I had a docs appointment during lockdown to follow up on what seemed to be conjunctivitis in my left eye that hadn’t gone away with drops, however, I cancelled it because I and the NHS had bigger concerns.

This has not gone away and is worse at night; gunk looks to come from tear duct.

Then in the last two weeks I have developed sporadic Tinnitus – Perhaps I have wax build up or something. Anyone had this?

So do I overcome the guilt of bothering the NHS and book two appointments or suck it up and let their time be spent curing real sickness?

Yes. Get it sorted. You don’t have to feel guilty. Hospitals are still running at half capacity in most of the country anyway. Book an appointment.

You can go to an opticians who offer a minor eye conditions (MECS) apt. Specsavers charge £25, not sure about the others.
Conjunctivitis normally goes away of its own accord after a week or so, get it looked at ASAP. Be prepared to phone around, most stores are busy.

Actually, shows how long I’ve plodded on with it as my eye test reminder came today, my last test 2yrs ago was when it had just started, they checked and said it was all clear.

Unless MECS offers something different?

Anyone had Tinnitus?

I have tinnitus. Mine is from noise damage and never goes away.

tinnitus can be a sign of illness or it can be something that just happens due to injury to your ears – mine was a motorcycle with a noisy fairing, noisy helmet and no earplugs

Nobody reply about my tinnitus help ?

Which was to throw the head around, focusing on near object, then sharply across the room to focus on a far away object, then close then far etc etc. back forward, close close close far far close close far far far and so on
I dunno, for me it works and takes a high pitched whine out of mindset.

Im sure by the brain trying to focus on 20 different objects all around the room it cannot concentrate on the noise.Too much information coming in 😕 Fooling it i suppose.

I’ve got the symptom tracking covid app (not the NHS one, the other one).

A few weeks back it asked if I had developed tinnitus. Perhaps Covid19 and tinnitus are related?

Tinnitus can be a symptom of somethings super serious, so definitely get it checked out. If the hospital has a capacity issue they will have the information to defer patients, whereas you will probably not have the full picture.
I had an MRI when I reported tinnitus. Nothing diagnosed so I was given a leaflet for living with it. Recenty I have found that a head massage to relieve muscle tension helps a lot.

And an eye infection that doesn’t go away sounds pretty serious too.

Paul, yes MECS apt is solely about the problem at hand. Where are you in the country? If you can find an IP (independent prescribing) optician she/he has more knowledge of this stuff.
What drops did you use btw- when my wife had conjunctivitis normal antibiotics didn’t work the eye hospital prescribed ‘Exocin’ which sorted it straight away.

I’m in Bucks. I’ve had two sorts of infection drops but I think they were both something you could get off the shelf. I’ll get an appointment for that firstly; perhaps antibiotics would be best this time.

As for the Tinnitus it wouldn’t surprise me if it was tension, stress related all things considered, though I have started using earbud Bluetooth headphones this year – but no gigs, obvs.

https://www.flareaudio.com/products/calmer

I don’t have tinnitus but I’ve ordered a pair of these mainly for use at work. Lots of reviews mention an improvement in tinnitus – for £20 maybe worth a go.

Iv’e had tinnitus for years, It mustn’t be as bad as some folk have it as I’ve got used to it. I blamed the stress of being a prison officer but 3 years later & not stressed it’s still there.
Mustv’e been that pesky AC/DC concert.

I’m the dame as you Essel – it doesn’t annoy me much altho as soon as I talk about it it does.

its very hard to compare as there is no objective reference to decide who has it louder! so much of it is about how it seems to you and how you respond. Now I’m listening to it its very annoying but most of the time it isn’t!

I’ve got a phone consultation at some point this afternoon so let’s see what the Doc says.

We’ve all had it after clubbing or a gig so there is a baseline I guess. This is not that. It is annoying though and I definitely could do without it.

We’ve all had it after clubbing or a gig so there is a baseline I guess

this is noise damage. sometimes you recover and sometimes you do not. so you have already got some degree of noise damage IMO

I too have Tinnitus. Had a full set of tests the other week after a postponement from March.

Mine is due to a loss of high frequency hearing and my brain is filling in the gaps with the sound of an aero engine.

I too have Tinnitus.

Me too. We did go to an awful lot of very loud things in our youth eh?

elduderino12
https://www.flareaudio.com/products/calmer

I don’t have tinnitus but I’ve ordered a pair of these mainly for use at work. Lots of reviews mention an improvement in tinnitus – for £20 maybe worth a go.

If you read the comments on their Instagram ads there are a lot of people saying they don’t work for tinnitus. The ad copy is also very evasive IMO. Tinnitus comes from inside the brain, so I’m rather sceptical about their claims TBH.

I’ve been having issues including persistent Tinnitus for about a year.
I eventually was referred to a specialist and had an MRI in a largely deserted hospital a few weeks ago and waiting for results.
Generally, I think it is reasonable to check in with NHS with symptoms and attend whatever follow-up they can provide. In the grand scheme of things, it is better than a problem escalating to something worse that needs more intervention.

Me too. We did go to an awful lot of very loud things in our youth eh?

In retrospect I’m not sure that seeing The House Of Love numerous times was worth the grief.

In Worcestershire you can self refer to participating opticians through what used to be called PEARS ( primary eye assessment and referral service) for free. It may be that you have something similar locally.
Update: My partner who is an ex-GP has just said that it may be an idea to see a pharmacist or get in touch with your GP if it has been going on for so long.

There’s lots of useful information on tinnitus here:

British Tinnitus Association

elduderino12
https://www.flareaudio.com/products/calmer

I don’t have tinnitus but I’ve ordered a pair of these mainly for use at work. Lots of reviews mention an improvement in tinnitus – for £20 maybe worth a go.

If you read the comments on their Instagram ads there are a lot of people saying they don’t work for tinnitus. The ad copy is also very evasive IMO. Tinnitus comes from inside the brain, so I’m rather sceptical about their claims TBH.

I tried these, they didn’t work for me either…

If tinnitus is annoying during quiet times- going to bed etc, a good way to manage it is to put the radio on quietly or a white noise background track- or rainfall.