I post this message mostly to hear if other people have similar kind of tinnitus, so all responses are warmly welcome. My tinnitus started 1.5 year ago and has not ceased even for a while. I'm still looking for relief and also trying to understand the cause of the symptoms, as it is not apparent.
My tinnitus started after an air travel trip. I was having a flu, and I can remember my ears aching during the descent, as they usually do aboard an airplane. The tinnitus did not start right away but in a couple of days. It was first a barely audible single tone beeping in left ear. I had my ears checked and there was minor barotrauma at the tympanic membrane; actually the doctor could not even say for sure if there was or was not. I still had the flu and I was prescribed antibiotic medicine, so if there was an infection that was probably taken care of at this point.
But the tinnitus got worse. I developed a vibrating sensation in the left ear, and that contributed to another tinnitus tone. Soon after, the right ear started ringing as well. After 1.5 year from the beginning I think the first tone has faded away, making me to think that if there was an initial barotrauma causing the symptoms, that has finally healed.
The vibrating sensation has got worse, and is really omnipresent. It has also started hurting. So my symptoms are clear vibration somewhere inside my ear or nearby ear, accompanied with pain, and a sensation that something is pulling inside the ear, and of course the actual tinnitus sound. The sound is of course hard to describe, but it is mostly high frequency beeping and humming. The other ear is generating similar sound but there is no vibration or other sensation on the right side.
The pain and other physical sensations, and the clear sensation of some movement at high frequencies as well as the unilateral nature of that sensation, makes me to suspect that the reason is not any cell damage in the inner ear, but that the tinnitus has a physiological cause. There was a situation 1-2 months prior the symptoms started, where I did metalworking without hearing protection for 1-2 hours and my ears were sore the next day. They were however not ringing and I forgot the instance in a few days. So I might have had some prior inner ear damage contributing to the whole, but I doubt that this is the primary cause of my tinnitus.
My hypothesis is that there was some initial damage and/or ear infection, and that left some tissues somewhere in the middle ear inflamed for a longer time. The inflammation in turn has caused some involuntary muscle activity, that is transmitted to the inner ear. The stimulation on the left side then has affected all the hearing system so that the eventually both ears are ringing. But I am not sure if there can be any muscle activity generating a high pitch sound, as the middle ear muscles cause clicking sounds or slower rhythmic movement according to my understanding. So what on earth can it be then?
Does this kind of description about tinnitus ring a bell to anyone? It is really puzzling and my ENT doctor has not been of much help. I have tried all kinds of treatment, and I still have high hopes on acupuncture. I know that tinnitus is usually pretty permanent condition. However my tinnitus feels more like a wound or other kind of damage inside my ear: I can feel it, it is not only a phantom sound. That makes me think that it can not possibly last forever, as the body is usually able to heal the wounds. A barotrauma caused by air travel is usually not that serious, and the damage to my inner ears from the other instances was not that massive either. But my tinnitus is massive, and I am pretty hopeless for not being able to find any relief, nor a clear reason for the symptoms.
Thank you for reading my story.
My tinnitus started after an air travel trip. I was having a flu, and I can remember my ears aching during the descent, as they usually do aboard an airplane. The tinnitus did not start right away but in a couple of days. It was first a barely audible single tone beeping in left ear. I had my ears checked and there was minor barotrauma at the tympanic membrane; actually the doctor could not even say for sure if there was or was not. I still had the flu and I was prescribed antibiotic medicine, so if there was an infection that was probably taken care of at this point.
But the tinnitus got worse. I developed a vibrating sensation in the left ear, and that contributed to another tinnitus tone. Soon after, the right ear started ringing as well. After 1.5 year from the beginning I think the first tone has faded away, making me to think that if there was an initial barotrauma causing the symptoms, that has finally healed.
The vibrating sensation has got worse, and is really omnipresent. It has also started hurting. So my symptoms are clear vibration somewhere inside my ear or nearby ear, accompanied with pain, and a sensation that something is pulling inside the ear, and of course the actual tinnitus sound. The sound is of course hard to describe, but it is mostly high frequency beeping and humming. The other ear is generating similar sound but there is no vibration or other sensation on the right side.
The pain and other physical sensations, and the clear sensation of some movement at high frequencies as well as the unilateral nature of that sensation, makes me to suspect that the reason is not any cell damage in the inner ear, but that the tinnitus has a physiological cause. There was a situation 1-2 months prior the symptoms started, where I did metalworking without hearing protection for 1-2 hours and my ears were sore the next day. They were however not ringing and I forgot the instance in a few days. So I might have had some prior inner ear damage contributing to the whole, but I doubt that this is the primary cause of my tinnitus.
My hypothesis is that there was some initial damage and/or ear infection, and that left some tissues somewhere in the middle ear inflamed for a longer time. The inflammation in turn has caused some involuntary muscle activity, that is transmitted to the inner ear. The stimulation on the left side then has affected all the hearing system so that the eventually both ears are ringing. But I am not sure if there can be any muscle activity generating a high pitch sound, as the middle ear muscles cause clicking sounds or slower rhythmic movement according to my understanding. So what on earth can it be then?
Does this kind of description about tinnitus ring a bell to anyone? It is really puzzling and my ENT doctor has not been of much help. I have tried all kinds of treatment, and I still have high hopes on acupuncture. I know that tinnitus is usually pretty permanent condition. However my tinnitus feels more like a wound or other kind of damage inside my ear: I can feel it, it is not only a phantom sound. That makes me think that it can not possibly last forever, as the body is usually able to heal the wounds. A barotrauma caused by air travel is usually not that serious, and the damage to my inner ears from the other instances was not that massive either. But my tinnitus is massive, and I am pretty hopeless for not being able to find any relief, nor a clear reason for the symptoms.
Thank you for reading my story.
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