Can Someone Help Me Figure Out How I Got Tinnitus?

My doctor thinks its otosclerosis. I might have that. But some things dont add up.

I am only 24, F. I did a hearing test because I had tinnitus in my RIGHT ear on and off for a month or two. The hearing test revealed normal hearing in my RIGHT ear with the T, but mild hearing loss in LEFT ear. eat Doctor told me I probably have otosclerosis since the testing revealed hearing loss, and no acoustic reflex in left ear = conductive hearing loss aka most likely otosclerosis. However when I asked him why I'm having issues with my right ear, he simply said "I dont know."

I need answers! I have never taken hard medications in my life, have not had recurrent ear infections, have been to SO many family doctors all confirming my outter ear look beautiful and ear pressure is -10. I tried antihistamines and nasonex for 2 weeks and it didn't work. Shortly after my otosclerosis diagnosis I started having a static sound T in my left ear (with hearing loss) which I attributed to the hearing loss as well. But this right ear T makes me believe something is happening within my body that led to everything else! The right ear T started weeks before event seeing the ENT.

Some other symptoms: 3 months prior to this mess, both my ears were INSANELY itchy. to the point where I would wake up and want to cry from how itchy they were, and had difficulty sleeping cos i wanted to rip them out. I put olive oil in them, as advised by doctors, but it didn't help much.
They still itch here and there but never seem to be consistent anymore. Someday its so bad and then somedays they dont itch the slightest. Which makes it hard to believe its just a chronic dryness.

Also, on a random day not too long ago, my left ear went a little "crazy" and all sound went muffled, I heard my own voice as if I had water in my ear, and started freaking out. That went away after 5,6 hours.

Please, if anyone knows anything about ear issues, I need some sort of lead. It has been about 3-4 weeks since the T, and I just really want to fix this!

Also, I was lying on my bed watching a movie the other day and noticed that everytime the character spoke, I felt a vibration to the words in my left ear (with otosclerosis supposedly). When he stopped talking and all was silent, my ear was still. Then when he would talk, it vibrated and reacted to the words the entire time. Is this normal?

 

As someone with otosclerosis, I can tell you a lot about it. There are a few tests/clues to look at to formally diagnose it:
- acoustic reflexes
- air-bone gap in audiogram
- Carhart notch
- tuning fork test (air conduction vs bone conduction)
- CT scan

What does your audiogram look like?

 

This is everything

 

Yup, you do have conductive losses in the left ear, and an absent reflex. Very mild Carhart notch @ 2 kHz.
It is indeed possible that it is otosclerosis.
Didn't your ENT doctor do a Rinne Test on you? If so what were the results?

You could do a CT scan too - but otosclerosis isn't always visible there.

Is your tinnitus mostly in the low frequencies?

These are all clues. You can confirm with explorative surgery. You can combine the explorative surgery with the "regular surgery" (a stapedotomy), where the surgeon will find out for sure when he lifts up your ear drum, and he obviously won't continue the stapedotomy unless he finds obvious signs of otosclerosis.

There aren't many treatments available, but you can talk to your doctor about Fluoride.

 

He did the rinne test which also confirmed conductive hearing loss - i heard it in my left ear more.

He refuses to do explorative surgery, and does not think I need a CT. I can agree its very possible it looks like otosclerosis, yet why am I having an incessant ringing in my RIGHT ear? From before even getting any testing. The ringing in my right ear is a higher pitched steady ring. The left ear is a soft static sound, with the most subtle ring. Cant hear it really. It mostly just sounds like I lost some hearing.. which I did lol.

Im just really wondering about the right ear. Its the reason I even went to the ent and yet its being ignored. I know otosclerosis affects both ears but my right ear cannot possibly be affected yet, the hearing is fine and even my doctor said he didn't know why it was ringing. I know the saying, if it looks like a duck, it probably is a duck... but what if it isn't? Why this right ear? Why the itching? Why the itching at the roof of my mouth? Sounds like allergies but apparently not. Sounds like ETD but also not. I just dont know.

 

First of all, you should know otosclerosis doesn't always affect both ears. It does for a majority of the cases, but not all. I have it in one ear so far, and statistically I should be getting it into the other ear, but it's not a given, and I'm doing everything I can to stop its progression (again, fluoride, and potentially bisphosphonates if fluoride isn't working).

The right ear ringing could be a "coincidence" (i.e. something unrelated to otosclerosis), or otosclerosis that has started attacking your right ear, potentially the inner ear. It's not common, but cochlear otosclerosis does exist. It could also be that your brain is having a hard time localizing the location of the sound and gets confused between left and right.

I'm not a big fan of explorative surgery because you go through the pain of surgery and not get anything fixed. Ask yourself: "if I do have otosclerosis, would I want to try a stapedotomy?". If yes, then you don't need a separate explorative surgery: when the surgeon goes in to perform the procedure, s/he is going to confirm otosclerosis first, and if it's not, s/he's not going to replace your stapes with a prosthesis for the heck of it.

 

So if its cochlear otosclerosis it can just lead to permanent deafness? How do I test for this to take action now? Wouldn't it be better to have a stapedectomy if so, even though I have no hearing loss, just so it doesn't spread? Now I'm uber confused

 

The tests show no signs of sensorineural hearing losses though so I think we can rule out that the tinnitus in the right ear could be caused by that. I dont want to have to worry about that unless I have good reason.

So right ear tinnitus - just coincidental.

 

It can lead to profound deafness yes. You typically test it with audiograms. And no, you wouldn't want to perform a preemptive and preventive stapedotomy (well at least I wouldn't). I wouldn't worry about it right now since you don't have clear signs of sensorineural hearing loss.