Extreme tinnitus spike and ear pain

I've had T for 4 months now and it has gotten gradually worse. Today has been the worst yet. The volume of my T has now become unbearable, it's like something is screeching right into my ear. I don't just hear the extremely high pitched tone, I can actually feel it drilling into my ear and I have extreme ear pain like a needle is being driven into my eardrum. When a sound gets too loud I can feel my ear 'flinching' trying to catch the sound but it fails at doing so and sends a burst of pain through my ear. I don't understand. I'm only 25. I haven't done anything to make it worse. Since my T mysteriously started I stopped listening to headphones and any loud sound and still my T has gotten so much worse than when it started. Doctors and audiologists just send me home. There's nothing they can do. They say it's not sound induced because my hearing is fine, but none of the hearing tests measured extremely high frequencies, and the pitch of my T is extremely high, over 14kHz.

I broke down crying in front of my mother a few days ago when the T spiked but this spike is ten times worse than then. I already had problems with depression before the T but this has made things ten times worse. I really hate adding another depressing topic because I know how important keeping good hope but I don't know what to do anymore...

 

....whereare you buddy ,which country?

 

The Netherlands

 

I’d call the Doctor and get on some medication today, immediately, sleep. And the ear pain thing, go to emergency? That’s all I got. And so many people know so much on this forum. I am always amazed at the right on support. I hope they also reply.

 

Pain usually means something detectable and treatable. I'm confused.

 

Mine is horrible too. So, don't feel you're the only one inflicted. When my T turns into an out and out torture, I avoid eating and drinking like I'm healthy and can eat and drink everything. For 24 or 48 hours I go on a fast and eat only dates and drink pure water. Sometimes, this helps me turn down the volume. In addition, try to get deep night sleep even if you need to resort to tranquilizers, and do exercise everyday. On the whole, I trying to suggest that we, Tinnitus sufferers, need to put aside the life style which seems quite normal and have our own life style to control T....T.
May God have mercy upon us!

 

wel mine is not so loud but ti stiks and pres for hours.it has now last for 4 month i am tired and depressed.
i just want to sleap.i am a gost in the famely.i think the akute periode is the worst.the cronic should be more stabil
in the beginning i tryed to live as i did before,but i nearly made a car accident because of lack of sleap.shal it really be so
ugly in the future.if i had taken more care i wouldnt have it today but you cant go back in time.i have just read about stamcels they can restor hearing in pigs and mouse. so maybe one day i think this is not a life but we have to stand it.
that was my depressed comment.

 

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I took a double doze of Mirtazapine last night and managed to fall asleep. When I woke up this morning the volume of my T was louder than usual (but not as loud as last night). The ear pain and headache was gone. In the afternoon the pressure and pain inside my ears came back. I'm afraid how much worse it's going to get again tonight. Last night I came close to going to the emergency room.

I'm using Paracetamol for the pain but it's not helping much. I'm going to make an appointment with my GP to talk about the pain. But I'm afraid to take any other sort of painkiller seeing as it could have an adverse effect on the T. I spoke to a social worker today who helps people with hearing problems. Seeing as I don't have any noticeable hearing loss he said the Tinnitus could have been triggered by my depression and the added stress of the T causing my headaches. But he can't be sure. An audiologist I spoke to said the ear pain isn't caused by the Tinnitus, but when my T gets more intensive so does the pain and pressure in my ear.
The social worker has put me on a waiting list for group therapy with other people with Tinnitus, but most of them also have hearing problems.

In the beginning when it was just the Tinnitus I had hopes of some day reaching habituation but with the increased volume, intensity and pain I've been experiencing these past few weeks my outset has become pretty gloom. I don't want to live with chronic pain in addition to Tinnitus. It's a nightmare and I'm literally praying it's going to go back to how it was at the beginning (and I'm not even religious).

 

I know what you mean it drives us mad,I have had 5 months of it and tried every treatment possible, now it looks like antidepressants for the depression, have you had an MRI scan?

 

I have not had an MRI scan. Doctors said it wasn't necessary because I don't have any hearing loss. I want one though.

 

thenodody -
There is a a leading tinnitus researcher who may be able to help you: Dr. De Ridder, Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Antwerp, Belgium. Plead your case! If anybody can help, he probably can.

 

De Ridder is living in New Zealand now and he doesn't accept patients there.

Many people with tinnitus experience ear pain. Doctors have no definite answer as to what exactly causes it.
Going to the emergency room will achieve absolutely nothing.

 

That sucks man! I'm actually going through something similar at the moment, I've been dealing with intense pain and variable hearing loss in my left ear, plus my tinnitus goes from normal to extreme (I have like 4 different tones) for hours or days at a time. It sucks but I find that going to the gym, working, and hanging out with my friends helps tremendously (and I really mean this, it's amazing how much keeping busy and being healthy will help) - even just getting out of the house and going somewhere will get me out of my head 99% of the time.

I find that things seem to get like this often for me, I'll go for a few weeks where I think I reach habiuation but then things seem to get out of control, or beyond my normal comfort level and I find it hard to cope, but things seem to always return to a "baseline" eventually, it's quite strange and frustrating but I'm learning to deal with it.

Anyway get to a doctor, you guys have access to some good people over there who could definitely help you out, not so much in my hood. Anyways, hope things turn for the better ASAP (I'm sure they will )!

ps. You mentioned you've dealt with depression in the past, make sure you take a look at what sort of drugs you are currently taking and have taken in the past and try to figure out whether they could be playing a part in your troubles. I'm bringing this up because I've been using Stilnox (Amiben/Zolpidem) for about 7 years for sleep and I'm thinking it might play a role with my own experience with tinnitus.

 

I think it is worth seeing another doctor - GP or ENT - to talk about the pain. I too had ear pain at a point in my T journey. I think tinnitus associated ear pain is not unusual. Your's sounds particularly bad, so I think it is worth talking to a doctor about it again. I agree that going to the emergency room will probably not accomplish much. One thing on the plus side is that sharp pain is rarely a sign of anything physically serious (fatal) unless it is from an injury, and the same for pain that waxes and wains. Your needle like pain probably fits in that category.

When you go to the doctor, I suggest avoiding mentioning that you were experiencing any depression before the T started. As soon as you mention depression, doctors want to blame it for everything. I'd concentrate on talking to him only about the ear pain and the tinnitus. If he says the pain is nothing to worry about, that it is related to the tinnitus and will get better, tell him you want to be sure and would like to understand why he thinks that is the case. Ask him more than once what he thinks it is. My experience with doctors is that if you don't press them, they just give cursory thought to your situation, and if your happy with the explaination they won't dig any deeper. Give him some reason to dig a little deeper, but do go overboard. Doctors hate long stories, so the best thing you can do to get them to cooperate is be succint about what is bothering you and blunt with questions. If you talk more than a couple of minutes, they will think you are a hypochondriac and tune out. That is not the way it should be, but that is the reality. If the guy seems particularly compassionate, you can elaborate more.

Take care and treat your depression. While addressing that may not make your T go away, I think it will help minimize its negative impact on you. It is very likely that the pain will diminish and disappear over time if it is T related.

I genuinely hope you feel better soon. Keep us posted on what is going on.

 

I insisted on one, and found a benign tumour leaning against a nerve causing it, but wont know if they can do anything till next Wednesday. Insist one one. I don't have any hearing loss either, I think that's why they say get to learn to live with it, yea right they don't bloody have it.Been up since 3.30 this morning its destroying me .

 

Hello everyone. I have not been able to check these forums lately due to some unforeseen circumstances. My mother is facing legal problems and we had some other bad news in the family. I appreciate all your replies.

I want to let you know that things are better, but also a bit worse. My tinnitus still seems to be evolving.

A few weeks ago I reached an absolute low point. I thought I could never go on. Having T is bad as it is but I did not think I could live with chronic pain too. After many talks with family members, social workers, audiologists and my psychologist a lot of stress finally went away, and so did my pain. The volume of the T was louder than before but going from a lot of pain to much less pain was a godsend. I was so happy about the pain going away that I felt like I had completely habituated. Then after a week or so it was a surprisingly hot day and that evening my head was once again aching badly, my T was skyrocketing and I could feel the pounding blood flow in my ear.

As of now I still have some headaches and ear pain, the T is louder and my ears are very sensitive but I have not experienced it as badly as the night when I wrote my opening post. The new developments are the feeling of pressure or blocked ears and my right ear getting numb. The numbest area of my ear is the lobe. The numbness comes and goes constantly, and touching or squeezing my ear temporarily removes the numbness. It's quite an annoying sensation. Somehow I discovered I can also temporarily relieve the blocked feeling by flexing the muscles in my head that slightly move my ears and eyebrows. I think my vision has also gotten worse. I'm straining my eyes to be able to read from my screen.

 

Went to my GP again for the weird feeling in my ear. Like I expected... nothing can be done. Everything looks normal. But it feels something is stuck inside my ear and someone is constantly pulling my ear. It's not super bad or anything, it's just highly annoying. I wish my T would settle down and stay the same. How can I habituate when it keeps changing form.

 

I was doing better for a while and felt I was on my way to habituation but last week the ear pain and headaches came back. I haven't been doing anything different, haven't been eating anything different, haven't been around noise, nothing. It's as unpredictable as ever.

My right ear is in a really bad state. My Hyperacusis and Tinnitus have gotten worse. When a sound gets even a little bit too loud it hurts inside my ear and the volume of the T has increased. I don't just hear my T, I can feel it. Even when there are enough sounds to mask my T I still feel this drilling, piercing sensation.
My right ear and part of my cheek below my earlobe are numb. When I roll my eyes I have pain behind my eyes. My neck hurts. My jaw cracks more than usual. The headache is quite bad, even the sound of my keyboard is sending little shocks of pain into my head. Sometimes I can also hear and feel my heart pound inside my ear.

I had planned on going back to college this year but with things being the way they are right now I'm not sure if I'll be able to.

I'm going to see my GP again but I doubt it will make any difference. All else I can do is wait for it to get better again.

 

So, I've been reading about Tonic Tensor Tympani Syndrome (TTTS) and it matches a lot of my symptoms. The spasms in the ear, the numbness of ear and part of cheek, sharp pain inside ear, burning sensation inside ear, headaches, feeling of blocked ear, T exacerbated by loud sounds... This is certainly not a typical Tinnitus case.

I'm not sure what to do about it. I'm hesitant of approaching my doctor with this because I'm afraid he won't take me seriously. I know doctors hate it when patients self diagnose and I've noticed that every time I go see my doctor he's more unwilling to listen because he just thinks it's a hopeless case. I had to nearly beg him to get referred to a neurologist. Ultimately I did manage to get an MRI but I'm not sure if they'll find anything. TTTS seems more likely right now.

 

Today is an especially bad day. Yikes, my entire ear is tingling and pulsating. I feel like pulling a Van Gogh.

 

I get these spasms every day, ear thumbing about ten beats per second, numbness etc. Especially in the morning. Is this what you are talking about ? I still find my loud treble tinted hiss far more bothersome.

 

What type of breaks do you take from Stilnox (called Stilnoct here) and for how long have you been taking them on a daily basis uninterrupted? How many mg? I'm on the 10mg ones and hardly need to exceed that if I take a break for like a couple of days, but then I switch to mild doses of benzo's if not on sleep medication. I've tried doing nothing and that results in total insomnia, just lying in a dark room listening to the screaming T is not my idea of life.

 

I have not had a break from Stilnox, ever, really! Which is really bad - I've maybe had 3-4 nights without it since starting. I honestly think it has been a factor in the development of my tinnitus/hyperacusis/TTTS because Stilnox has such as short half life and messes with the GABA receptors like benzos do - I've also started to get weird symptoms like muscles spasms, floaters in my eye, etc. I'm going to try and slowly taper off it and try get back to having natural sleep to see if it helps out at all. My dose was 10-15mg but jumped up for a bit due to tolerance - have got it back down now though.

That being said though, I think that short term/moderate use of Stilnox is fine - I just think I've been on it way too long and it might be messing with my symptoms.

@OP: Hope you start to feel better, I get very similar symptoms so I can empathize.

 

Have you been diagnosed with TMJ Disorder????


I feel this is the root of my tinnitus and it links together a great many of your issues together.

It explains the Ear pain and the Ringing, and why audiologists have been mystified by your ear problems.

Try Accupunture for your TMJ.

 

Do you have there equivalent to American Tinnitus Association? Look them up, and find something similar.
Research is being done continually. It is difficult, and yes, I agree that you have to refine your lifestyle to accomodate the T and to manage your life at the same time.
Let me know how you are doing.

 

Hi, I have had tinnitus for 4 years now.

My wife and I call it Rin Tin Tin and the volume of tinnitus is referred to as RTT is barking loud or whatever volume level it might be at.

I have up to 5 tones in my left ear and up to 3 in my right.

One of the right ear tones often turns up like a freight train coming out of a tunnel - and loud LOL.

The volume has gotten progressively worse as I'm sure everyone else's does too.

Sometimes I have to figure out some good reasons to keep going on, and sometimes it is extremely hard.

Sometimes I jump in the car, turn up the stereo and just drive for an hour or so as I can't hear RTT, if he isn't barking too loud that is.

It completely rules my life now, not that I have given in to it, but socially it is hard to 'mix' as the overheated volume of everyone making different noises at the same time makes me spin out like you see in the movies when someone is staggering around holding their head in their hands, LOL - that's me.

My wife and children are so supportive in their acceptance that I can just spin at at any given moment, like anyone else out there, you spend your days waiting, and waiting, not for it to get quieter, but for it to get louder, because you know it will.

I have some real bad days and the rest are just bad.

I have a vampire lifestyle, I am up all through the night and grab sleep whenever I can.

Thank goodness here in NZ we have heavily subsidized medical.

All hospital treatment here is free, I had an MRI which revealed nothing, I have had numerous hearing tests and even qualify for free hearing aids.

I live on around 300 mg of Amitriptilene a day to keep me calm and can increase it at will.

My prescriptions cost NZ$5.00 (US$4.00) for 3 months supply, with all repeats at no charge.

And because of RTT I receive the equivalent of a full weeks pay at minimum wage level.

The Gov also pays for my doctors fees which are only NZ$17.00 (US$14.00) per visit (every 3 months).

I am so thankful I live in New Zealand with this affliction.

Well, that's about enough from me.

Regards,
Doug

 

Doug: How did you get T? Do you have hearing loss?
Sounds a bit odd if its getting worse so frequently, after all its been 4 years youve had T. Ive read a lot of stories and usually if it does increase its after many many years. Other have no increase at all even after 20+ years.

-Tormod

 

Hi, Doug, I was directed to your post when I did a search on this site for amitriptyline and was a bit perplexed: I was searching because my long-standing tinnitus has become markedly worse since being prescribed amitriptyline as part of my treatment for a chronic pain problem, something it is widely prescribed for here in the UK. Moreover, the leaflet that comes with the tablets identifies "ringing in the ears" as a known side effect. And since thinking back I now realise that I first became aware of my tinnitus in my teens, at around the same time as I was prescribed a similar (tricyclic) drug for depression. So I'm now utterly confused. Either it helps or makes it worse: which? If I were you I think I'd as my GP to prescribe a more modern SRI antidepressants such as Prozac perhaps.
Just an aside: in the UK as a whole we're even better taken care of by our health service. Throughout the UK all visits to doctors are free, home visits if needed are free, all hospital appointments are free, all hospital treatment is free, whether being treated as an outpatient or inpatient is free, all surgery is free, all nursing care is free as are all meals while in hospital. In fact the only thing that's not free in the UK generally are prescription drugs though you can buy a three-month certificate for, I think, something around £30 (60 NZ Dollars?) which covers every item you need, with no upper level restriction for that time, and, as far as I remember, pregnant women, the elderly and those with certain chronic or acute diagnoses get all their prescriptions free. I say, "as far as I remember" because having lived in England for a long time I am now back in my native Scotland and while there are many reasons to be glad to be back is that under the Scottish system all prescriptions are free for everyone. (Just one small reason I'll be voting for independence this September.) And it's by no means a cut-price care system. My husband is currently being treated for cancer with some of the most up-to-date and expensive care possible, involving laser-guided radiotherapy, full CAT & CT scans (or whatever the two acronyms are) beforehand and so on. And when he recently had to be an inpatient for a while he was treated in a small ward specific to his particular cancer, in a modern specialist cancer unit with what he describes as "obsessive" hygiene standards and constant, unrushed nursing attention with additional services such as speech and language therapy on too. Iwrite all this not to boast or crow but because I want people in the US to know what do-called 'socialised' medicine is really like, unlike the bleak inaccurate picture that's recently been put about by opponents of their new health system. So, yes, Doug, you and I are very fortunate to live in countries where we don't have to fear being ill. I just wish the same were true the world over. I can't bear to think what my husband's currently excellent prognosis would be without our totally free Scottish system, but as we're both living on pensions I know we could never have afforded the costly treatment and care he's received. His outlook, and mine, would be very different I know.

 

Hi there!

I have the exact same thing, and the doctors I have seen (even an ENT) did not find anything wrong with my ears.

Im really starting to believe that all this pain might be caused by tension from the tensor tympany muscle.

I also spoke with a lady that was suffering from tension migraine, and she had the exact same thing. Even T for a few days if she didnt take her pills. She also told me that no regular painkillers would be able to even make it slightly better. It was really hurtful she said, until her doc prescribed her those pills she now takes every day, and her pain is now gone.

If this pain doesnt go away very soon, Im going to do a few experiments for myself. I got a few of those migrain pills as well.

Another possible cause might be tension in muscles due to this high pitched sound, and it will fade away once we are getting used to it.
I have noticed that a few high pitched sounds has been triggering muscle movements in my ear before, so im not ruling it out.

I know what you are going through and I promise to keep you updated if Im able to figure something out.

Stay strong!

 

@Mr. Cartman what are.the name of the tablets that this lady took? Did you try them yet? Thanks

btw I think it is those muscles.