Tinnitus, Vertigo, Ear Fullness, SSCD/Fistula?

Hello all,

My first post here. I've been suffering from a weird problem for around 9 months. Basically last year around July I started getting really bad ear pain coupled with deep migraine headaches. At the time I was having dental issues with a lower molar so I just assumed it was a TMD type thing in response to my tooth pain.

I saw the dentist in September and indeed my tooth had a problem and needed a root canal but they couldn't fit me in until December. So I had a temporary tooth fix to remove the tooth pain until I could have the full root canal and my symptoms went away completely until I had the root canal in December.

1 week after the root canal I began to get intermittent vertigo, hearing internal noises (my neck can sound like it's attached to my eardrum!), hissing tinnitus and ear fullness which constantly prompts me to try and valsalva it away but it never works. These feelings haven't been constant and can recover after a week or two as soon as I try to ignore it and stop worrying about it.

The main thing I'm worried about is I have another symptom which is the fistula symptom where if I put my fingers in my ears then I get a push of vertigo for a second, if I take my finger out then I get a push the other way for a second. I don't have constant vertigo during this though and it only lasts for a moment. I've seen videos of people's eyes spinning with pressure but mine don't do that at all, I just feel a moment of vertigo and that's it, it's the same with straining where I get a few seconds of vertigo only when releasing the strain.

These sort of pressure changes are also a migraine trigger for me so if I am stupid and do valsalva to try and clear the fullness too much then it all just returns with headaches too..... I've been like this for 4 months now in a sort of endless cycle of recovery where I begin to feel relatively normal and then relapse. The fistula symptom has never gone away but if I avoid triggering anything then my other symptoms seem to improve.

I was worried about cholesteatoma as I do have ETD but I don't have any history of drainage or noticeable hearing loss. I've read a lot about conditions like SSCD and the symptoms fit perfectly but wouldn't SSCD symptoms be constant whereas mine seem to recover? The one thing that does really fit with my fluctuating symptoms is a fistula but then it's apparently very rare... I'm not exactly a pilot or scuba diver!

I saw a doctor before the vertigo stuff began last year who had a look at my ear, saw nothing and discounted it all as probably dental related. I'm seeing the same GP again later today as it's starting to get me down, it's just never ending, I'm even scared to fly as I don't know what will happen due to this sensitivity to pressure and really weird symptoms.

To add to this, I only get these symptoms in one ear. My other ear has some slight hissing tinnitus but it's very minor and doesn't bother me. More interestingly I don't have ETD on the good ear, maybe it's some form of alternobaric vertigo due to ETD albeit on the ground...?

 

Welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear you have to deal with so many nasty symptoms. I don't have exact same tinnitus as you but I do have experienced vertigo, tinnitus, ear fullness etc., so I do understand the challenge to deal with so many strange sensations. I don't have the answers to your problems, except to let you know that you have my empathy for the challenges of living with such conditions. I hope you can read some of the success stories to give you more hope and confidence that things will turn better over time as you continue to live as normally as you can. That is what I have been trying to do, with an ultra high pitch tinnitus in the right ear, a jet engine line rumbling tinnitus on the left ear which turned deaf about s year ago, ears feeling pressured and full often, and bad hyperacusis too during the initial period of each tinnitus or hearing loss incidence.

Take care, God bless.