Anyone Experience Fleeting Tinnitus Like This?

I have had two rather unsettling recent "fleeting" tinnitus experiences and I was wonder if anyone else has experienced something similar to this.

As we all know and have experienced we sometimes get super loud ringing in our ears that lasts about 10-15 seconds and slowly diminishes back to baseline. I have gotten this my whole life and thought nothing of it even before I knew what tinnitus was. What usually happens to me is that I feel as though my ear goes temporarily deaf (reduced hearing, not completely deaf) and I get a new loud ringing tone, but as 10-15 seconds pass my hearing comes back to normal and the new tone diminishes. Is this what other experience as "normal" fleeting tinnitus?

Anyway, 3 weeks ago and last night I had something that I would call similar to fleeting tinnitus, but it last much longer and is different. Basically what happens is my left ear (always my bad ear) will feel an intense strange pressure / fullness sensation out of nowhere (I'm usually just sitting around doing nothing). It feels as if I am very clogged up and really need to pop my ears. On top of this my hearing will drop with it so it feels as if my hearing isn't as good in one ear as the other. I will then also develop a loud new tinnitus tone. Seems kinda like a normal fleeting tinnitus experience? Well now it gets strange. So after this happens I have this fullness and pressure feeling in my ear like I need to pop it, but when I try to it doesn't work. I swallow, yawn, cough, etc. and nothing works. Also, on top of that certain sound levels now give me what I think it reactive tinnitus where I get a beeping sound whenever something gets loud enough, but goes away when the sound disappears. So after 30 seconds of this not fading I start to worry a little and lay down to relax. This pressure/fullness, reduced hearing, reactive tinnitus and new tone slowly fades over the course of 3-4 hours back to normal.

Does anyone else experience fleeting tinnitus for this long? Or experienced something similar?

 

Sounds like ETD.

 

Lucky me and sounds about right seeing that I have had ETD my whole life. Do you think allergies could be playing a roll?

 

You might consider leaving it alone (now that you know that you can't easily get rid of your ear fullness, and that it will be gone in a couple of hours). Valsalva maneuver has the potential to damage our ears.

Ear fullness can be a sign that your inner or middle ear is hurt...

 

I also went biking the day before with elevation changes so that may have contributed?

 

I can't really tell the difference between ear fullness and pressure issues. It basically felt like I needed to swallow to pop my ears.

 

Absolutely. Elevation or allergies. You could be a little plugged up, your muscles could be tight. I'd get hydrated, relax as much as possible, and maybe take a claritin or nasal spray.

 

It's strange that it happened the day after though. I also hope it doesn't happen the day after every time I go biking, that would suck. lol

I also have sinus problems where I always wake up stuffy so I should prob look into my allergies as well. Maybe a humidifier might help while I sleep.

 

Things take time. Do you breathe through your nose or mouth? Often a little congestion can switch us to mouth breathing which leads to a cascade effect. It makes sense if you were out at elevation, or in dry air, got a little stuffed up, switched from nose to mouth breathing and voila your eustachian ubes are dried out and collecting fluid slowly.

Makes sense.

 

Yeah, makes sense. Thanks for the advice / help!

 

I believe this is called ear fullness.

 

Sounds about right.

 

bump for responses?

 

I have the same problem you're describing, do you know which medication you're going to take? I was thinking of trying flixonase as Glynis recommended.

 

I'd like to piggy back off this and add when I had impacted earwax I got the scariest fleeting T that put the fear of god in me just lying on my side.

So I think it can be influenced by positioning+physical state of ears too.

 

you had a similar longer lasting fleeting tinnitus as well?

 

Hi @Jack Straw,

I generally recommend people with sinuses issues to consider doing a technique called Nasal Specific (has other names as well). It involves inserting a balloon into the sinuses, and then inflating it. It did wonders for me, though I haven't had it done since getting tinnitus earlier this year. Not sure whether having it done again could impact my tinnitus severity.

Lots of youtube videos on this technique (relatively simple). It's normally done my chiropractors and NDs. Some mainstream ENTs have taken a simple technique generally costing about $50-$100 into a c0mplex surgical technique using general anesthesia costing thousands.

 

Although I am a little nervous about doing something like this, I will look it up and do some research. Thanks for the response!

 

I just experienced this.

Real pleasant.
Not.

 

Is it safe to assume there is an environmental factor behind this? Why else would your ears suddenly ring?

 

I had a weird which I am assuming was fleeting tinnitus but could be wrong one last night. My right hear suddenly went deaf on me and I could feel flickering (I was sitting in completely silent room at the time.) I thought it might be fleeting tinnitus i just couldnt hear the sound due to many tinnitus tones in that ear but it happen quiet a few seconds longer then normal. Scared the hell out of of me, I also like you felt like i couldnt then pop my ear because it felt a bit full. Wondering if it was my jaw because it was hurting a little before it happened.

 

This thread helped me a lot, i haven't been drinking as much water as i have hoped, and as a result i've been having ear fullness and FT when i normally won't

 

This exact thing just happened to me, I wonder if the hearing loss causes the pressure
or the pressure causes the hearing loss.

 

Not trying to piggy back off of this, but I think I am going through something like this. Either it sounds like it’s ETD or TMJ issues that are causing a fluctuating low hum in my ears,

I also have been using a topical steroid, but I don’t think that would cause any issues.

Has everything stabilized for you @Jack Straw?

 

These episodes do stabilize after a couple of minutes or hours. Seems random.

 

@Jack Straw So Jack i've had one occassion a while back that was pretty much your situation. I was using a fat burner with lots of strong stims in it like yohimbine that cause blood vessel constriction/bp and all that jazz. Anyway, I had a 'fleeting tinnitus' episode that literally almost made me fall out of my seat. Took my breath away type, anyway instead of going away the muffling effect lingered for an hour along with that strange 'beep' sound to any sort of sound, including typing on my keyboard. To be honest, i've never panicked or been so scared when that happened thinking that weird beeping to external sounds would last. So I feel you. It luckily disappeared, but I know the fear Keep stim use to a minimum, too much caffeine and little water seems a trigger for fleeting tinnitus too. And I get fleeting nearly every 2/3 days. But luckily never like that, knock on wood.

I also didn't wait long after that incident to go on a high dose of prednisone+betahistine for a few days just incase. For now, high doses of anti oxidants are shown to help protect the ear for all sorts of assaults, that is another thing you may want to invest some cash and time looking into. There are a few that come to mind, reveratrol, astaxanthin, pyncogenol. Curcumin, berberine, NAC. There are studies showing they protect hearing. I'd just take them all forever really, nothing is worth not taking care of your hearing.

 

By any chance @Jack Straw did this happen when you had any tight shoulders or anything that could be interfering with your tinnitus a bit?

I am experiencing something really similar to this right now. I hope it's just something like ETD that will pass after a certain amount of time.

 

I do have tight shoulders / neck stiffness.

 

That’s interesting. Thanks for replying @Jack Straw . I wonder how much of a somatic element comes into play, and if we are experiencing the same thing. My symptoms are exactly the same as yours, and came on randomly.

However this louder ring in my right ear is still louder after about 6 hours, and I’m getting a bit worried. I’m trying to stay calm and trying and not focus on it - but it’s tough. Of course this all happens right before I am packing up and moving to a new city tomorrow!

 

As long as it keeps going down over time I would assume it will continue.