Could I Have Meniere's Disease? Need Some Help Figuring Out Symptoms Before Next ENT Appointment

Ever since I went to see a loud movie in Dolby cinema in March of this year life hasn't been the same.

For the most part, I've habituated to my tinnitus (as its a very mild hissing that I can only hear when I focus on it) and I have no hearing loss (as of now) but I am concerned about something. I've gotten the occasional ringing+muffled hearing sometimes in my life before I noticed I had this hissing noise in my head, plus its not a pure tone. Well, for the last couple of months, right after my second hearing test from a good ENT place, the day I was about to start Prednisone I started having very frequent fleeting tinnitus attack. One every day for a whole week, mostly in the right ear and some in my left. It's not always the same pitch and I could even vouch the pitches have gotten quieter. But it's always been mostly the same.

It goes like this, muffled hearing, pure tone ringing, lasts a couple of seconds to maybe a minute, then it goes away. I have never EVER had any vertigo or dizziness with it, so is it possible I'm just now starting to get Meniere's disease? I know I have ETD, it sucks but it's always been there, but I mean, constant fleeting tinnitus with muffled hearing on and off for months? I had 4 attacks in one day yesterday in my right ear (Mind you I work at a certain coffee company and had my headset on my right ear for about 7 hours).

I'm just trying to enjoy life, I'm trying to stay positive, but googling Meniere's disease disease has got me scared that I'll eventually just keep having these attacks until I have permanent hearing damage and I'm only 22. I've been careful, I play with my headset on low, I have earplugs now, and there used to be a pattern of it happening once every 4 days or so, and I just had a blissful 4 weeks where I had none.

So is this it? Will I keep having these second long attacks until I go deaf in the near future?

I just don't want to have Meniere's disease, but when I look at the symptoms, everything checks out other than Vertigo and dizziness and its never lasted more than a couple of seconds to minutes but even then I'm panicking because I looked it up and I don't know. It's been months since I've habituated and I still have no hearing loss but I'm scared.

 

Have you taken an audiogram beyond 8kHz? Have you had any speech in noise testing or an ABR test done to check for possible hidden hearing loss?

 

The speech one yes and everything came out fine as well, I don't have a hard time understanding people either, not women or children's voices, nor do I have any troubling distinguishing words between words like cat and hat. My main concern is if I can classify my fleeting tinnitus as just that, but since I've had so many episodes from it I randomly got concerned today and tried to take the plunge and ask around.

Also personally a while ago I did try doing a Hz frequency test and the cutoff for me is 15 kHz, anything after that I can't hear (or I did something wrong). Is that also hidden hearing loss?

Again my main concern is if I have Meniere's Disease or not because of how closely it sounds to fleeting tinnitus.

 

Unfortunately you appear to have fallen victim to self diagnosis!

I go through spells of getting fleeting tinnitus several times a day. Muffled hearing is a fairly common symptom reported alongside fleeting tinnitus.

Doesn’t really bother me as I know it’s only temporary.

If you don’t have vertigo or hearing loss (usually low frequency at the beginning I believe) it’s very unlikely to be Meniere’s.

 

I've had fleeting tinnitus at least 3 times today. It’s not everyday but some days it’s like that. If you can’t hear above 15 kHz it’s not hidden hearing loss, it’s just hearing loss. If you are going off a computer test for that it’s probably not accurate. You’d need a legitimate test. Hearing loss in the upper range is not uncommon. Most people would have it. However, it doesn’t mean it can’t be a cause of tinnitus. Just like some people are profoundly deaf and don’t have tinnitus.

 

What do you mean low frequency? Cause I mean, sometimes when I get the fleeting tinnitus attacks my hearing goes out then comes the pure tone tinnitus, sometimes really loud, sometimes medium, and very few times low) should I be worried? Also thanks for the replies, it's taken me a lot of courage to make an account for this.

 

Low frequency hearing loss is hearing loss that would show up around 2 kHz or lower. So if you had that tested you don’t have that hearing loss.

 

I mean low frequency hearing loss is an indicator of Meniere’s.

If you’ve had this many attacks and no vertigo I think you can be almost certain this is not Meniere’s.

 

Do you know of any ways I can control myself from thinking that once the fleeting tinnitus attack hits it stays? I've for the most part been able to relax whenever it happens but to have so many, I keep thinking sometimes that what if that tone stays there forever? I also keep having this anxious thought that my hearing might get worse the more I have it. Also I did read that Menieres disease CAN happen without vertigo. Sorry I'm still really anxious after idiotically self diagnosing.

 

Meniere’s is very difficult to diagnose. What you are referencing is referred to as Cochlear Meniere’s. I don’t know that an actual spike in tinnitus volume is normally precipitated by fleeting tinnitus. I’ve personally not had a permanent volume increase, but medications have given me spikes. These never came with fleeting tinnitus. Just increased volume and intensity.

 

I get fleeting tinnitus 4-5 times day probably most days.

It’s just one if those things that the more it happens the less you care about it. I’ve never heard of a story of someone having fleeting tinnitus and it sticking.

Meniere’s attacks don’t last a few seconds to a minute as far as I know. They last more in the region of a few hours up to a day.

Fleeting tinnitus is incredibly common but by all means go and speak to a medical professional if you have concerns.

 

You said you work for a coffee company. If you’re drinking lots of caffeinated drinks it could be causing issues with your tinnitus possibly.

Substances affect people with tinnitus differently. I can’t take anything with serotonin in it. Immediate spike. I can’t take NSAIDs immediate spike. Alcohol quiets some people’s tinnitus, makes others worse or doesn’t effect some. Etc. I don’t drink so I don’t know how it would affect mine.

 

Thank you so much, I’ll probably wait it out but panic really hit me today and didn’t know if anyone could relate, but thanks again, I’ll try and soften my anxiety to it and hope it just gets better or less as time goes on

 

If you don’t mind me asking how long has it been that way for you? And has your hearing gone down after so many time of having it happen to you at all in either ear?

 

Where did you read that?

 

Googled it, something called “Cohlear Meneires Disease” or something along those lines. Anyone can google it, really had me spooked.

 

It just sounds like it's your ears. When my ringing first for worse I kept having frequent fleeting tinnitus, at first not too much then pretty much daily. Thankfully it stopped after a few weeks for me, but it sounds like something similar is happening to you, not merniers.

 

Thanks, this is all a very very reassuring, if anything bad happens I'll go to my ENT again ASAP but I just wanted to be brave enough to actually post my thing here for once. I need to stop googling, espeiclaly since my tinnitus has always been a hiss and am just afraid of having it be pure toned and loud which I am always taking percautions to avoid at all costs. Also @ChrisBoyMonkey love your Profile pic.

 

The only thing I absolutely hate it's that its been on and off for months and it always causes unrelenting stress.

 

Haha thanks, l really love what they did with Broly in Super. He's not just purely a villain anymore so we'll probably get to see more of him.

I can understand the concern, but I really doubt it's Merniers, you don't have the other main two symptoms. Plus you're pretty young (not that I'm much older than you), and Merniers more often occurs between the 40s and 60s if it does happen.

 

Yeah I get that, I'm a lot less frantic now but it's still scary, I looked everywhere for people that have had fleeting tinnitus where the pitch spike or new pure tone stayed but thankfully haven't found any, just hope these can stop in the near future.

 

7 months maybe? Hearing remains the same.

 

HI @Josue 1997

If your tinnitus was noise induced it is unlikely that you have developed Menier's disease. The symptoms that you describe throughout your posts indicate noise induced tinnitus is what you have. My advice to you is to stop using a headset and any form of headphones to listen to audio through them even at the lowest setting. If you ignore my advice which is entirely up to you, then I believe you risk your tinnitus becoming worse. I have written a lot about noise induced tinnitus and headphones use in this forum. Please see post below. The choice is yours.

Please click on the links below and read my articles that you might find helpful.
All the best

Michael

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/new-to-tinnitus-what-to-do.12558/
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/tinnitus-a-personal-view.18668/
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/hyperacusis-as-i-see-it.19174/
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/the-habituation-process.20767/


I have expressed many times in the forum that it is a risk for anyone that has tinnitus which was caused by exposure to loud noise to use any type of headphones even at low volume. There are people in this forum that have tinnitus which was caused by exposure to loud noise and use headphones without any problems. However, there are many people that have Noise induced tinnitus and used headphones at low volume and regretted it, because their tinnitus has increased and will not reduce to its previous baseline level.

The ear canal is approximately 26mm long. When sound is directed into through headphones, it has only one place to go and that is towards the eardrum. This can cause irritating to the cochlea situated behind the eardrum, due the syncopation within music. When listening to music through speakers, there is some dispersion before it is picked up by ear and enters ear-canal. However, if music is too loud one can still cause irritation to the auditory system which can spike the tinnitus and possibly make it worse.

There are people in this forum that have tinnitus which was not caused by exposure to loud noise, and are quick to say using headphones causes no harm for people with Noise induced tinnitus. These people do not have NIT and therefore, know nothing about the condition. If you choose to follow their advice because they are telling you what you want to hear, that is your choice. Just remember, should your tinnitus increase then you will be the one in distress all by yourself with no-one to help you. Peruse some of the posts in this forum from members that have NIT and used headphones and regretted it.

 

That would be cochlear hydrops, which is different from Meniere. The fluid in your inner ear builds in excess and that causes tinnitus sometimes, and other symptoms. There is no direct test for that. They usually deduce it from a cochleography (be careful, it's a loud exam and can worsen tinnitus in some cases) or they could do an MRI with contrast (again noisy, so dangerous). There are diets that one can try and some medications that are prescribed, like vasodilators. This page is from an ENT who thinks hydrops treatment should always be attempted because it is basically the only thing one can do anyway:
https://www.drlatorre.info/hydrops-eng
However, be careful with the self-diagnosis path, it can exacerbate your anxiety and hurt you with the nocebo effect.
As was stated above, Meniere is usually associated with low frequency hearing loss, so if you don't have that it's unlikely to be Meniere, and if you have no vertigo it is extremely unlikely. It could be many different things, but try to calm down (it's hard, I know), it can go away on its own.

 

@Josue 1997,
Meniere's Disease is a progressive disease and there's no cure but meds can help. I don't think you have it so please try not to worry .

love glynis

 

Personally my ENT has told me its not noise induced, nor of any indication of what my "hissing" might be caused by. Since I have done my audiogram twice and my hearing came back better the second time. I also (in my own opinion) fully recovered from hyperacusis(I only minorly blink at sudden loud noises or jump if its real loud like anyone would) but again I'm still very careful around anything with headphones and have stopped using earphones altogether when the problems first started.

Thanks everyone for your posts/replies, really helped me calm down and hopefully this will pass!

 

@Josue 1997

Some ENT doctors are of the belief that unless a person has some hearing loss then their tinnitus cannot be "Noise induced". This is not the case. Your ENT doctor is a physician and may very well be an excellent one. However, I cast doubt on his or her having in-depth knowledge and experience of tinnitus particularly when it is noise induced. ENT doctors physicians not tinnitus specialists.

From what you have written in your first post, that your tinnitus started after seeing a loud movie and have experienced hissing. This is typical signs of noise induced tinnitus, and other symptoms can accompany them too. If you are still using any type of headphone, earphone or headset, then I advise you not to use them even at low volume.

My advice to you is to get a referral to a Hearing Therapist or Audiologist that specialises in noise induced tinnitus and practices, tinnitus and hypercusis treatment. This is where I believe your problem is, providing there is no underlying medical problem causing the tinnitus. As I have said, I am going by what you have written in your first post. If you were using headphones before the initial onset of the tinnitus, which was after watching the loud movie. I think your tinnitus was probably there in the background at a low level. The loud movie was the catalyst or straw that broke the camel's back and brought the tinnitus into full manifestation.

I wish you well.
Michael

 

Definitely think that's the case, but I've habituated to the noise and honestly just sounds like how I think I've always heard it. The hissing has always been familiar to me it just took me a while to realize it.

 

Please read my articles and pay special attention to my advice about headphone, earphone and headset use. I advise you not to use them even at low volume. You can of course ignore this advice it's up to you. However, I have a lot of experience with noise induced tinnitus and corresponding with people with this condition, that have used headphones at low volume and regretted it. Many people in this forum believe as I do about headphones use and noise induced tinnitus.

Do not think because you have habituated that your tinnitus can't become worse because I assure you it can. It can return with a vengeance and ferocity that you would not believe is possible. I am not trying to frighten you just telling you some facts about this condition. Please be careful of being around loud sounds and again, I advise you not to use any form of headphones.

Take care and all the best
Michael

 

Also to note, I have a job that requires me to wear a headset on specific ear but its for the drive-thru and orders acome and go, should I just continually worry? It's part of my job and I can't really find another one right now.