Dr Hegarty: slight improvement

Saw the doc today. Audiogram had slight 5db improvement on left. That's good. Told him I had experienced two episodes of symptoms directly related to a meal I ate out. He wasn't pleased about the continued variability. No changes for now. Asked him about caffeine & alcohol. Alcohol has no effect. Caffeine negligible and should be minimized.

and now, Allergies

Back to work for three days and struggling to hear.    Cleaned the aids, cleaned my ears, changed programs but still having trouble.   Took me three days to figure out that I was having popping in my ears like altitude changes.  Then realized that it's allergy season. 
Took some Claritin and had improvement.     Geeez, can I get a break.

Good Burger/Bad Burger

Labor Day.  Went out to lunch with Annie and had a delish burger and fries at Stagecoach Inn.  Sitting out on the patio with the creek.  Nice.
This morning, I paid for it.  Got out of bed and the room was spinning.   As I've said before, it's like a hangover.  Room spinning, nausea and just a foul feeling.  Watered down with about 36 oz of water, took a meclizine and went to work where I downed another liter of water.  Four hours later, the flood gates opened and I pee'd sodium out all day. 
It was a good burger. 
Constant tinnitus remains. 

Hearing aid tune up

The HA specialist at Costco had been programming my device based on past audiograms from my doc.  He wanted to start from scratch with his own testing.   He did the same tests that my dr's office did plus a couple others that were specific for the device programming.  Then, using that data, the computer programmed my device automatically.   It worked well during my test run in the warehouse but performed horribly at work with the noisy environment I work in.  I think the noise suppression software was turning the volume down so much that I couldn't hear anything in the OR.  I worked three days and finally had to get in for a quick appt.
We set it all back to the previous settings but turned up the volume in both ears.  Now that I had a chance to sit in a watch what the programming was, I can say that my favorite is Noise/Traffic and the Focus 360.  I'm going to wear these for a while and really carefully consider any changes.
Back to the Doc in ten days. 
The Tinnitus is constant now.  I wonder if something is changing.  I remember the doc saying the tinnitus is a symptom of irritation.
Also need to clarify the effects of alcohol and caffeine.  read somewhere that they are bad for the ears.