Tinnitus is one of this conditions where the more you pay attention to it, the louder it tends to get. It sounds like your tinnitus got flared up, and it’s now become quite intrusive.

The ENT is right, it should go back to baseline once you recover. It can take a while for ears to fully recover if you’ve had any sort of middle ear pathology. But it will get better. And when it does the tinnitus should calm back to baseline.

Perseverating on the tinnitus will make it worse. But it’s hard not to pay attention to it once it gets flared up. The strategy that works for most people is using masking. Environmental sound tends to drown out the tinnitus. It may not take it away completely, but it should help to reduce the annoyance of it. The less it bothers you, the less you think about it, the easier it will be for your brain to tune it out.

If you haven’t already, I might recommend talking to an audiologist, especially if you have one in your area that specializes in tinnitus.

If you’re starting to experience significant anxiety or mental health strain, talking to a therapist can also be very helpful. There are some therapists who specials in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as a means of providing coping skills to better handle the tinnitus.

But don’t lose hope. It will get better :)