A interesting post I found today about the spasm of the stapedius muscle:
May 16, 2012
To: Stapedial Myoclonus
The Stapedius Muscle is spasming. I have had hissing and ringing
since undergoing shoulder surgery. The noise was dibilitating, I
could do nothing, relationship was tested with my best friend and
fiancee, work suffered. I could not go into a noisy enviroment and
had to seclude myself in the confines of my house and listen to
nothing but silence. I have spent thousands of dollars trying to
find out what has happened to me--I would wake up in the middle of
the night with the grinding sound of iron rubbing together, I would
get an un-nerving hissing noise after I drove my car vehicle any
distance, had to drive at night and take Ambien to get to sleep.
Drinking alcohol STOPPED the problem temporarily--the next day I paid
a price as it came back twice as bad.
I went to 3 audiologists, they all said I had high frequency hearing
loss but my hearing in voice level was fine. No other hearing
problems with exception that my left ear heard things much louder. I
started wearing an ear plug after two months...I was able to control
the problem if I stayed away from noise but came back as soon as I
took the plugs out. I was on Xanex, that made it worse. Ambien put
me to sleep and I could not wait to go to bed at night--I dreaded
walking up. I could no longer take naps during the day, for two
months I never took a nap. 2 ENTs and my primary doctor were at a
loss. I had a diagnosis of a sinus infection, which I did in fact
have but after 7 weeks of taking antibiotics, an MRI and 3 CT scans
yield nothing other than my infection cleared up but no change in the
"tinnitus" hissing and ringing, and tones.
I noticed after I took a shower the problem would go away only to
come back starting with a very small fluttering noise, but after 20
minutes or so it was so annoying and distressing that after 2 months
I was having to live with this problem possibly for the rest of my
life.
Guess what--the second ENT said to me, "there is not much I can do
for you" but he said he did have case like this once before and said
I could try the medication--he said he gave Valium in the 90s to a
patient who was really stressed out over pretty much the same symtoms
(symptoms)--he gave him the Valium to help him relax when he got
stressed out--the patient called him up and said the problem went
away!!! During the treatment he noticed that when the fluttering
started that if he took a valium, the problem subsided.
Diagnosis, very rare inner ear myoclonus. This may not be so rare
because there are alot of people told there is nothing more we can
do. Lots of people living with it. There is the smallest muscle in
the body called the Stapedius muscle, when that muscle goes into
spasm from stress or whatever, it will cause the tones, hissing,
fluttering, etc. I was given Cychlobenzedrine. $11 for 60 tablets
generic. I think it is called Flexeril as the trade name. 3 hours
after I left the ENT office, I was symptom free. It came back later
but I took another pill and it went away. There is a treatment for
chronic Stapedius problems--the muscle needs to be cut. All the
cases where this treatment as been performed were instant
successes--no side affects. However, I have had the medication now
for 10 days and I am able to control the problem and it really
appears to be going away. The spasms are stopping. Sound creates
the spasm as well as stress. Sound it stress, mental anquish is
stress..Cychlobenzedrine relaxes muscles...just leg chronic leg
cramps in footballs and basketball players, this muscle can
continuously go into spasm for months, only subsiding after long
sleep and naps, which I had neither of--the problem exasperated--now
it is on the mend. Ear Plugs in the bad ear still but I take it out
more and more each day--So after $30,000 in medical tests and fading
hope, $5 worth of ear plugs and $11 worth of muscle relaxers did the
job!
I really hope that my story helps allot of people. This is a
bloodless afflictions, people begin to think you are making it all
up, look at you like you are some big baby. No blood, no scars,
because we all know how to behave properly we don't walk into the
doctor screaming--we compose ourselves and behave as we are expected
to. If I walked into my house with a finger cut off screaming,
everyone would be helping--if I started vomiting profusely, I would
get care that I needed.
When you have probably the worse affliction of all, screaming noise
in your head that only you can here. You have a big problem
convincing anyone what is really happening. I literally was
contemplating something bad, I knew I could not live a descent life
with this sort of problem going on--all the people around me would be
affected by this problem if it went on indefinitly. Would I have
hurt myself, probably not--the thought was there as a way out.
When I went to my first ENT and told him what this pill did for me,
he instantly said, "I never thought of that" it makes sense. I like
the guy, he was always real honest with me--once you get past the ear
drum they can't see what is going on very easily.
Don't use the word tinnitus---use "ear fluttering out of control
creating a havoc within my head", that is what I said to the second
ENT. That got me results.. The ENTs have a preconceived definition
of tinnitus--that is it is an annoying sound, live with it. Be more
specific and keep up the fight, find someone who will listen to you.
Let me know if this helps anyone out there.
Sincerely,
Tim
Member
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