Visit to ENT Tinnitus Doctor

[Jamclem]

Just thought I would let you how about my visit to the ENT / Tinnitus doctor today. Who knows, perhaps this information is useful to you.

I have developed pulsilate tinnitus in my right ear after excess push ups (prev had mild t from sport probs). To cut a long story short, I have apparently excellent unilateral hearing. When they put the head set speaker on behind my right ear in the hearing test, the sounds kept going to the left hearing and not the right. Both ears went to the right. When they tried to find my frequency of my tinnitus, the pulsating sound could not be covered with any sounds although it is actually usually not loud .

Anyways the doctors seems to think I do not have "real" tinnitus" because it is not where you usually find tinnitus. It is being caused by my neck and tension in it. She showed me a diagram of an ear and showed me how this sound is being created by muscles on my neck and under the lower part of my ear. She said this will go away (reassuring whether it is true or not!)

So I have been given some herbal tablets for relaxing and most importantly pretty strong ibuprofen to reduce something or another. Also I am to go to a physiotherapist (one good for tinnitus etc) and acupuncture.

So yeah feeling positive and actually less bothered by this

Thanks for reading

Have a nice evening all of you.

Carpe Diem!

 

[seal]

ich nehme an du wolltest ein anderes bild posten

 

[Jamclem]

Man ey, habs gelöscht. Danke

 

[Gin]

Wow. That's great. I think I may have something very similar. I developed what I thought was a low frequency T. Started last July. It's like a humming noise. However, I developed like a tone noise too more recently. The steroids used to knock out this humming. It would go away for like 3 three weeks or so then come back. I noticed my neck muscles started getting really sore and the area under my ears were hurting. My last round of steroids did not work. I was at my witts end. I tried Lipoflavnoids. Not thinking it would do squat. ha. Over the counter vitamins etc. It worked. The noise has decreased by like 80% I take like 2 3 times a day. I noticed that the noise comes back in the morning due to 10 hours without meds but goes away within an hour of taking the pills. I went to the ENT Wednesday. I am being referred to Neurology. He thinks it is a strained Sternocleimastoid muscle causing the noise pain in my neck and below my ears. Just waiting on Neurology to call me back regarding getting CT scans etc. I did notice that now My hands and legs are a little numb. So my anxiety is high but hoping it is something physical that they can fix so I can get my life back on track again.

 

[Jamclem]

@Gin

Hey

Sounds like you have had a bit of journey already looking for answers. I really hope you find something out from your neurologist. I haven't heard of the word Sternocleimastoid muscle before tonight, but I saw a video online and that was the same muscle area my T ENT doctor linked my head noises too. It sounds like you are coping with it all and you are finally getting some answers. That is definitely a sign to get back on with your life and start living it again!

 

[truesilence]

@Gin

Hey

Sounds like you have had a bit of journey already looking for answers. I really hope you find something out from your neurologist. I haven't heard of the word Sternocleimastoid muscle before tonight, but I saw a video online and that was the same muscle area my T ENT doctor linked my head noises too. It sounds like you are coping with it all and you are finally getting some answers. That is definitely a sign to get back on with your life and start living it again!

Blimey! When I suggested that my T could be muscle related, my ENT nearly laughed in my face!! You could try some cold laser therapy which could help with the muscle pain.

 

[Gin]

Blimey! When I suggested that my T could be muscle related, my ENT nearly laughed in my face!! You could try some cold laser therapy which could help with the muscle pain.

Yea I'm about to start looking into anything ha! The headaches and numbness is killing me. I'm still waiting on the Neurologist to call me. At this point I am praying he finds something on the CT Scan just so we can have a place to start.

 

[truesilence]

Yea I'm about to start looking into anything ha! The headaches and numbness is killing me. I'm still waiting on the Neurologist to call me. At this point I am praying he finds something on the CT Scan just so we can have a place to start.

Let me know how it goes!

 

[Ohiomix]

I hope it turns out well for you. I felt like my first ENT tried to kill me. I woke up out of a dead sleep at 4:30 am with what seemed like a siren going off in my head! The ENT assumed my T was caused from a tumor so he placed me on 60 mg of prednisone for 9 days in a row and brought me off of it in 3 days. At the end of my 12 day cycle my head felt like it was going to explode and every hormone function I had was shut down. I had no idea the prednisone would have that affect on me. When I returned to the ENT, I asked him if it was the prednisone that caused me to feel so bad. He told me "no prednisone wouldn't cause that but don't worry, I'll give you diazepam". He was wrong, it was the prednisone that wiped me out. I had never taken diazepam before and I wish now that I had never heard of it! It never helped and the tinnitus and headaches kept getting worse. Then, I was sent to a neurologist, he was no help either. Due to the headache and the intense ringing, I was averaging about 3 hours of sleep a night. The neurologist just gave me pain medication to deal with the headaches. After 14 weeks of what seemed like a living hell, my wife got me in to see another, older, ENT. He was an answer to prayer. He explained that the intense, high frequency ringing I was experiencing is only caused by 4 things: trauma to the neck or head, acoustic trauma to the eardrum, a tumor on the auditory nerve, or clinching my teeth at night. He also told me that the clinching will cause extreme tension headaches and neck muscle pain, which I had. Since I had suffered no trauma, my MRI showed no tumor, and I simply woke up with the ringing, my T was caused from clinching. He said all I needed was some muscle relaxers to ease the muscle spasms in my neck and around my head and possibly I may need to get a mouth guard to wear when I sleep. I got both the mouth guard and the muscle relaxers. The ringing started calming down and I was able to sleep again. My problem now is tapering off of the stupid diazepam. Since starting my taper, I found out that I'm sensitive to diazepam and getting off of benzodiazepine drugs causes, guess what....ringing in the ears! Ive been on the taper for over a month and I should be off the taper in a couple of weeks and hopefully the ringing will be completely gone. I thank God every day for my wife getting me a second opinion with an ENT that actually got to the source of the T.

 

[Gin]

I hope it turns out well for you. I felt like my first ENT tried to kill me. I woke up out of a dead sleep at 4:30 am with what seemed like a siren going off in my head! The ENT assumed my T was caused from a tumor so he placed me on 60 mg of prednisone for 9 days in a row and brought me off of it in 3 days. At the end of my 12 day cycle my head felt like it was going to explode and every hormone function I had was shut down. I had no idea the prednisone would have that affect on me. When I returned to the ENT, I asked him if it was the prednisone that caused me to feel so bad. He told me "no prednisone wouldn't cause that but don't worry, I'll give you diazepam". He was wrong, it was the prednisone that wiped me out. I had never taken diazepam before and I wish now that I had never heard of it! It never helped and the tinnitus and headaches kept getting worse. Then, I was sent to a neurologist, he was no help either. Due to the headache and the intense ringing, I was averaging about 3 hours of sleep a night. The neurologist just gave me pain medication to deal with the headaches. After 14 weeks of what seemed like a living hell, my wife got me in to see another, older, ENT. He was an answer to prayer. He explained that the intense, high frequency ringing I was experiencing is only caused by 4 things: trauma to the neck or head, acoustic trauma to the eardrum, a tumor on the auditory nerve, or clinching my teeth at night. He also told me that the clinching will cause extreme tension headaches and neck muscle pain, which I had. Since I had suffered no trauma, my MRI showed no tumor, and I simply woke up with the ringing, my T was caused from clinching. He said all I needed was some muscle relaxers to ease the muscle spasms in my neck and around my head and possibly I may need to get a mouth guard to wear when I sleep. I got both the mouth guard and the muscle relaxers. The ringing started calming down and I was able to sleep again. My problem now is tapering off of the stupid diazepam. Since starting my taper, I found out that I'm sensitive to diazepam and getting off of benzodiazepine drugs causes, guess what....ringing in the ears! Ive been on the taper for over a month and I should be off the taper in a couple of weeks and hopefully the ringing will be completely gone. I thank God every day for my wife getting me a second opinion with an ENT that actually got to the source of the T.

I totally understand where you are coming from, as far as trying to come off of the diazepam. That's why I only took like 1/4 of one. And that is it. I took Effexor for years for panic attacks. It was Hell trying to come off of them. It took like 3 years.

 

[Ohiomix]

Found the root cause of my T! Well, obviously it's been a while since my last post. Since then I went thru a small hell on earth getting off the diazepam. Finding the Ashton Manual on line was a god send. Every cut I made in my taper resulted in an increased level of tinnitus for 2 to 3 weeks. As soon as the level became tolerable, I would make another 15-20% cut. It took a total of 4 months to reach the end. After my final cut, the T stayed at a maddening level for 5 weeks. I nearly went insane. Now, to the "good" news. I found the actual cause to my T! From the beginning, my T started by waking me at 4:30 a.m. and every major change in my T since it started always happened in my sleep. None of the many doctors (family practitioner, 2 ENT's, 2 neurologists, a headache specialist, a rheumatologist, a PM&R, and a myofascial pain specialist) I had seen in 18 months made any connection to that piece of information. Frustrated by my night time changes and seemingly getting worse from the doctors, I set up a night vision security camera and recorded myself while I slept. I watched my recording and noticed almost as soon as I entered into R.E.M. sleep, I really struggled in my breathing. To make a long story short, I called my doctor and asked him for a sleep study. The sleep study confirmed it. I had severe obstructive sleep apnea (O.S.A.)caused from my tongue choking me (verified using a D.I.C.E. test)when I entered into R.E.M. sleep. The muscle relaxing medications I had been given from the doctors were actually making my condition worse. So, how this causes my tinnitus is when I enter in R.E.M., my tongue relaxes into my throat closing off my air way which causes a severe jaw clenching and neck muscle flexing reaction in an effort to open my airway. This low oxygen muscle clenching for air most of the night causes intense fatigue and spasms in my temporalis and masseter muscles causing a terrible tension type headache and tinnitus that can be unbearable and last the whole day only to be reignited each night. Now, the battle is to "fix" the O.S.A. I've tried every mouth guard on the market plus 2 that were made by professionals. The CPAP filled my stomach with air and woke me continually with gas pain. Presently, I'm waiting on my insurance to agree to the Inspire Therapy procedure. To date, I have found some relief by ensuring that I don't sleep on my back. I started off sleeping in a tee shirt that I sewed a hard softball into the middle of the back. That worked well but the shirt kept stretching out. Now I'm wearing a Remetee that keeps me off of my back while I sleep. The Remetee doesn't stop my OSA but keeps me sleeping on my side instead of my back. On my side, I don't have to clench as hard or as long to open my airway while I sleep. So, if your tinnitus started or is worse upon waking, your T may also be caused from clenching due to OSA. Hopefully, before long, I can get my Inspire Therapy and report back with great news that my temples and jaws are no longer tight, my tension headache is gone and the T is down and finally gone.