Depressed — Tensor Tympani Syndrome Taking Over My Life

For 3 years I have had vibrations/spasms in my right ear (rarely left ear) and it drives me crazy. No noise causes this, but randomly starts having a session.

Most of the time, it happens when I awake from sleep. It really making me anxious and depressed. I know it's small but I have severe OCD and this makes me crazy.

I tried Magnesium supplements but they didn't work. My ENT recommends Botox in the ear muscle or surgery. I'm considering these 2 options.

Does anybody go through this, and can anyone recommend Botox/surgeons for TTS in the NJ area? Thanks. I want to get this fixed so my life can return to normal.

(Spasm sessions lasts about 20 to 50 minutes, but yesterday it went for a while 8 hours, making me even more anxious and depressed)

 

So, you don't actually hear any noise? Sounds like it's from your anxiety. I think a muscle relaxer should take it away entirely.

 

It doesn't start a spas session by noise, and when it does happen, my hearing gets a bit muffled and I hear my ear drum literally moving. But I don't hear other noises then that

 

Your ENT is pretty onto it. One of the first I've heard of who even knows about these things. You could try the Botox option as a diagnostic tool to see if surgery would be a viable permanent option (costs allowing of course).

 

@PaulBe

thanks for your input . I am gonna try to get an appointment tomorrow and talk with an otologist to see if Botox is an option

 

I have heard sound therapy or TRT can help?

 

I've heard TRT can help everything

 

@whale

Do you think it can help? I do have tinnitus and TRT might help with that, but it seems like tensor tympani syndrome is either from my horrible TMJ Jaw disorder, or part of my tinnitus

 

I have TTTS and TMJ as well. I going to start TMJ therapy and a custom night guard to see if it helps. I may do sound therapy (TRT) if the TMJ therapy does not quiet thing up. From what I read and some people I spoke with sound therapy has help a great deal. Do search for an audiologist that has a sound therapy in your area, it may cost about 2k to get those ear aides but it's got a good track record of helping. I would do it but I'm already spending a lot on TMJ custom nigh guard, splints and TMJ therapy. I'm assuming my T is from TMJ since I have bad TMJ and my T kicked in 2 days after dental work. I have OCD as well so I'm not ruling out that I'm just nuts.

 

I've had those spasms for years. I never really thought anything of them.

How often do these 20 -50 min episodes happen? Daily ? Weekly?

If it's only a few times a month you may just want to leave it be. 20 mins isn't that long and a Doctor fuckig up may leave you with something 24/7

 

@Tom Cnyc

These spasms could last from 20 minutes to all day. Last Tuesday, it lasted a full 12 hours. From when I woke up at 6 to 4 or so in the afternoon. These spasm sessions usually happen every day or two, with a day of rest in between and when they don't happen. If it was something once a month, I wouldn't go crazy about it, but it's happening very, very frequently

 

@OPlax

If I am understanding you correctly, it seems more likely that you have middle ear myoclonus than TTTS. TTTS spasms occur only when people hear sounds at a level capable of setting off the spasm (and that level is different for everyone, and can be different depending on the time of day!). I would look into treatments for middle ear myoclonus before I would look into anything about TTTS if I were you.

However, if I am wrong and your spasms ARE related to sound, then you can safely ignore everything I just wrote.