Hi Everyone... Please Help Me Out.

[Anuj]

hi everyone,

I am Anuj from india. unfortunately i am suffering from tinnitus.
my history is as follows. i made a dive into a pond and i don't know how my head get tilted on one side and my right ear hit the water surface directly, when i came out of water my ear pained but then after sometime it went away. i didn't face any hearing loss that time and it was normal. Then in evening my ear start paining and i went to a medical store and told about my pain and he gave me an ear drop for that, i put that ear drop in my ear and slept, when i wake up in the morning i felt my ear is full of something, i went to an ent doctor and he saw my ear and he cleaned my ear from a cotton swab.. just right after that i felt that air is passing through my ear.. he made a perforation actually. Then after that i came back to my city as it happened when i was out of station. i shown my ear to an ent doctor and he told me that i have pin point perforation. my tinnitus started after 2nd day of perforation and 3rd day from incident.
i got my treatment for ear perforation for about 1 and half month and after that my doctor told me that my ear perforation has been healed and i should get fine soon. but its 4 months since the incident happened and i still have ringing in my ear.
i don't have hearing loss my pure tone audiometery is within normal limits. my hearing senstivity is within normal limits.
i have done my impulse audiometry also my eardrum is healthy, there is no middle ear bone misalighnment in my middle ear, my ear reflexes are normal, there is no middle ear fluid in my ear and my middle ear is completely normal.
i have done my BERA test for my auditory nerve and this is also normal and auditory nerve is also healthy and sending the sound normally to my brain.
i have done my MRI of my brain which is also normal, my sinus is clear and there is no brain dis-functioning.
i asked an Ent doctor about my inner ear Hair cells and he said if my hair cells were damaged then i would have got hearing loss which i don't have, i can hear every sound clearly.
can someone please explain me why its still here and will it go away with time as my ENT doctor told me that my Right ear is 100 percent ok.

 

[attheedgeofscience]

i asked an Ent doctor about my inner ear Hair cells and he said if my hair cells were damaged then i would have got hearing loss which i don't have, i can hear every sound clearly.

I doubt the accuracy of that statement.

Example: a young person with normal hearing attending a concert, and who develops tinnitus as a consequence of that, will usually have the same hearing ability after the concert once the temporary threshold shift recovers. However, as the tinnitus - in this made up example - obviously was caused by an acoustic trauma, we can assume that some degree of damage was inflicted on the cochlea (known as an auditory insult). Which just proves that audiometry cannot diagnose tinnitus directly (no surprise there, really).

Additionally, you may have hearing loss in the higher frequencies, which almost certainly were not tested (> 8 kHz).

Take care.

 

[attheedgeofscience]

the audiometery was done upto 4kHz which is less then 8kHz

Even worse. Standard audiometry should cover the entire speech frequency range (0 - 8 kHz). Humans can hear up to about 20 kHz. So a proper hearing test should cover the 0 - 16 kHz range. But these tests are rare due to historical reasons (clinical audiology has not undergone any changes since the 1970s; only speech is examined).

I understand your frustration. You have put forward a lot of effort in trying to understand the cause. But it probably is really simply in your case: you somehow managed to give yourself a blow to the head by hitting the surface of the water. That's the cause of your tinnitus. No need for all kinds of further exams in such cases (eg. MRI).

There are similar cases of people developing tinnitus from getting hit on the side of the head (eg. by playing soccer or by a snowball). It happens. It may resolve by itself.

 

[Anuj]

ohh thanks... can i see a hope??

 

[SoulStation]

ohh thanks... can i see a hope??

it is early. It may resolve. But try to stay leval headed . You'll be ok. Use ear protection.

 

[Anuj]

if someone also can give me your opinions please??

 

[awbw8]

Hi @Anuj, unfortunately no one can tell you whether or not your T is going to go away or why it is still here, really.

The ear can take a long time to heal. It sounds like yours suffered a little trauma, 4 months may not be that long in terms of healing. There's always still a chance it can go away and on the bright side, you still have great hearing and no sound sensitivity.

I know that's probably not what you wanted to hear, but the truth is, the ear is not terribly well understood when it comes to tinnitus.

Take care of yourself and know that even if your tinnitus doesn't go (though I imagine it will fade in time given the cause) then you'll likely habituate.

Take care!

 

[Anuj]

@awbw8 I know that in that case i have to accept the reality but as all my tests are normal and every test which could have done with my ear is normal... may i hope that one day it will go away...

 

[awbw8]

@Anuj, you can always hope it will go away, there's always a chance and your chance may be better than others. However, no one can say whether it will go or not. It's not fun to hear, but that's just how it is.

Everyone needs to go through their own grieving process, but it's best to get to a place as soon as possible where you're not hanging your happiness on whether or not the T goes away.

 

[Anuj]

@awbw8 thanks I am always positive.. hope it will get better with time.

 

[awbw8]

I think they've said all they (or anyone here or anywhere) can @Anuj. It's hard, but the truth is no one can know the future.

It may resolve in time. You just have to stay as calm as possible and let time heal.

 

[jazz]

@Anuj You're still every early into your tinnitus. It is very likely you will recover. Remember, tinnitus feeds off your fears so it's important to keep calm and not focus on your noise. Focusing on your noise will make it much harder for your body to heal itself.

I'd also keep some type of background sound on 24/7. Find something that minimizes your tinnitus noise--like waterfalls or another type of sound--and play it in the background as your work and while you sleep. It's fine if you still hear your noise; most people believe you should hear you noise a little bit because it helps your brain habituate to the tinnitus. But make sure the sound is distracting enough that it enables you to focus on other things.

And, in general, try to live your life as normal as possible. If you are going to be in a noisy environment, like a wedding or sporting event, then wear ear plugs. Even if your tinnitus completely goes away, you've probably done some damage to your auditory system (despite your excellent hearing) and so it's important to always protect your hearing from here on. But don't overprotect. Normal sounds are fine. You just want to watch for sounds over 80 dB. You can find sound meter apps on both Android and Apple app stores.

And make sure you are sleeping well. Taking something like 3 mg, melatonin, sustained release, at night might be helpful. Melatonin also might help your auditory system heal sooner. Most people with tinnitus do have problems sleeping; it's only natural to have insomnia when you have obnoxious sounds in your head.

Take care and look around the forum for supplements, sleeping advice, etc., that have helped other people. You might try first with these links on sleeping:

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads...al-especially-in-preventing-hearing-loss.401/

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/sleeping-pills.5531/

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/taking-benadryl-to-sleep.6295/​

And please know that tinnitus generally resolves on its own for most people within a year to a year and a half even if they do nothing! So be optimistic. You'll be fine! And there's lots of support on the forum.

 

[Lisa88]

I doubt the accuracy of that statement.

Example: a young person with normal hearing attending a concert, and who develops tinnitus as a consequence of that, will usually have the same hearing ability after the concert once the temporary threshold shift recovers. However, as the tinnitus - in this made up example - obviously was caused by an acoustic trauma, we can assume that some degree of damage was inflicted on the cochlea (known as an auditory insult). Which just proves that audiometry cannot diagnose tinnitus directly (no surprise there, really).

Additionally, you may have hearing loss in the higher frequencies, which almost certainly were not tested (> 8 kHz).

Take care.

Yes! Also regarding the lower end, most audiograms, whether high frequency or regular, start at 250Hz. Not quite sure why that is, as speech frequency, especially of male voices goes much lower than 250Hz (middle C on the piano).

 

[Anuj]

i got tinnitus due to ear perforation in my right ear 5 months ago... how ever many of the doctors told me ur ear perforation has been healed... but still air pass through my right ear with a whooosssshhh noise... i dont know y doctors in india were not taking it seriously.. today in Germany an ENT specialist saw my ear and in one go he told me that i have perforation in my ear.. i told him in india doctors are saying its not.. but he said no u have it.. n its 25%.. how ever i told him about ringing only... but after checking my ear he said i have hole.
he also said if it has not been healed in 5 months then it will not heal by itself u have to undergo surgery for it.
by surgery it will close.
i want to know if by surgery my ear hole will get closed then will the ringing stop or not.
please kindly give ur suggestions... beacuse i dont have hearing loss... no other middle ear infection... i think because of perforation i have tinnitus.

 

[Martin Jensen]

Hi, sorry to hear about that. What a hassle to go through.

First of all, I am NO EXPERT, so please mind this fact in what I write. I am not sure about the perforation - tinnitus association. You say you have no hearing loss associated with it. In theory, a hearing loss as a result of a perforation may result in tinnitus, as your brain is trying to compensate for the lack of input in the affected areas of your hearing spectrum. Let's for argument sake assume, that closing up your perforation would result in complete hearing restoration. Then again I would assume it may make tinnitus subside. However, if it "gets stuck in the brain" then it is a different matter. I would get it fixed asap regardless. Tinnitus may resolve I suppose, if it has not got hold of a specific brain circuitry yet.

 

[attheedgeofscience]

i want to know if by surgery my ear hole will get closed then will the ringing stop or not.

Difficult to say. For sure, a perforated eardrum by itself can create "all sorts of problems" - including tinnitus (just ask some of the participants of the AM101 trial!). However, I seem to recall from one of your previous posts that the cause of your ear perforation was a trauma to the head/ear. I think it is harder to predict the outcome of rectifying surgery in those instances (from a tinnitus perspective). Certainly, there are members on this board who have been in your shoes and their tinnitus did not improve. But there is definitely also a possiblity that you will see an improvement after surgery. So don't give up hope yet.

I would imagine the doctor who saw you might also have an opinion on the matter. So ask him!

 

[nogood]

Its not a complicated surgery. They just put a small patch of skin over the hole and seal it.. probably an hr or so by numbing the ear drum.
How u got ur ear perforated? It matters the most to predict the outcome.
if the ringing is whosssing type like u described it probably will go away after u plug the hole.
Good luck.

 

[Anuj]

my history is as follows. i made a dive into a pond and i don't know how my head get tilted on one side and my right ear hit the water surface directly, when i came out of water my ear pained but then after sometime it went away. i didn't face any hearing loss that time and it was normal. Then in evening my ear start paining and i went to a medical store and told about my pain and he gave me an ear drop for that, i put that ear drop in my ear and slept, when i wake up in the morning i felt my ear is full of something, i went to an ent doctor and he saw my ear and he cleaned my ear from a cotton swab.. just right after that i felt that air is passing through my ear.. he made a perforation actually. Then after that i came back to my city as it happened when i was out of station. i shown my ear to an ent doctor and he told me that i have pin point perforation. my tinnitus started after 2nd day of perforation and 3rd day from incident.
i got my treatment for ear perforation for about 1 and half month and after that my doctor told me that my ear perforation has been healed and i should get fine soon. but its 4 months since the incident happened and i still have ringing in my ear.
i don't have hearing loss my pure tone audiometery is within normal limits. my hearing senstivity is within normal limits.
i have done my impulse audiometry also my eardrum is healthy, there is no middle ear bone misalighnment in my middle ear, my ear reflexes are normal, there is no middle ear fluid in my ear and my middle ear is completely normal.
i have done my BERA test for my auditory nerve and this is also normal and auditory nerve is also healthy and sending the sound normally to my brain.
i have done my MRI of my brain which is also normal, my sinus is clear and there is no brain dis-functioning.

 

[Anuj]

@Martin Jensen what do u mean by " if it gets stuck in the brain". i do not understand this.

 

[Martin Jensen]

Hmm... tinnitus some believe, is thought to be the result of abnormal firing in the brain of neurons that no longer receive input from the auditory cortex. Neurons in the auditory cortex simply start firing, first in random patterns, but after a while, it stabilizes in the brain and become a closed circuit. I think you should look up the theory behind tinnitus and read more. It is too complex to explain in short for a lay person such as myself