Advice for Sudden Tinnitus Spike and Ear Fullness / Clogged Feeling: Could It Be Allergy Related?

[JohnL99]

wwtsai, I had a full battery of skin prick allergy tests. Found I was allergic to about 8 things common in my area. However, the doc said I wasn't highly allergic to any one thing so he wasn't sure going through the shots would be worth it. Maybe I should have ignored his advice. I never had allergy problems in my life until all this started 4 years ago. I do have mild high frequency loss in my left ear which I'm sure is the root of my issues, but I just feel instinctively allergies make it worse. I frequently have a runny nose, red and teary eyes. The fullness incidents always seem to happen in early spring and especially late summer. Like I said, I can't really work in my yard anymore for more than an hour at a time, even when it involves absolutely nothing loud or any kind of motorized tools because my ear will start clogging most of the time.

Anyway going to sleep now and the tinnitus is just a light whisper. Hopefully the trend continues. And I hope you get some answers. I will tell you the Flonase and stuff like that takes several weeks to a month or two to start working from what the doctors told me. I have been using that spray and Claritin daily now since all this started. Try not to use Afrin that much... it really doesn't do much for my clogging anymore though. It helped at the very beginning.

Remembering back to my first very acute fullness month of misery. The Prednisone did not work immediately. I remember it took about a week or so after I was done with the course for the fullness to finally break. I still remember that morning I woke up and it was blissfully gone. I actually think the fullness was worse than the tinnitus. The clogging was so severe, it made me feel like i was trapped in my own head and made me highly anxious and nervous. That was a long miserable month.

I was so clogged it was actually muffling my hearing in the clogged ear.

 

[JohnL99]

Hmm disappointed had a little setback today.

I was awoken in the middle of the night by roommate making noise so didn't have the greatest sleep. Then when I got up this morning I found out he had done something that greatly annoyed me, but it's not worth discussing that really. Not sure if that caused the setback today; it probably made it worse if anything. I had the kind of tinnitus this morning that I can feel building as i get up to move around. That's how it's been for me for years now in my habituated period. It scared me because it has been so low for over a week now and I was afraid it would keep ramping up to the distressing level it was a few weeks ago. I almost took a valium and went back to bed, but then I thought I am not going to allow this to ruin my weekend.

I forced myself to go out and do some errands and happily it has stayed at a tolerable level and not really gotten much worse. As a matter of fact, it settled some even after highway noise and the noise from going in and out several loud stores. It isn't so much that its really loud, its that this hissing is more insistent and faster if that makes sense. On my best days the air hissing is very soft and slow.

Maybe I'm settling back into my old pattern of (1) 'bad' day (2) better day (3) gone for a day or 2 and reset.

 

[JohnL99]

Well this really sucks... the hissing got really loud and insistent last night. I had to take valium to go to sleep. I woke up at 6:30 AM but went back to sleep. Got up at 10:30 and I can feel like its gonna ramp up during the day. Just doesn't make any sense. After 9 days of improvement suddenly it gets bad again. I pray it will only be temporary because when it's like this it ruins my day, and makes me so scared and depressed.

Still baffled as to why this 'spike' happened seemingly for no reason.

 

[JohnL99]

Day 3 of it being back... so sad...

Seems to be getting a little softer each day I guess.

Anyone else that's gone through a spike---did you find it was sort of an up and down recovery to baseline?

Hard to work like this. The worst part is the fear of whether its going to ramp up more and the constant monitoring. Feeling like i am chained to the cricket meadow sounds on my laptop. Very hard to concentrate on work.

 

[Kendra]

Most people find it's an up down recovery to baseline. I know it's hard. Hang in there!

 

[Michael Leigh]

Anyone else that's gone through a spike---did you find it was sort of an up and down recovery to baseline?

Hard to work like this. The worst part is the fear of whether its going to ramp up more and the constant monitoring. Feeling like i am chained to the cricket meadow sounds on my laptop. Very hard to concentrate on work.

HI @JohnL99

It is good to hear that your spike has reduced to what it previously was although it's still causing you some difficulties. You need to think back and found out what caused it. Spikes are usually caused by exposure to sound and it doesn't have to be loud. Headphone use can cause it too. You need to be careful and not overuse hearing protection. I suggest using low level sound enrichment whenever possible and try Not to sleep in a quiet room.

Michael

 

[nb888]

Thought I would respond since I have also the similar "hissing" tinnitus as you. For me it was caused by an ear infection in 2018 on top of existing different tinnitus in my left ear caused by another ear infection so not exactly the same cause but a similar sounding T. The bad news is that 2.5 years later the T never went away, the good news is it has definitely decreased to a level where I don't really notice it unless I want to. Partly habituation and partly (I believe) an actual reduction in the noise.
A few things helped for me. I used to do this thing where I would be monitoring the T every day, thinking things like is it better now, is it worse, what about now 5 minutes later, is it better or worse, what about now? I used to get worked up into a state constantly focusing and obsessing about whether the T was better on this day or that day, and was it better or worse an hour ago or this time last week etc etc,. I gradually realised that this is an unhealthy state of mind to be in so if you can try not to do this (easier said than done). The important things to remember there will be good days and bad days and focusing on every nuance of the T and stressing over the bad days will not change things in any way.
The other thing I found helped me personally was to go outside and keep busy, do new things, keep the mind busy. It may not help you and you may already be busy but for me having new things in life "steered" the brain away from the new T sound.
I don't know if it is feasible for you but are you able to go somewhere for a couple of weeks or longer that is cooler and has a more temperate climate than where you are now? This might be useful in testing the the theory that the T is made worse by the climate you are in currently.
I can't really say much about the exposure to sound bit since that's not what caused the T for me: all I can suggest is if sound is causing spikes in T then rest your ears by wearing earplugs and / or ear defenders but I would repeat the advise given by others and don't protect your ears from every sound, so you should perhaps gradually try and expose them to low sounds gradually over time, if you notice any spikes then you may want to resume the ear protection.

 

[JohnL99]

Hi @Michael Leigh,

I guess the only loud trauma I can possibly think of was like you said using headphones while working from home sometimes. I have been working from home due to COVID-19, and sometimes as to not wake up my roommate, I would play videos while I was working. It was usually not loud (at least I didn't think so) and it was mostly videos or programs, not loud music. That is the only thing I can possibly think of that hurt my ears other than allergy complications.

I did go through a 9 day improvement streak as I documented in this thread until I woke up Saturday morning. It got the worst Saturday night with slight improvement since then, although it didn't get near as bad as it was when the spike first started with the electric / drill tones.

It actually got very soft last night and I was able to fall asleep quite easily with my nature sounds playing on my laptop. On Tuesday morning it is virtually gone. I am looking forward to a 'good' day hopefully!

I guess if anything this is evidence that my ear is slowly healing I hope. I will no longer use headphones and I have been very careful, using foam plugs when driving, taking them with me on walks in case I come across lawn equipment / loud cars, etc. I have also noticed my ears are not nearly as affected by loud noises as they were when this first started a few weeks ago. I still remember how it got so loud after using an electric stick vacuum. From now on all vacuuming will be happening with foam plugs and muffs on!

 

[JohnL99]

Great day yesterday... it was pretty much completely gone the entire day. Before bed I could hear it a little bit but not bad.

This morning woke up and there was something going on but it settled down once I got up and started moving around. It's back today, but very low and not too bad.

I'm taking this as good signs that it seems to be returning to baseline. Can't believe it's already been almost 3 weeks since this started. But I guess that makes sense as most people here claim spikes usually take a couple months to return to normal.

 

[Michael Leigh]

'm taking this as good signs that it seems to be returning to baseline. Can't believe it's already been almost 3 weeks since this started. But I guess that makes sense as most people here claim spikes usually take a couple months to return to normal.

HI @JohnL99

I have seen your posts by chance. When writing my name please do not include a comma , at the end of the name otherwise I wont receive an Alert message. It is good that your spike is improving. As I suspected it was probably headphone use that caused it. I advise you not to use them again even at low volume. You are fortunate that your tinnitus is returning to baseline because often it will not reduce as many people have found using headphones with Noise induced tinnitus. Please take this as a warning and don't use headphones again and be careful of loud sounds including music.

Hope things continue to improve for you. Try not to keep monitoring the tinnitus although I know it's not easy. Use sound enrichment especially at night.

All the best
Michael

 

[JohnL99]

Well the last couple days the T has been annoying but low enough to kind of ignore. Especially when I get busy with work or engrossed in other things it kind of almost fades away.

The weird thing is it feels like it has gone from my left ear, the one with actual hearing loss, to the right ear, the one WITHOUT hearing loss. I have never really had it in my right ear. Also this T seems to go up and down in intensity throughout the day. Sometimes almost disappearing to ramping up and back and forth. That never was the case for me before. It always pretty much stayed the same all day. My head just feels weird. I really honestly think there is some kind of allergy component that is aggravating the existing T. The fact that it was so low to almost nonexistent pretty much the entire time I was on the full prednisone dose and then 'mini-spiked' after I started tapering down also makes me think there is a significant allergy component. None of this makes any sense otherwise.

Also weird that it seems to be worse when I wake up and get better throughout the day, which is completely different from how it used to be. It's like there is fluid in my ear or something that settles when I lay down and sort of clears itself out when I am awake and upright. I noticed laying flat on my bed makes it worse. I have started sleeping on the couch where my head is more elevated and it seems to make it better.

The worst part is waking up in the morning and not knowing how it will be for the rest of the day.

I am pretty much dumbfounded. I can happily say it has definitely improved since all this started almost a month ago now. Going by the advice of many on this site, I understand it can take several months for a spike to resolve. Hopefully it will slowly but surely return to baseline.

 

[JohnL99]

So freaking annoying... it had softened to almost nothing yesterday... thought I would get a quiet day on Saturday for once. Nope it decides to ramp up in my RIGHT EAR now (where it has never been). It is not that loud but the hissing is more insistent and faster if that makes any sense, therefore much harder to ignore. Outside it is masked pretty well but for whatever reason it's much louder inside.

 

[JohnL99]

Wow what a horrible night. My left ear became totally and completely clogged last night. So much pressure felt like my eardrum was being pulled inward. My hearing was actually somewhat muffled. This started about 7:30PM. I had been grocery shopping and didn't use plugs because I had been improving and sounds weren't really bothering me much. I could feel it coming on after shopping. The car radio on low volume (I think it was on level 20 and the car stereo goes all the way up to 40) for 5 minutes seemed to put it in overdrive. The ear was completely clogged for about 4 hours. At about 11PM I could finally feel the pressure releasing. Then a high frequency ringing started. It reminded me of what fleeting tinnitus feels like--the kind where your ear kind of zaps and then rings for about 30 seconds. Of course this was distressing but it settled and the volume lowered to almost nothing within about 30 minutes.

Woke up this morning and the ringing started again. Very distressing. Went for a walk outside and within about 45 minutes it mercifully lowered to almost nothing.

I guess on the good news side the regular hissing tinnitus that seems to have decided to move into my right ear is extremely low today.

I have been very careful protecting my ears since all this started. No headphones whatsover, nothing loud, using foam plugs. To vacuum, I got some 3M 30dB hearing protector muffs.

I am convinced allergies has something to do with all this. As I've stated before, the worst attacks, especially the clogging, has always occurred in late summer/early fall. We have had so much rain here in S. Louisiana. It seemed to have rained almost every day in July. Sometimes it feels like I have wetness or the sensation of water inside my ears. Another thing the makes me think there is an allergy component. Sometimes just being outside for more than 30 minutes at a time can make my ear start to clog, even with no loud sound of any kind whatsoever. I have also observed that my ears can start to feel clogged simply from eating something with sugar/carbs in it with no loud sounds involved at all.

I am really seriously considering starting allergy shots. Maybe it's not the reason, but it can't hurt to try.

 

[JohnL99]

Funny thing is after such a horrible night and beginning of the day... the rest of my day has been completely tinnitus free... go figure!

Sometimes I wonder if these are Meniere's like symptoms, but I have never had any vertigo/balance problems whatsoever.

I wonder if a diuretic would help. From what I understand those are relatively benign drugs that wouldn't hurt to try.

 

[JohnL99]

Well it happened again tonight... late in the afternoon could feel the pressure building in my left ear. It never totally clogged, but about the same time as yesterday the pressure reached a 'boiling point'. I went for a walk as I always do when this crap makes me anxious. All of a sudden I could feel the pressure break and then the high pitched ringing began. It lasted about an hour and finally is subsiding. I didn't even leave the house today except to go for walks in the neighborhood. I guess that's why I didn't totally clog. I sure hope this stops. It is very nerve wracking.

 

[Kendra]

Funny thing is after such a horrible night and beginning of the day... the rest of my day has been completely tinnitus free... go figure!

Sometimes I wonder if these are Meniere's like symptoms, but I have never had any vertigo/balance problems whatsoever.

I wonder if a diuretic would help. From what I understand those are relatively benign drugs that wouldn't hurt to try.

Just make sure it's not a loop diuretic. Those are ototoxic.

 

[JohnL99]

So since Saturday night I have a new totally different issue. My left ear keeps clogging. The pressure gets worse and worse, I can almost hear like a wind sound and feel almost a vibrating sensation as the ear pressure ramps up. It keeps ramping and finally all of a sudden the pressure will break. Then it will start ringing in a loud almost bell tone. This seems to go on for 30 min to an hour and then I can hear it settling down. This first happened Saturday night. I awoke Sunday to the bell tone. It went away after an hour. Then it was gone almost the entire day until it started ramping up later in the evening. It happened again and then settled down.

On Monday I woke up with some clogging, I went to work and by 11AM it happened again. The ringing stopped after an hour. By the time I went home around 5PM I could hear it ramping up again and it happened. The ringing came on and it finally stopped but a seashell to the ear tone and a weird sort of clogged sensation persisted until I went to sleep at 10PM. I awoke at 2AM and it happened again.

No idea what is going on. I have been improving the last several weeks and then all of a sudden this. Now I am petrified every time this starts happening and praying it will stop. This does not seem like 'normal' tinnitus to me.

Can anyone help? Is it fluid in the inner or middle ear? This reminds me of the clogging I got when my whole ear issues started 4 years ago. But at that time I did not have any ringing associated with it.

Weird thing is the regular tinnitus seems to have eased off a lot, but I would rather have that back then have to deal with this new nightmare.

Waking up this morning I don't really feel any pressure but my left ear still feels a little weird and the muffled seashell to the ear thing is going on.

Going back to my ENT/allergist Friday, but I feel like he won't have any answers as usual.

 

[Kendra]

Can you pop your ears? Do your Eustachian tubes open?

 

[JohnL99]

I'm not sure how you can tell if your eustachian tubes open. If I hold my nose and blow I can feel the ears open, not always easy. Sometimes it feels like it's hard to swallow when the pressure is really bad. I notice when I go outside sometimes both ears start to feel clogged very fast.

Today the 'ramp up' did not happen until about 2PM. Strange thing is it happened without the horrible fullness as in the prior attacks. Maybe that is some kind of improvement. It was triggered by me talking on the phone to someone at work. The loud ringing lasted about an hour and 10 minutes. Once it finally reduced, it has settled back into my normal air hissing sound. It has not reoccured as of 7:30PM. Last night it took an hour and half for the ringing to stop and even after it calmed the regular tinnitus was loud and distressing. It happened again in the middle of the night when my stupid roommate woke me up at 12AM.

Actually, the tinnitus has been pretty quiet the last 3 days after the pressure explosion ringing stops. Unfortunately I can't enjoy anything as I am petrified it will happen again and I have been covering my left ear all day.

I just don't know what's going on. I pray this goes away. I had to stay home and work from home for fear it would ramp up and explode at work again like it did yesterday. This is no way to live in constant fear.

 

[Kendra]

Since the clogged feeling ramps up when you go outside it may be due to allergies.

 

[CliveR]

This is my first post and I confess that I haven't read the entire thread but I have the gist of your issues and can identify with many of them, so you have my sympathy. I've had tinnitus for nearly 25 years now but have more recently experienced other problems that started with pressure in the ears. I won't go into all of them but it seems that a lot of it may be down to temperamental eustachian tubes - I've come to the conclusion that ETD may account for a lot of ear problems and it may be at the root of yours.

In my case, ETD can sometimes result in pressure or tension directly in the ears, but often as tension elsewhere around the ears, particularly in the sides of the face (near to the ETs) and even in my neck below the ear. I also get a trickling sensation in the ear canal, like there is water in there, but have learnt that this is usually a sign that things are easing. This is something that occurs almost every day at some point in the day. I have done various things to try to ease the tension and thought it would be worth sharing them with you, although you may have already tried them.

My Doctor suggested inhaling steam by holding my head over a bowl of hot water and under a towel. I believe this is to relax the inflamed ETs and open them up - it can work but often only temporarily. Probably equally effective is to hold something warm against the sides of your face. I bought a wheat bag to heat up in the microwave, and this can actually be quite soothing. And strangely, just holding my hands against the sides of my face can often have a similar effect. However, for me one of the most effective ways of easing ETD is simply to lie down.

The tinnitus is a tricky one, as I think everyone's tinnitus is different. While I dare say your tinnitus episodes are somehow physical in origin, I imagine that by now your brain is hypersensitive to any changes in your tinnitus and homes in on them. Keeping this diary is a way of letting off steam but is also probably making your brain focus on your tinnitus and other issues. I've recently been reading books on mindfulness, including one on coping with chronic pain, of which tinnitus can be considered a variant. They talk about primary and secondary suffering. Primary suffering is the real pain that you feel, while secondary suffering is your emotional reaction to this pain, and it is the secondary suffering that often causes the most distress, magnifying the physical pain - like your anxious reaction to a new tinnitus sound (even though it may be temporary). So, one of the aims of mindfulness is to minimise our emotional response to pain or unpleasant situations. You acknowledge that the pain/tinnitus is there but try to react indifferently to it. This pushes it into the background of the brain's attention. I think most successful coping with tinnitus is based on a similar principle, even if it isn't called mindfulness.

By the way, I also had a negative experience with white noise. I listened to it on YouTube through headphones at a relatively low level for a few minutes. The result was that the mushy noise-like tinnitus was pushed right down but the spikey high-pitch tones were pushed right up to an uncomfortable level. I'll never do that again.

 

[JohnL99]

Thanks Clive, I have long suspected some kind of ETD. Was the doctor definitively able to diagnose this? And have you gotten any relief?

 

[lightning]

The same thing just happened to me. I'm sitting in a quiet room, and my left ear suddenly feels full and my T in that ear triples in volume. No, I haven't had any loud noise exposure even since I got T in Dec/Jan. I protect my ears but I have bad ETD. Hopefully this goes away soon, otherwise I'm taking yet another trip to the dr.

 

[CliveR]

My Doctor mentioned ETD after my second bad 'attack' (initially they thought it was labyrinthitis). These attacks involved pressure in the ears with partial hearing loss. My tinnitus was not particularly active during the attacks, but I got spikes and extra tinnitus sounds in the following days. I also got hyperacusis after the initial attack.

Since these attacks, I've had daily discomfort and weird ear sensations that come and go - tension, motor or air-conditioning noises, clicks/cracks, fluttering, vibrations, tickling, stabbing pains and more. I'm pretty confident it is ETD, as I seem to have most of the classic symptoms and I can actually feel when my ETs tense up. My point is that in my experience the ETs can give rise to a wide range of ear phenomena, so ETD is worth investigating and taking seriously (which, unfortunately, doctors don't seem to).

I try to manage it as I described previously, which works to an extent. I did try a steroidal nasal spray, as recommended by the Doctor, but I'm not sure it really made any difference - the ETs are difficult to reach. I can't take the anti-inflammatory that is normally prescribed, as it clashes with another medication I take. So, I'm currently taking fish oil tablets in the hope that this might reduce inflammation of the ETs - this may be partially working, as perhaps my discomfort has been less severe since I've been taking them. It feels like anything is worth trying, within reason.

But I believe that the real way of dealing with ETD is to get down to the root cause. I've wondered about allergies, as this all started for me in Spring last year, but can't find any real correlation with anything. In my case, I suspect that the tinnitus and ETD may be connected with poor blood flow.

 

[JYD]

Hi wwtsai, glad someone is reading and getting some help from my daily diary.

I have had issues with the fullness the last 4 years when this whole ordeal started. Originally I had horrible, anxiety creating extreme fullness that lasted for a solid month. The ringing didn't start until a year later. The fullness has thankfully never gotten that bad again, although since then I would go through maybe a handful of occurrences a year of acute fullness that usually don't last more than a few hours or at worst a few days. Odd things that will give me fullness---(1) working out in the yard especially when it's hot, even when I am not using any loud tools; and (2) using the vacuum cleaner inside (will be using plugs from now on when I vacuum). I really think my allergies play a part in the fullness and there is a ETD component. I always seem to have the worst time of it around August. I live in S. Louisiana and this is the hottest and wettest part of the year. Sometimes even going from the dry cool air conditioned air into the intense humidity outside can give me the fullness sensation. I have found the behind the counter Sudafed will generally help with an acute fullness 'attack' although I like to avoid using it because it gives me the jitters.

So to your question about the prednisone--

I wasn't able to get to the ENT until about a week after this spike started. It began with 2 days of moderate fullness. I then woke up one night with a new high pitched tone and went through several days of the worst tinnitus I ever had. The fullness actually abated somewhat on its own before I began the prednisone. It continued to get better with Prednisone but I can't honestly say if Prednisone caused it although I know for sure it didn't hurt things. The fullness has mostly stayed very low or hasn't been there. Actually today I feel it a tiny bit for the first time in several days, although I've been out doing errands and in the heat today so that could have something to do with it. The most important thing is my tinnitus is at a whisper today, so I'll take it!

@JohnL99, I'm curious where you are with your situation today?