Cochlear Hydrops? Worth Investigating Further?

Hey everyone, I randomly read about this condition and noticed that it can be a result of whiplash. My tinnitus actually started with a cold but I had whiplash from a car accident 1.5 months earlier (felt dizzy, balance problems, vomiting and headaches). A few weeks before the tinnitus I also experienced some instances of hyperacusis. At the time my tinnitus started the whiplash symptoms seemed to be mostly gone.

I had one episode of vertigo a month later after a physiotherapy session but that went away after I did the movements for BPPV. Never had vertigo since then (also never before).

After a few months my tinnitus was nearly gone but came back after another bad head cold in November and it took again a while to get better. Last weekend I caught another cold. I am having again a big spike now so of course I am worrying now again. I also am having a few times a week fleeting tinnitus (just a few seconds each time).

My first hearing test during the cold showed some losses of 20 and 25 dB in both ears at 500 Hz and 8000 Hz. After the cold passed the hearing test came out normal. Another ENT did also some balance testing and fork test and said everything normal. However I notice some speech-in-noise problems in everyday life (of course I am also monitoring it now a lot more than before). But to be honest I kind of remember having that also before all this happened.

Do you guys think this is worth checking out with my ENT? Maybe I am just afraid because I am having a spike right now.

I also could take an extended audiogram in any case at my new ENT. But since my symptoms improved so much before my last cold I kind of didn't want to investigate further.

 

@Deamon22, how are you now? Xx

 

I'm doing ok, as good as it gets with this condition. To my luck, my tinnitus has been behaving these past couple of years, but I still feel like I am living on eggshells. I mostly can manage normal life with a mix of foam earplugs and just not going to anything to loud.

Hope you are feeling better And thanks for checking in

 

That’s so good to hear! Glad you’re doing so well!!! Long may that last! Xxx

 

I want to give my 2 cents about cochlear hydrops. I spoke to an ENT and he made a pretty good point about tinnitus, fullness, hyperacusis and all the other great symptoms we experience. He said that far too many people dismiss the possibility of hydrops because the “know” that their tinnitus was caused by acoustic trauma (for example). What many don’t realize is the medical community still doesn’t really understand what happens when we get this trauma. Who is to say that the acoustic trauma doesn’t set off an autoimmune reaction or hydrops due to some other mechanism. What if instead of bent hair follicles, many people have hydrops?

The question he asked was: is your tinnitus and other symptoms steady? Do they fluctuate? I said yes they do, very much so. He proceeded to explain his theory (one that is apparently shared by many other ENTs) that lost hair cells or synapses should not cause fluctuating symptoms. You should have a straight, annoying tinnitus that doesn’t fluctuate much except for compensating for external input. When tinnitus (and related conditions) fluctuate greatly, he believes this is due to hydrops, given the nature of how hydrops acts on the inner ear.

I am of course bastardizing this entire conversation but I wanted to relay the gist of it. With my limited knowledge, everything this doctor said makes a lot of sense. Maybe someone here could explain why this is or isn’t correct.

 

Thanks, I hope so too How are you doing?

I did not explore it further, since I never had fullness or much hyperacusis (except the first few weeks after the whiplash), just fluctuating tinnitus. Now after a few years it kind of settled into long ups and downs that stay in a certain range most of the time. Not many surprises anymore.

What would be this doctor's advice to treat hydrops?

 

This doctor’s advice is very specific. I believe his protocol is mostly the same for all patients and has been discussed on the forums before. I don’t want to get into the politics surrounding him and his methods so I’ll just say it involves medicating with some steroids and ADs and altering diet. There are some who don’t agree with the protocol and say he is a scammer (along the lines of Liam Boehm & co.) but I don’t believe that to be true.

 

Is it Dr. La Torre? I remember reading his name on some Italian groups and that he believes a lot of tinnitus cases are from hydrops. I never checked more of his suggestions so I couldn’t say if it is legit or not.