Hearing Deep Humming After Ski Crash

[ATownsend75]

Hi all.

So, last Tuesday (4 days ago) I took a nasty high speed crash while skiing. My entire right side, including my head, slammed onto hard packed snow and ice. Other than pulled chest muscles and getting dizzy I had no issues until last night when a fairly loud, low humming noise showed up in my head. It sounds almost like I'm standing right next to a large electric transformer. This prompted a trip to the ER where I was informed I am suffering from a mild concussion most likely.

This is driving me absolutely nuts. Any time I am in silence, the thrumming is non stop and, at least to me, loud. If any noise happens, it stops. If I talk, turn on music, have my fan on, I don't notice it but at all other times it's there.

There was a brief moment today, maybe 3, 4 minutes where I didn't notice it, but then right back to it. My question is, is this most likely something permanent, or can a head injury caused tinnitus go away? I've spent hours looking on Google and have found absolutely zero reliable answers and the ER doc was unfortunately little help. Any personal experiences out there showing it can go away? If I'm stuck with this God awful humming in my head I really feel like I'll go insane.

Thanks for reading and any potential help.

 

[Leila]

Sorry to hear about your ski crash and the tinnitus it brought with it.

There is a thread here somewhere, where the topic of conversation was the way the military treats noise induced injuries right after the injury occurred in order to, hopefully, prevent tinnitus to establish. There were two suggestions: keep the injured person in a dark room and play white noise at a certain frequency to them.

I'm not sure if the treatment suggested will do you any good since your tinnitus originated from a different kind of injury, but I figured it might be worth a shot.

I've had a look around but haven't been able to find the thread for you again, sorry. But maybe somebody else reading this has come across the same discussion thread and will be able to point you in the right direction.

I wish you all the best and a speedy recovery and I sincerely hope that you tinnitus will go away as you heal!

 

[ATownsend75]

Thank you, going on day 5 since the crash, and only getting worse. The strangest part though is the whole it stops completely when there is other noise, thing. Never realized just how many people have this issue or just how bad it really is.

 

[Simon85]

@ATownsend75, sorry to hear about your accident. From what I understand these types of injuries take a long time to heal. If you look under the success stories there are some regarding head injuries. It can get better but it's likely to take some time - up to two years. The first 3-6 months are considered to be the hardest. Hopefully things start to feel better soon.

From Catastrophic Tinnitus to Almost Silence in One Year

 

[star-affinity]

Sound very similar to what I have had since the 17th of December last year, but I got mine in conjunction with alcohol.

Three of my colleagues at my job wanted to take me out to the restaurant as a way of saying goodbye since I was leaving for another job.

Here in Sweden – as some of you may know – there were COVID-19 restrictions, but pubs and restaurants were (and are) still open while "social distancing" is being practiced.

Anyway, I didn't even have that many beers but since I rarely drink more than one beer or one glass of wine (can go several months in between) this was a bit more than usual and despite the nurses and doctors I've talked to saying my symptoms can't really be because of the alcohol I'm starting to wonder if it at least wasn't part of the problem.

After that night (six strong beers in total, but over the course of 8 hours and some water drinking in between) I was walking home from my then colleague – absolutely drunk when I went to bed early in the morning, but thought I'd just drink some water and just sleep it off (was free the day after).

After 4 hours of sleep I woke up feeling very warm and being dehydrated – went up to drink some water and back to bed where I got a sweat attack that lasted for several seconds. I then noticed this whooshing/humming in my head an increase of my old right ear tinnitus that I had since my teens, but basically had forgotten about since the last few decades since it was so low and basically had to focus on it to hear it in a quiet room.

So, I had those symptoms and also a hangover on top of this. After a couple of days I wasn't rally hungover, but still had brain fog and the other symptoms didn't really get better until weeks weeks after. Eventually my "old" tinnitus got calmer, but the humming in the head was till there even if a bit calmer.

I also had (and still have to some extent) this tingling sensation in my head when doing cardio vascular exercise (like running) and the scalp feels itchy at times, especially in conjunction with exercise. I can also feel/hear my pulse more loudly than before – almost as if the heart has "moved up" in my ears (especially left side).

Now, three months later the hum is still there but it in some scenarios/rooms feels gone and I don't think about it most of the time during the day. When I hear it, covering my ears makes it go away or at least masked away. It doesn't feel like it's coming from the ears, but rather the head.

Sorry for the long rant and I'm sorry about your accident and symptoms. It sounds like we managed to get something similar but in two quite different ways.

Hope it calms down and goes away for us both and that you fully recover from your accident! Maybe it's better now? I see your last post is about a month old...

 

[Ben Winders]

@ATownsend75, are you still here? Any updates?

I have the exact same:

Low hum that stops when I'm spoken to or when I shake my head left to right. It stops for a second and then it picks back up. Very strange, to say the least. Not sure if this is "typical" tinnitus (if there is such a thing).

If anyone's interested > the most active low hum thread would be this one:

On & Off Loud Humming