Hello fellow sufferer, thanks for taking the time to hear my story. I have tinnitus in my right ear, not the ringing type but a loud clicking. It is kind of hard to describe, but each click is similar to the sound of a tiny bubble bursting and it varies from a click, click click, click click click click, to a full on painful buzz. Kind of like the sound a geiger counter makes as it gets closer to the radiation.
It started out of nowhere ten years ago. I noticed it starting to occur and one morning lying in bed I thought for sure I had some sort of insect trapped in my ear. My wife looked in there and saw nothing as did the doctor when I went for a visit. As you probably know, the panic I felt at the time was intense and I started seeking out any doctor that I though could help me with this crazy problem. I'm in NYC where there are some of the best doctors in the world and found a highly respected otologist who thought he could fix my problem. He told me there were two little tendons inside my ear that were attached to tiny bones. Cutting those tendons would apparently stop those bones from rattling around in there and I would be cured. As I'm sure you already know, I woke up in the recovery room at the hospital with my ear buzzing worse than ever. It was one of the most depressing moments of my life. Even worse, my tongue was all messed up for a year, numb with no taste, I lost some high pitch hearing and have a hole in my eardrum to this day. So, overall a pretty bad experience. I know the doctor meant well and really wanted to help me, but it was an unmitigated disaster.
Strangely enough, about a year later, I awoke one morning and the buzzing was gone. Nothing. No sound. You can only imagine how awesome that felt. But alas, six months after that it started again. A very faint tick......, tick tick....., tick...., eventually progressing to mayhem in my head. Then about a year after that, gone again. So for ten years it's been coming and going, it generally ticks for about a year and gives me about 6 months rest. The current bout is going on 19 months though.
I've spent countless hours trying to figure out some sort of pattern or cause to no avail. During the progression there are times when I can put my finger in my ear and press in an upward and aft direction and it will stop it for a short while. Most of the time any sort of loud noise or music will set it off like mad, especially any rattling or buzzing sound. When I'm in bed it could do an intermittent tick to full buzz with a few seconds of quiet in between, or just a full buzz the whole night without a break. I think the loss of sleep is one of the worst byproducts of this condition. Overall, there is nothing I can do to actually start, stop or mask it.
I've seen many doctors over the years since the surgery, most of them do all the tests and basically tell me I'm fucked, some are very interested and have some remedies to try. I've tried anti seizure medication, antibiotics, antihistamines, various anti depression and sleep aids. My latest doctor has suggested palatal myclonus and a botox injection into my soft palate. There are some side effects that I really don't want to deal with, and the way things feel inside my head don't suggest the problem is originating there. The only thing worse than having the buzzing is having to deal with side effects from something that isn't alleviating the problem while your ear is buzzing! If you have any experience with this botox thing, please let me know.
It started out of nowhere ten years ago. I noticed it starting to occur and one morning lying in bed I thought for sure I had some sort of insect trapped in my ear. My wife looked in there and saw nothing as did the doctor when I went for a visit. As you probably know, the panic I felt at the time was intense and I started seeking out any doctor that I though could help me with this crazy problem. I'm in NYC where there are some of the best doctors in the world and found a highly respected otologist who thought he could fix my problem. He told me there were two little tendons inside my ear that were attached to tiny bones. Cutting those tendons would apparently stop those bones from rattling around in there and I would be cured. As I'm sure you already know, I woke up in the recovery room at the hospital with my ear buzzing worse than ever. It was one of the most depressing moments of my life. Even worse, my tongue was all messed up for a year, numb with no taste, I lost some high pitch hearing and have a hole in my eardrum to this day. So, overall a pretty bad experience. I know the doctor meant well and really wanted to help me, but it was an unmitigated disaster.
Strangely enough, about a year later, I awoke one morning and the buzzing was gone. Nothing. No sound. You can only imagine how awesome that felt. But alas, six months after that it started again. A very faint tick......, tick tick....., tick...., eventually progressing to mayhem in my head. Then about a year after that, gone again. So for ten years it's been coming and going, it generally ticks for about a year and gives me about 6 months rest. The current bout is going on 19 months though.
I've spent countless hours trying to figure out some sort of pattern or cause to no avail. During the progression there are times when I can put my finger in my ear and press in an upward and aft direction and it will stop it for a short while. Most of the time any sort of loud noise or music will set it off like mad, especially any rattling or buzzing sound. When I'm in bed it could do an intermittent tick to full buzz with a few seconds of quiet in between, or just a full buzz the whole night without a break. I think the loss of sleep is one of the worst byproducts of this condition. Overall, there is nothing I can do to actually start, stop or mask it.
I've seen many doctors over the years since the surgery, most of them do all the tests and basically tell me I'm fucked, some are very interested and have some remedies to try. I've tried anti seizure medication, antibiotics, antihistamines, various anti depression and sleep aids. My latest doctor has suggested palatal myclonus and a botox injection into my soft palate. There are some side effects that I really don't want to deal with, and the way things feel inside my head don't suggest the problem is originating there. The only thing worse than having the buzzing is having to deal with side effects from something that isn't alleviating the problem while your ear is buzzing! If you have any experience with this botox thing, please let me know.
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