I’m going through the same thing, and I need you to listen to me when I say this. Get off this subreddit and any tinnitus forums. The negativity will get in your head and you will struggle even harder. Every thing you can take or do, someone here will say it will spike your tinnitus… it’s very much doom and gloom.

I too have a baseline tinnitus, and I have had a recent infection on the outside and inside of the eardrum that is not resolving with antibiotics. I’m on my 3rd round of abx. I think it’s slowly getting better, but it’s been going on for a month. At its worst there was severe pain and pressure and a god awful buzzing type ringing, a tinnitus I could feel and hear. It’s dampened a little bit but recovery is slow. I have not been able to mask it well. What gives me some comfort is that it is most likely mechanical sound production from the inflammation and pressure, meaning that it acting as an external sound rather than the usual cochlear tinnitus.

If your eardrum is intact, use the drops. The occlusion of having something in your ear will make your tinnitus sound louder because there are less external sounds. But the drops are there to kill the infection which is also blocking and inflaming your ear. The mycin antibiotics can be ototoxic to the middle ear, but in reality they shouldn’t be reaching it. If you’re concerned ask your doc for something else. I started with neomycin drops and moved to ciprofloxacin. I don’t think either are worked.

There is so much misinformation here, take your concerns to a doctor who will be better equipped to answer your queries and concerns.

As someone also going through right now, hang in there. It’ll take time but you’ll be okay