New Member Otosclerosis and Swooshing Sensation

[Rachel Brown]

Hi everyone, I think I've always had tinnitus (high pitched noise type and an occasional clashing sound when going to sleep).

However it has never really bothered me and I only realised about the high pitched noise when I had to get them to change my hearing tests to a warbling tone!

I've been diagnosed with otosclerosis and am having surgery next month. My hearing noticeably worsened after a severe cold shortly after I had my son. Ever since then I also have the unpleasant sensation that my right ear is blocked, which I can mostly ignore.

However over the past 5 years or so I've started to experience a horrible swooshing sensation in my right ear, almost like a breathing feeling. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does makes me feel sickly and dizzy. When I've mentioned this to my consultant and other audiology staff they haven't seemed that interested.

Searching today I've found pulsatile tinnitus. Does anyone have similar symptoms and what have they tried to alleviate it?

 

[GregCA]

@Rachel Brown - Welcome to the forum. I have otosclerosis too and did surgery about a year and a half ago. I regained a good chunk of hearing (most of the conductive losses) but I'm still left with sensorineural losses (as expected: surgery isn't supposed to fix that) and unfortunately my severe T didn't resolve with the surgery.

If you have low frequency T (like a swooshing) you have better odds at resolving with surgery. Hopefully you don't have sensorineural losses in addition to conductive.
A good outcome for the surgery is a total recovery of hearing and complete disappearance of T. Let's hope that's what will happen to you.

I still hear the low frequency hum (one of the components of my T) every once in a while, mostly when I lay down. It doesn't bother me too much because it's dwarfed by the loudness of the other components of my T. When it appeared I thought it was a neighbor that was playing music loud and I was hearing the bass components of it. Of course I was sorely mistaken.

Good luck with surgery!

 

[Rachel Brown]

Thanks and thanks for your input.

 

[Fabrikat]

However over the past 5 years or so I've started to experience a horrible swooshing sensation in my right ear, almost like a breathing feeling. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does makes me feel sickly and dizzy. When I've mentioned this to my consultant and other audiology staff they haven't seemed that interested.

Searching today I've found pulsatile tinnitus. Does anyone have similar symptoms and what have they tried to alleviate it?

Hi Rachel,

I've had otosclerosis and tinnitus in my right ear since childhood, but it was a viral infection in 2016, that led to further sensorineural hearing loss and significant ramping up of tinnitus in both ears.

About ten or so months later, I started noticing a whooshing sound in my ear, usually when I bent over or strained to lift something heavy. I wonder if the inflammation has somehow further impacted on the tiny bones in the middle ear, to cause this whooshing sensation. I haven't seen an ENT about it yet. I suspect they'll simply give me a sheepish, helpless look and then a bill.

I'm keen to hear about your surgery outcome and if it managed to stop the whooshing sensation. Alleviating tinnitus in these cases, seem to be a hit and miss affair.
Please keep us posted. Good luck!

 

[fhs]

In otosclerosis, arteriovenous microfistulas over the oval window lead to pulsatile tinnitus (1).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3719451/

It seems like it's the natural course of otosclerosis of the stapes if nothing is done to stop it.