New Tinnitus, Precipitous Hearing Loss

[JAC]

Hello,
Just figured I should try this out because I figured some people might have some positive stories and/or insight about what I might expect to happen.

26 year old female who experienced some episodes of vertigo when drinking alcohol in the past few months, then went to have hearing tested and found precipitous high frequency hearing loss in my left ear.

Normally vertigo when drinking wouldn't be significant until you find my hearing loss. Perfect hearing until 2.5K and then drops to 65 dB at 3K, 70 dB at 4K, and 90 dB at 8K. Doctors originally suspected Meniere's but my hearing has not fluctuated at all, and my low frequency hearing is completely normal.

I didn't start to develop tinnitus until about a month after my first audiogram (when hearing loss was found).

My ENT has no idea how the loss happened (virus, vascular, idiopathic), but it's puzzling that the tinnitus didn't come for about a month later. I'm wondering if it's possible that now I know about my loss and know that tinnitus is likely to come and now it's here.

I've read stories of people saying once the brain plasticity changes, it becomes increasingly difficult to treat tinnitus.

This is why I'm trying to do literally anything to stop the tinnitus in it's tracks. I'm terrified that I am the prime candidate for tinnitus because my hearing loss changes so dramatically between one frequency and the next and it's severe-profound in the high frequencies.

Anxiety, depression, fear of it getting worse. Despite this, my word recognition score is 100% in both ears. I'm a speech therapist so I'm aware that there aren't many speech sounds in those high frequencies and this is why I don't actually have trouble hearing (loud environments or quiet).

Anyways, I am doing anything possible to get a hearing aid. Anyone know any reason why this might not work?

I know there aren't a lot of environmental sounds at that frequency that would mask the tinnitus, but I am thinking that if I feed my auditory cortex with the information it is missing, it won't turn up the gain and produce tinnitus?

Anyone experience anything similar? In a sense, I'm definitely a candidate for a hearing aid since I have severe-profound hearing loss about 3k Hz, but I also don't have trouble hearing (which makes me almost not a candidate) I'm willing to pay any amount for a hearing aid if it means it will suppress the tinnitus.

Any help/suggestions/similar experience welcome!

Especially to all the young people out there who are terrified that their life will never be the same.

Jenn

 

[Nick Pyzik]

Hello,
Just figured I should try this out because I figured some people might have some positive stories and/or insight about what I might expect to happen.

26 year old female who experienced some episodes of vertigo when drinking alcohol in the past few months, then went to have hearing tested and found precipitous high frequency hearing loss in my left ear.

Normally vertigo when drinking wouldn't be significant until you find my hearing loss. Perfect hearing until 2.5K and then drops to 65 dB at 3K, 70 dB at 4K, and 90 dB at 8K. Doctors originally suspected Meniere's but my hearing has not fluctuated at all, and my low frequency hearing is completely normal.

I didn't start to develop tinnitus until about a month after my first audiogram (when hearing loss was found).

My ENT has no idea how the loss happened (virus, vascular, idiopathic), but it's puzzling that the tinnitus didn't come for about a month later. I'm wondering if it's possible that now I know about my loss and know that tinnitus is likely to come and now it's here.

I've read stories of people saying once the brain plasticity changes, it becomes increasingly difficult to treat tinnitus.

This is why I'm trying to do literally anything to stop the tinnitus in it's tracks. I'm terrified that I am the prime candidate for tinnitus because my hearing loss changes so dramatically between one frequency and the next and it's severe-profound in the high frequencies.

Anxiety, depression, fear of it getting worse. Despite this, my word recognition score is 100% in both ears. I'm a speech therapist so I'm aware that there aren't many speech sounds in those high frequencies and this is why I don't actually have trouble hearing (loud environments or quiet).

Anyways, I am doing anything possible to get a hearing aid. Anyone know any reason why this might not work?

I know there aren't a lot of environmental sounds at that frequency that would mask the tinnitus, but I am thinking that if I feed my auditory cortex with the information it is missing, it won't turn up the gain and produce tinnitus?

Anyone experience anything similar? In a sense, I'm definitely a candidate for a hearing aid since I have severe-profound hearing loss about 3k Hz, but I also don't have trouble hearing (which makes me almost not a candidate) I'm willing to pay any amount for a hearing aid if it means it will suppress the tinnitus.

Any help/suggestions/similar experience welcome!

Especially to all the young people out there who are terrified that their life will never be the same.

Jenn

Hello JAC, welcome to the forum. I'm a bit confused by some of your statements saying you've been diagnosed with hearing loss yet you still hear fine especially in loud areas. You also said you noticed you developed ringing after getting your hearing tested by an audiologist/ENT?

I'm also confused as to what you mean by the frequency changes all the time. Do you mean the ringing you hear changes throughout the day? Also, 8K is not really that high of a sound wave frequency, our hearing goes all the way up to 20,000 khz. I would say if you have such significant hair cell loss in those frequencies you described above then you should have trouble understanding speech especially in loud noise situations. Those frequencies you described above are some of the prime frequencies of understanding vowels/syllables.

Sorry about the negativity in this post, I would just like to understand a little more about your situation through the questions I asked. Something just doesn't seem right about your hearing loss that you've been diagnosed with. That doesn't sound like severe-profound hearing loss.

 

[JAC]

No problem. I understand the confusion. Here is my audiogram for my left ear: 250-10 dB, 500-10 dB, 1000-5 dB, 2000-5 dB, (so all normal thresholds until 3000 Hz), 3000-65 dB (mod-severe loss), 4000-70 dB (severe loss), 8000-90 dB (severe-profound loss). So I have an extremely precipitous high frequency loss, it literally drops 60 decibels between 2000 hZ and 3000 hZ. I would've never known I had a hearing loss unless I got it tested. And my word recognition score if 100%. I think another reason I don't have trouble is because my right ear is essentially normal. It's odd because I don't know when the hearing loss happened, but I'm assuming it happened during the times I got dizzy 2 months ago. However, there was no tinnitus during any of the dizzy episodes. It's all a mystery. My ENT told me I don't need a hearing aid because my word rec. score is 100% but I want it for the tinnitus. Was more wondering if anyone had positive success with hearing aids for tinnitus. Let me know if you are still confused.

 

[Aaron123]

there is a long thread on HAs where you might find some information: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/hearing-aids.676/ There are others if you search.

I haven't read that whole thread, but I think it is the case that it helps some people. Probably worth a shot to get one on a trial basis and see if it helps.