Ulster.