Requesting Urgent Help Before I Rush to Hospital/Doctors

[Azakare]

Hello @shasta0863 and everyone.
I registered today because I started with the some of the exact symptoms 4 days ago in my right ear (robotic sounds, feeling of fullness/underwater, every sound seems to penetrate into skull). I've actually been living with pulsatile tinnitus on my left ear since 2012 and now my right one seemingly didn't want to feel left out (and also wanted to be original)...

I'm also now 29 and last Friday when I woke up I started noticing all sounds from my phone sounded robotic and even thought it was a defect. Only later I realized it was ALL sounds, even my own and others' voices and it was only when heard them from my "good" right ear.

I went the next day to the ENT emergency at my local hospital and they could not see anything in the outer ear. They cleaned my earwax (though it seemed to be fast, maybe too fast...) and that was it. No medication and no consultation as of yet. The next day I actually woke up better. I could still notice the robotic tone in some voices, especially female ones, but that was it.

So I went to bed with better hearing last Sunday, but unfortunately woke up worse yesterday... Fullness was back, along with the robotic tones and almost all sound felt irritating, like it caused rumbling feeling deep inside my ear... it almost feels as if there's water in the inner ear.

I'll try to arrange an appointment with an ENT on Friday, but so far I've been feeling pretty hopeless. All forms of entertainment media sound horrible and it's annoying to talk or hear other people talk.
Hearing loss and the degree of tinnitus I have on my left ear I was able to somewhat cope with, but this is something entirely different. It's like half of me is constantly hearing a nightmarish version of reality when I'm outside my room...

I'm curious if you've gotten any better in the meantime and, if so, was there was anything specific that could have helped?
Best wishes.

 

[kiel]

@shasta0863 I had an experience almost exactly like what you described a few days ago. I had horrible pressure and ringing from pretty much any sound, and my voice and others sounded robotic. It was horrifying and unlike anything I had ever experienced. I had an outer ear infection, and was taking ciprofloxacin ear drops for it. I believe them to be the cause, personally.

For me, the pressure subsided after about 3 hours and the ringing/distortion had subsided by the next day. What seemed to help me was chewing gum, oddly enough. After I started doing so, the pressure began to subside. What happened with your experience? Did it go away?

 

[kiel]

Hello @shasta0863 and everyone.
I registered today because I started with the some of the exact symptoms 4 days ago in my right ear (robotic sounds, feeling of fullness/underwater, every sound seems to penetrate into skull). I've actually been living with pulsatile tinnitus on my left ear since 2012 and now my right one seemingly didn't want to feel left out (and also wanted to be original)...

I'm also now 29 and last Friday when I woke up I started noticing all sounds from my phone sounded robotic and even thought it was a defect. Only later I realized it was ALL sounds, even my own and others' voices and it was only when heard them from my "good" right ear.

I went the next day to the ENT emergency at my local hospital and they could not see anything in the outer ear. They cleaned my earwax (though it seemed to be fast, maybe too fast...) and that was it. No medication and no consultation as of yet. The next day I actually woke up better. I could still notice the robotic tone in some voices, especially female ones, but that was it.

So I went to bed with better hearing last Sunday, but unfortunately woke up worse yesterday... Fullness was back, along with the robotic tones and almost all sound felt irritating, like it caused rumbling feeling deep inside my ear... it almost feels as if there's water in the inner ear.

I'll try to arrange an appointment with an ENT on Friday, but so far I've been feeling pretty hopeless. All forms of entertainment media sound horrible and it's annoying to talk or hear other people talk.
Hearing loss and the degree of tinnitus I have on my left ear I was able to somewhat cope with, but this is something entirely different. It's like half of me is constantly hearing a nightmarish version of reality when I'm outside my room...

I'm curious if you've gotten any better in the meantime and, if so, was there was anything specific that could have helped?
Best wishes.

I have no idea why, but if you have the same thing I did, try chewing some gum. For some reason, it seemed to help me. Either that, or it was a coincidence that it began to subside when it did, but I would say it is worth a shot.

 

[GregCA]

For me, the pressure subsided after about 3 hours and the ringing/distortion had subsided by the next day. What seemed to help me was chewing gum, oddly enough. After I started doing so, the pressure began to subside.

It's not surprising, really: chewing gum opens up your eustachian tubes and equalizes the pressure on both sides of your ear drum. That's why we tell people to chew gum, yawn or swallow when they feel pressure in their ears (when they fly or drive up/down mountains).

It's quite possible you had more than just an outer ear infection: perhaps a middle ear infection too, which would explain the link to your pressure symptoms and relief with chewing.

 

[Azakare]

I have no idea why, but if you have the same thing I did, try chewing some gum. For some reason, it seemed to help me. Either that, or it was a coincidence that it began to subside when it did, but I would say it is worth a shot.

Hello,
Thanks for the tip, tried it today, but it seemed to make no difference...

Felt that yesterday was the best day so far, no fullness in my right ear and could almost not detect any tinny/robotic sound distortions, expect perhaps for some female voices, but alas woke up today with hyperacusis and the noticeable distortions...

Now at night as I write this it's not so bad in terms of noise sensitivity, but there is still some distortion (and can also notice what seems like a car rumbling in the distance now and then, which is something that would happen randomly in my right ear for 2 years now).

I've done audiology tests Thursday with tympanometry and all was "within normal" apparently, though actually I have almost mild loss in the lower frequencies for my right ear, while the left hear has mild loss in the higher frequencies. Unfortunately I was sent off with no recommendations or medication besides "not thinking about it"...

Also I found today with an Hearing Test app that my right ear hears 250 Hz in a slightly lower pitch than my left. The A3 (220 Hz) and B3 (246.94 Hz) keys of a piano also suffer the same pitch difference, along with a certain raspiness/harmonic distortion, which is pretty much the same distortion I hear in people's voices.

Besides the wait-and-see (or "hear", in this case!) approach I'm worried it'll be just one more week before the 2-week prednisone opportunity window as far as I know...
Either that or/and betahistine, as I did have some strong dizzy spells when turning in my bed when my fullness was at its worst (at least in this case, as far as I know, there's no window of opportunity for effectiveness since symptoms first appear I suppose?).

 

[Contrast]

@shasta0863 I had an experience almost exactly like what you described a few days ago. I had horrible pressure and ringing from pretty much any sound, and my voice and others sounded robotic. It was horrifying and unlike anything I had ever experienced. I had an outer ear infection, and was taking ciprofloxacin ear drops for it. I believe them to be the cause, personally.

For me, the pressure subsided after about 3 hours and the ringing/distortion had subsided by the next day. What seemed to help me was chewing gum, oddly enough. After I started doing so, the pressure began to subside. What happened with your experience? Did it go away?

if chewing gum helped it has partially to do with your eustachain tube.

 

[Contrast]

Hello, Recent research indicates that hearing test used at most audiology clinics and ENTs are extremely inaccurate,
hearing loss should not be measured by the softest noise one can hear but rather how well one can hear in background noise, The traditional audiogram only test for hearing loss within the human voice range without any background noise, learn more here about hidden hearing loss indicating the inner ear is far more fragile then we thought via ribbon synapse death.

http://hyperacusisfocus.org/innerear/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378595516302507

slight/mild/moderate/severe/profound standards are not accurate, a general rule of thumb seems to be that by the time someone has "mild" hearing loss they already have noticeable difficuliy hearing in backgroung noise.

Once again the inner ear is far more complex working then the way audiologist a half century ago thought it to be, it's ashame modern audiology is still living in the stone age. Most people on this forum are aware of this, it's a shame the vast majority of tinnitus sufferers that are instructed to stay off forums are not.

 

[shasta0863]

@Contrast
Is there a way to test for these things? Outside of a background noise and listening to a tone or something test? My tinnitus has gotten so bad from just a brief exposure 6 months ago that yet again, with "perfect hearing" I know there's damage somewhere. It would be nice to know what is completely screwed. Am I so bad off I need to put myself in a low volume bubble to live. This is really important because I've lost 2 and half years of trying to get better off one small event and subsequent work environment noises of people talking and brief loud things dropping etc..

Can they identify what is damaged, synapses etc. now or is it impossible?