Yes, I've had tinnitus since September of last year. I was floxed in July 2003.

While being floxed and for several weeks afterwards, I had *extreme* discomfort from sound. Actual physical pain and a sensation of pressure in my ears. (Same thing with bright light.) Pretty much all sounds seemed louder to me than usual, and very loud sounds were excrutiatingly painful. A roomful of people talking was more than I could bear.

After about exactly two months of this pain from noise, the tinnitus started, suddenly, in the middle of the night. It woke me up out of a sound sleep. At first I thought it was a fire alarm going off or something but once I was awake enough to realize it didn't sound like a fire alarm (it is much too high-pitched), I realized it was probably tinnitus.

It has lasted, non-stop, ever since. 10 months so far. I don't expect it to ever go away.

My hypersensitivity to sound has improved, although it has still not gone away completely. By October, once I was well enough to be able to leave the house (I was more or less totally disabled for the first couple of months post-flox), I went to a concert. It was uncomfortably loud for me and in fact when the whole concert hall applauded the first time I actually yelled out and covered my ears and put my head between my knees. I actually felt nauseous from the pain. I can attend concerts now without that severe a reaction. However, little sounds still do bother me. Even the sound of closing a toothpaste tube cap -- that little high-pitched snapping sound -- is painful. I am used to wincing in anticipation of a sound like that, but at least I can function now. (My reaction to bright light has followed the same trend; at first I would scream out if something I was watching on TV went from very dark to very light, and I found even a dusky sky at sunset too bright too look at; now I still have discomfort with sudden changes from dark to light, and the sky is still uncomfortable to look at during the day, but it's much better.)

I had a hearing test in October. Many cases of tinnitus are due to nerve deafness at certain levels of hearing: the brain fills in the emptiness at that register by imagining a constant sound at just that pitch. My hearing tests were completely normal: in fact I had slightly above-average hearing for my age (43). However, a standard hearing test doesn't test ALL registers: just the ones that are needed for functioning daily. Like being able to hear conversation and stuff. I might have deafness at a very high frequency -- a frequency that isn't required for everyday functioning -- but I don't know. The ringing in my right ear is at a higher pitch than that in my left ear.

When I stand up fast, the tinnitus gets worse. It seems to have some connection to blood pressure, I guess. It is NOT the pulsatory kind of tinnitus, though.

It is BY FAR THE WORST for me at nighttime when I am trying to sleep. I am unable to fall asleep anymore on my side. I have to be very careful to lie on my back with my head centered and facing straight up. I have two fans going all night long to drown out the ringing. If I put my head on a pillow, that ear is "protected" by the pillow from the white noise from the fan, and all I can hear in that ear is the high pitched sine tone. Even after 10 months I find it excruciating and horrible. For me, a pillow might as well be the receiver to a phone listening in on a fax in progress. I just learn to face up so both ears are exposed to the fan. I rarely hear the tinnitus during the day, especially if I am out and about. It's only when it's very quiet that I can hear it. So for instance if I am at a restaurant (a fairly rare event since there isn't much non-organic food I trust to eat these days), I won't hear the tinnitus in the dining room, but if I go to the restroom where it's very quiet, then I'll suddenly notice it.

The tinnitus is, for me, one of the most upsetting symptoms, psychologically. Unlike the tendon pain and the neuropathies, it is always there, lurking. I may not always be in physical pain, and I do go through "cycles" with the tendon/nerve issues, but the tinnitus just seems to be the one constant. My suspicion is that some permanent damage was done back when I got floxed, and that there's not much hope of improvement.

Tinnitus is very common -- and there isn't much in the way of treatments. By the way, MANY drugs can cause it, including aspirin. Aspirin is the most common source, by far. Although normally if you stop taking aspirin, the tinnitus will usually stop too. Many, many antibiotics can also cause it -- not just quinolones. Even the old- fashioned ones. I have a vet who is actually deaf in one ear from erythromycin, so even an old-fashioned antibiotic like that can be ototoxic.

I have heard that there is a group in New York City that you can go to who will make a personalized CD for you with a pink noise designed to cancel out your precise tinnitus, and that allegedly if you listen to this CD for like 30 minutes it will stop the tinnitus for 12 hours or something like that. I don't know how much success they've had, but apparently they've gotten approval from the FDA. Some day I may try it. I do have hopes that eventually the tendon and nerve problems will abate -- that the cycles will eventually get further apart and less severe -- at least I keep telling myself to hope that :-). I wish I had similar hope about the tinnitus, but I haven't come across anybody yet who had it once and has gotten over it.