Clicking, Crackling, Buzzing Oh My

[nerdvegas]

Hi all,

I woke up with tinnitus in my left ear one day about 4 years ago.

If my tinnitus isn't bad, then it's an occasional click in my ear, a lot like touching two live wires together. If it's a bit worse, the clicks become a crackle. If it gets really bad, the crackle becomes a buzz.

There is a definite link to sounds around me. The crackling might be brought on by a running tap, or someone talking, or a car passing by. However my ear seems to change sensitivity also, so escaping to a quiet room doesn't work... the ear adjusts, and then the crackling occurs at the slightest noise, and eventually (especially at night) spontaneously.

Sometimes I have had months go by with no T at all. Other times, it has started one day and not stopped for 4 months. Sometimes it will be mild (a slight crackling in the morning), other times it has been extremely bad (a loud buzz bought on by almost any sound).

I can often get rid of my T for the day by 'blasting' it with noise. Nothing really loud, but a shower often helps, as does going outside and being near heavy traffic. However if the T is bad then this tends to work only temporarily, and as soon as I'm back in the house, it will creep back minutes later. I tend to have white noise playing constantly, in the hopes that this fends off the T (and I think that it does, if the T isn't too bad).

I'm at the point right now where I have no idea if this is physical or neurological. From description of symptoms that I've read, I think there's a chance it could be Stapedius Myoclonus. The sound I have is not like a beating drum (which I've read is typical of Tympani). Rather, it's a "snappy", almost digital noise, closer to electricity.

I also have the standard ringing-in-the-ears T in both ears, but that doesn't really bother me, it's cake compared to this clicking/crackling/buzzing nightmare.

I'm hoping that I'll hear from other people on this forum who have similar symptoms. I've not had much luck with tinnitus specialists or ENTs.

 

[Michael Leigh]

@nerdvegas
This is obviously troubling you and I suggest that you go back to ENT for tests on your auditory system. If they say there is no underlying medical problem then ask to be referred to a Hearing Therapist or Audiologist who's trained in the management and treatment of tinnitus. There are a variety of treatment options available that could be of help. Please click on my "started threads" and read my post: Tinnitus, A Personal View. Also read: Hyperacusis, As I see it.

I advise that you use a sound machine at night by your bedside for sound enrichment. I feel the way forward for you is to seek help at ENT and if needed a referral to a Hearing Therapist or Audiologist.

Best of luck
Michael

 

[Luman]

I get that crackling sometimes after doing the Valsalva maneuver, or using a device that mimics it's purpose. Running water, silverware clanking, and other sounds set it off, but it usually stops after ten minutes or so. In my case, I believe it's due to clogged Eustachian tubes, which I'm trying to clean out. I have other more typical T & H symptoms and sounds, in addition to the crackling.

 

[Aaron44126]

Mine is in my right ear only due to ETD. The nature of the tinnitus sound has changed tremendously over the 2.5 months that I have had it, but I wanted to mention that I also had the electrical buzzing sound on and off for a few weeks in September. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night, and it would be there and pretty intense... It actually sounded and felt like there was some kind of electrical zap going on in my brain, or like some electrical connection was loose and the auditory system was going haywire. I tried to describe it to both my wife and my brother and they both said that it sounds like aliens are trying to talk to me.

Opposite you, I actually didn't mind the electrical buzz tinnitus so much and found it much easier to handle than the ringing sound, mostly because I was honestly fascinated by it rather than annoyed, it was so strange.

No idea what causes this sort of sound. I wondered if maybe it was the brain failing to cancel out actual electrical sounds occurring due to brain activity or if some other activity was somehow making it into the auditory system. It seems like its origination has to be neurological, though there may be a physical symptom that is triggering the strange neural activity.

 

[Luman]

The most disturbing thing for me is waking up from sleep or a nap and there's a white noise/electrical sound that is constant. Once I"m up and around it fades after an hour or two and is replaced by/changes to various degrees of tinnitus which sometimes fade by the end of the day. The first thing, the white noise/electrical sounds, though, happens every day/night. That leads me to fear I might have Meniers Disease, but I have not thrown up, had the room spin from vertigo, or had any significant hearing loss. I did visit a ENT when this started and nothing was found in the tests to show I had anything seriously wrong, my hearing was within normal limits with high frequency Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SNHL), which may have been due to working in loud environments or other reasons. My word discrimination was judged to be very good.

 

[Core2Duo]

I had those brain zaps around six weeks. It was really awful.

 

[nerdvegas]

Does anyone get the buzzing in response to noise, like I do?

The noise itself is interesting too. It's like the clicking, crackling and buzzing are all differing configurations of the same base 'click' sound. As in, if you put a bunch of clicks together erratically, that sounds like crackling. If you put them really close together, it becomes a buzz. Sometimes the buzz slows down enough that I can actually hear the individual clicks that make up the buzz.

Also, when the buzzing gets really intense, it always does this on-off-on-off thing. One intense buzz might last 3 seconds or so max, then a second of silence, then the buzz again and so on. If the buzzing is less intense, then a single buzz can last longer, 5-10 seconds maybe. There seems to be a linear relationship between buzz intensity and maximum individual buzz length.

These observations are what make me wonder if this is the stapedius spasming. Perhaps the on-off-on-off nature is due to the muscle tiring out and not being capable of constantly spasming for that amount of time. That would explain why the buzz can last longer if it is less intense.

 

[Samir]

especially at night

Same here! Do you get the clicks when you swallow as well? I do...

I can often get rid of my T for the day by 'blasting' it with noise. Nothing really loud, but a shower often helps, as does going outside and being near heavy traffic. However if the T is bad then this tends to work only temporarily, and as soon as I'm back in the house, it will creep back minutes later.

It helps me to get up and take a walk and get exposed to sounds like the sound of the shower. As I sit down to rest or just sit and write this text in a quite room, the tinnitus creeps back up again. I think this is common among many of those who have tinnitus.

I'm at the point right now where I have no idea if this is physical or neurological.

It is neurological with physical manifestations. I am no doctor, but I think this should rightfully be called a neurological disorder. Perhaps not according to the medical books, but then in that case, they need to update those old books and learn something new.

"When the terrain disagrees with the map, trust the terrain."
Swiss army proverb

Disorders like these have a physical manifestation. That's why you hear the clicks! These clicks are not hallucinations of your brain. They are very much real! Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I have seen a number of "research papers" list a number of different sound types that are reported by tinnitus patients, and among these sounds such as "ringing" or "buzzing" they will often add "clicking" as a sound type, suggesting that it's one among many different subjective sounds created by the brain of the patient without external source. But more often than not, the click sounds have nothing to do with the subjective tinnitus sounds that you perceive in your brain or your ears.

It's astonishing how these people can call themselves researchers! Poorly executed science leads to this type of misconceptions, and it is rather unfortunate that these misconceptions are fed to the young, future scientists. If they just took 5 minutes to verify that the clicks are real, we would have much better science that leads to new findings. Unfortunately it is not the researchers that the patients meets, it's the ENT doctors. They normally don't report these things to anyone. They occupationally report about a few patient cases, but they only do that rarely and only the good ones do that. They don't even take that extra time needed to do proper examination. As soon as you tell them that your main complaint is tinnitus you are one step closer to the door.

To be fair, sometimes, scientists do identify and describe these manifestations in research reports. But then they make that terrible sin of calling it "objective tinnitus". Objective tinnitus doesn't exist! It's a myth! If what you have is objectively measurable then it's not tinnitus! As simple as that! If tinnitus was objectively measurable we wouldn't be sitting here today, still puzzled by what tinnitus is, where tinnitus is, what turns it on and what turns it off. It all starts with debunking the old myths!

From description of symptoms that I've read, I think there's a chance it could be Stapedius Myoclonus. The sound I have is not like a beating drum (which I've read is typical of Tympani). Rather, it's a "snappy", almost digital noise, closer to electricity.

We find only two muscles, three bones and one ear drum that can be causing a number of aural manifestations, including the one you describe. Given what you have told us here, we can narrow it down to one muscle and one bone. The stapedius muscle, and the stapes bone. This is how I think it is generated. Stapedius contraction causes millimiter displacement of the stapes head, perpendicular to the normal motion of the stapes in response to sound coming into the ear. This contraction causes the head to snap out of the incudostapedial joint where the head of stapes meets the lenticular process of the incus. As the muscle relaxes, the head snaps back into its resting place and a click sound is generated as bone meets bone. Unlike subjective tinnitus, which is the only kind of tinnitus if you ask me, these clicks are objective, measurable and coming from your middle ear.