Hi. I'll try to give you some of my story :
I am mid-40's, male. I would say that I do not have a history of chronic exposure loud music, power tools, or other loud sounds. However, I have a low frequency pulsatile tinnitus (PT) in my left ear, which seems to be synchronized with my pulse. In my right ear is a high frequency non-pulsatile tinnitus (T), which seems louder than the left ear sound. During most of the time when it is reasonably quiet, I hear the right ear T, but can only hear the left ear PT when it's very quiet. I believe that the left ear sound started around 3 or possibly 4 years ago. At that time, I would describe it as a car idling or humming sound--as if you were standing behind, near the muffler area(*1). I kept thinking that it would go away... and I was putting off seeing a doctor because of other things going on in life. I did go ahead to an ear institute two years ago, I had an audiology exam, and although they said that I had some mild hearing loss in both ears, but no idea about the humming sound (which now I describe as PT). Recently, the pulse has seemed to get louder, and I don't know if it is actually louder, or if I have become more conscious of it. I went to a different ENT specifically for this problem just last week. He removed ear wax build-up, and seemed to think that it might help. I didn't. He had me repeat the audiology exam(*2). After finishing that, he said that he still didn't know the cause, but didn't think that the cause would likely be a tumor, as (he stated) it would have caused changes over a shorter time scale than a few years. He said that I could either to an ABR or MRI, but positioned the advice as being that I should do ABR first because of it being non-invasive, and able to identify many possible causes of the T/PT. So I have scheduled the procedure for next week, and of course I hope that they find nothing wrong. I'm also wondering if an MRI could help find something wrong, like tumor, blood vessel anomaly, inner ear disease. For some reason, I think that my anxiety was triggered recently, because I read a recent story of an athlete's wife who had a brain tumor, which had some hearing effects. The worry is affecting my sleep and stress level.
One thing that I am going to do immediately is reduce my vitamin D intake. I am taking 6K IU's daily, which is way higher than recommended. I read something that PT could be caused by VitD overdose. I began doing high dose D in 2016 after cluster headaches began, and it seemed to help at the time. I'll cut 5K of that daily dose to see if it helps after two weeks as an experiment. Anyone have comments about that?
I don't know of any other supplements or things to try that might help short-term. However, I drink about 2 cups of coffee a day, and I should probably decrease that. So far, I notice the PT/T most easily while trying to sleep, which is when caffeine would be lowest in my system.
Any other ideas?
My thought is that perhaps a blood vessel near the eardrum or ear canal is either swollen or touching something to cause the PT. This could explain why some people mention that certain substances make it worse. Or, could some kind of inflammation or fluids near the inner ear be amplifying or acting like a bridge to transmit the sound of a normal blood flow?
Another question that I ask myself is if both left ear, low-pitched PT and right ear, high-pitched T have the same cause for me? It seems possible to me that perhaps auditory nerves or sensory cells could be too excited or damaged, with a common cause.
(*1) Back before I noticed the PT , there were a few days when I noticed a very strange phenomenon in the left ear. When I heard sounds from my environment, it got distorted into warbling effect, like I was hearing sounds through a tunnel, but with some frequency or pitch changes. At the time, I thought it was due to fluid in my inner ear tube. That eventually disappeared. Has anyone experienced strange phenomenon with distorted sounds, on one or more occasions?
(*2) The results indicate that I have notch-like hearing loss in my right ear (short dip "notch" in hearing loss at one frequency from the right), and they say that this is very common during aging or somewhat due to exposure to loud noises. In the left ear, the loss is deeper, especially in the 8kHz level. In daily life, I can hear fine. I wonder if the measured hearing loss is due to (a) the PT masking the test tones and sounds during the exam, or (b) if true hearing loss, does the loss have a common cause with the PT?
I am mid-40's, male. I would say that I do not have a history of chronic exposure loud music, power tools, or other loud sounds. However, I have a low frequency pulsatile tinnitus (PT) in my left ear, which seems to be synchronized with my pulse. In my right ear is a high frequency non-pulsatile tinnitus (T), which seems louder than the left ear sound. During most of the time when it is reasonably quiet, I hear the right ear T, but can only hear the left ear PT when it's very quiet. I believe that the left ear sound started around 3 or possibly 4 years ago. At that time, I would describe it as a car idling or humming sound--as if you were standing behind, near the muffler area(*1). I kept thinking that it would go away... and I was putting off seeing a doctor because of other things going on in life. I did go ahead to an ear institute two years ago, I had an audiology exam, and although they said that I had some mild hearing loss in both ears, but no idea about the humming sound (which now I describe as PT). Recently, the pulse has seemed to get louder, and I don't know if it is actually louder, or if I have become more conscious of it. I went to a different ENT specifically for this problem just last week. He removed ear wax build-up, and seemed to think that it might help. I didn't. He had me repeat the audiology exam(*2). After finishing that, he said that he still didn't know the cause, but didn't think that the cause would likely be a tumor, as (he stated) it would have caused changes over a shorter time scale than a few years. He said that I could either to an ABR or MRI, but positioned the advice as being that I should do ABR first because of it being non-invasive, and able to identify many possible causes of the T/PT. So I have scheduled the procedure for next week, and of course I hope that they find nothing wrong. I'm also wondering if an MRI could help find something wrong, like tumor, blood vessel anomaly, inner ear disease. For some reason, I think that my anxiety was triggered recently, because I read a recent story of an athlete's wife who had a brain tumor, which had some hearing effects. The worry is affecting my sleep and stress level.
One thing that I am going to do immediately is reduce my vitamin D intake. I am taking 6K IU's daily, which is way higher than recommended. I read something that PT could be caused by VitD overdose. I began doing high dose D in 2016 after cluster headaches began, and it seemed to help at the time. I'll cut 5K of that daily dose to see if it helps after two weeks as an experiment. Anyone have comments about that?
I don't know of any other supplements or things to try that might help short-term. However, I drink about 2 cups of coffee a day, and I should probably decrease that. So far, I notice the PT/T most easily while trying to sleep, which is when caffeine would be lowest in my system.
Any other ideas?
My thought is that perhaps a blood vessel near the eardrum or ear canal is either swollen or touching something to cause the PT. This could explain why some people mention that certain substances make it worse. Or, could some kind of inflammation or fluids near the inner ear be amplifying or acting like a bridge to transmit the sound of a normal blood flow?
Another question that I ask myself is if both left ear, low-pitched PT and right ear, high-pitched T have the same cause for me? It seems possible to me that perhaps auditory nerves or sensory cells could be too excited or damaged, with a common cause.
(*1) Back before I noticed the PT , there were a few days when I noticed a very strange phenomenon in the left ear. When I heard sounds from my environment, it got distorted into warbling effect, like I was hearing sounds through a tunnel, but with some frequency or pitch changes. At the time, I thought it was due to fluid in my inner ear tube. That eventually disappeared. Has anyone experienced strange phenomenon with distorted sounds, on one or more occasions?
(*2) The results indicate that I have notch-like hearing loss in my right ear (short dip "notch" in hearing loss at one frequency from the right), and they say that this is very common during aging or somewhat due to exposure to loud noises. In the left ear, the loss is deeper, especially in the 8kHz level. In daily life, I can hear fine. I wonder if the measured hearing loss is due to (a) the PT masking the test tones and sounds during the exam, or (b) if true hearing loss, does the loss have a common cause with the PT?
