A Left Ear Hum After Barotrauma

I have a tuning fork on stand-by. Is this in case I hear my daughter detuning her ukelele? At first, yes, but now it’s because I noticed that the pitch is different in each of my ears. I keep it handy to test my hearing.

“So what’s upset your ears?” I hear you ask (well, I can tell you’re asking something, but you’ll have to repeat yourself, slower and louder). I’ve suffered something called ‘barotrauma’ from passing through a tunnel in a high-speed train. The sudden pressure difference caused my left ear to pop painfully.

My left ear has also started producing a low hum, similar to mains hum. But only when there is relative quiet. There’s also a weird sensation of not being underwater. If I was aquatic, this might be useful information.

At this point, I’ve been living with the pitch difference (known as diplacusis), reverse-slope deafness, low hum, and sensation of negative pressure for eight months. I’ve also had fairly typical tinnitus (high frequency) since being a teenager when I was in a rock band, but this is mild enough that it’s never bothered me, unlike these new symptoms, which are intrusive and sometimes debilitating.

My first memorable experience of my ears not working properly was as a young child, and not being able to tell what people were saying (I had glue-ear). It was bad enough that for a while I was lip-reading. Another memorable incident was shortly after I began primary school. After some trivial argument over who should tidy the building blocks, Erica grabbed the hair rooted just above my left ear and yanked it. This caused such disproportionate pain I immediately knew I needed help. I staggered towards the teachers’ lounge, clutching my ear as the corridor went sideways. I grabbed a pipe to steady myself, but it was hot and I couldn’t hold on. Weirdly, the next thing I remember was waking up on my back, having either passed out from the pain or having knocked myself out falling backwards onto the tiles. Although I suspect Erica was contrite, I assiduously avoided her from then on.

Some considerable time later, when I was old enough to go to bars and clubs, I noticed that people chatting seemed to be able to understand each other. Whenever there’s a loud environment, hearing speech is near impossible for me. My rock band started around this time. In retrospect, I think this was fueled by an adverse reaction to my inability to inhabit the same sonic world as others. I may not have known it at the time, but I think I was attempting to create ‘difficult’ music in an attempt to communicate what my own experience was like.

The reason I have struggled with my hearing may actually be due to my jaw. My mother informs me I had a ‘violent birth’ (just meaning rather too quick), which damaged my neck muscles, leading to a condition called ‘wry neck’ or torticollis. As a result, my neck and jaw grew asymmetrical, and my jaw joint (temporomandibular joint or TMJ) thumps when I chew. However, my neck and jaw have never really bothered me, apart from occasional self-consciousness.

Of all my current symptoms, the low hum is the worst. It comes on when there is quiet, which is worse than if it was just there all the time because I think I’d stand a chance of turning it out. Coming on and off means my attention is constantly diverted. However, there is still a slim hope.

About two weeks ago I was slouching in a chair and noticed it was pulsing with my heartbeat. I was able to modulate the loudness by turning my head. Turning left made it a constant hum, like it normally is, and right made it pulse. I tried my head in all sorts of positions. It seemed like having a stretch on the left side of my neck was the best for hearing my tinnitus hum pulse. I stayed like this for some time, wondering what had caused this new effect. The longer I stayed with my head fixed in that position, the quieter the pulse got, until it was gone.

It came back of course, not immediately, but soon after I had resumed normal activity, first pulsing, then constant. Since then, I have been trying with varying success to reproduce these conditions. Every day I stretch my neck and try to find the magic position.

Last night I was successful in completely silencing it. I also found that I could bring it back by jutting my lower jaw forward. But even that movement failed to bring it back eventually. I wondered if it was because I was stretching my TMJ. After I could no longer make the hum return, I just stayed sat like that for an hour, enjoying the silence until it was time for bed. When I woke this morning it was still gone.

The tuning fork test now reveals my left ear to be a semitone down versus the right, which is not bad considering that sometimes it is four semitones down (the same pitch difference as a police car nee-naw siren). The sensation of negative pressure is gone for now, which is also quite a relief, but I still have reverse-slope hearing loss.

This isn’t the first time I’ve recovered. It’s happened without me deliberately trying anything a few times over the last eight months, and has always come back. I’ve learned not to get my hopes up so quickly. I will say, I certainly enjoy these little breaks, and I will continue to pursue stretching to see if there is a reliable off-switch. I'd love to hear from others who've had similar experiences.

My thanks go out the supporters of this forum. When the current 'unprecedented times' have passed, I hope to be in a better position to contribute.