Hellishly High-Pitched Tinnitus Seems to Be Gone, Along with My General Head Tinnitus

So after a rough few weeks of a hell high pitch sound (about 14.5 kHz) in my right ear, it appears to be gone. As is my general head tinnitus, which all kicked off around the middle of June.

I've had barely noticeable tinnitus for a couple of years now, so perhaps this was just a spike. Even plugging my ears now I can only hear the beast very faintly.

It has been madly fluctuating - going really high, then really low but always "there", but right now - nothing. Can't hear it over my computer fan. I have had a bit of ear popping in both ears and been using antihistamines with a nasal spray (Fluticasone).

This may be too early to be a success story... but I will keep you all posted. Sleep has been wrecked and anxiety through the roof but I have theorized it was eustachian tube dysfunction brought on by allergies - hence approach of antihistamine and nasal spray.

Hopefully it has gone back in the barn. If it has, maybe that'll provide you all with some hope if you have a similar issue.

Fingers crossed...

 

Mine has been fluctuating from high to low especially after an afternoon nap. So I am hoping it eventually stops. Fingers crossed.

 

Hey Tony. Yeah it's really odd. Mine started up again when I woke up - but very low. It's almost like a sensation. It has stopped again now. I had a few beers last night - I do feel that dehydration kicks it off a bit. When I have a lot of water it stops... Fluticasone tends to be the prescription for Meniere's/hydrops, so I'm sure I have something going on in the tubes which is probably fixing itself over time.

 

Does anyone think that crackling/clicking when swallowing/yawning may be an indication of eustachian tube problems? I've also had a stuffy nose since this started and ear felt plugged when tinnitus started in November. My t is intermittent (one day quiet, next day louder, etc.) and has remained that way from the onset. Can't seem to get the ENT to do a CT/MRI scan or naropharynoscopy to eliminate this possibility. Mine also changes after a nap, usually gets louder.

 

I think we have to give up naps.

 

I have, except when it's already loud, then it doesn't matter. It sucks because I used to love taking a power nap on the weekends. Now I drink coffee so I don't doze off. WTF! I kinda wish mine was constant then maybe I could habituate.

 

That's my problem too. When it's intermittent you're forever wondering when the beast will rise up! Causes anxiety in itself.

 

@Jamesd ! Did you get any treatment, i.e. therapy? Has it gotten any better?

 

Hey Lilsass. It's difficult to say. I'm not monitoring it as hard as I used to because I'm trying to take Neil Bauman's advice of seeing it as "like a fridge sound" and harmless. The logic is slowly getting through my stubborn OCD skull and I think I even slept through it last night despite it being quite [I think] loud - or those noises could have been emissions from my white noise machine.

I am starting to just see it as a sound though. Anxiety is still high but I have been here before in 2018. It's early days and imagine it'll probably settle more and more over time, and if not, habituation will kick in. It's a rocky road for sure.

No therapy no - ears are popping alot less and I'm still getting periods of silence, so I'm just roughing it out and will re-assess in a couple of months. One day at a time. Fully appreciate I'll have the sleepless nights etc, but I'm trying not to touch any kind of SSRI (and definitely no benzo!).

 

How does yours sounds? Which ototoxic medication caused it?

 

Hi @Jack23! I finally saw an audiologist last week and she measured my tinnitus at 1 kHz frequency with 30 dB at it's loudest (luckily it was loud that day). She said my hearing was very good for my age @ 45 years old, but dropped at around 11,400 Hz. She said is was unusual to have tinnitus that didn't match the hearing loss, so she believed it was unrelated. She did an OAE (otoacoustic emission test) to determine if there was any damage to the inner ear - she determined there wasn't. She didn't seem to think that the migraine medication (almotriptan) caused the tinnitus, but I think that it can cause it from the brain as it is serotonin based. That still doesn't explain why I initially had extreme dizziness/imbalance, clogged nasal passages/sinus pressure, ear ache, clogged ear, weak eustachian tubes (ETD), i.e. crackling when yawning/swallowing. She was able to determine that my eustachian tubes were dysfunctional, which the ENT didn't even bother to look into that. I find it interesting that both the ENT and Audiologist seem to think that even though all of these symptoms started at the same time there is no correlation. I'm currently seeing an upper cervical chiropractor to help with migraines and muscle tension (it is having a measurable effect) - tinnitus can be caused by a cervical subluxation, so we'll see if that helps!

 

Just an update. I'm having further progress. It's now at the level where I'm actively unsure if what I'm hearing is tinnitus at any one time and not electrical appliance ambience. It's now maskable by brown noise on my noise machine completely - whereas a few weeks ago I had to use harsher white noise.

I had some cannabis last night, whiskey and beers so feeling a little hungover today, and not sure if that's anything to do with it... hoping it stays like this

It's weird but I'm still suffering anxiety even though it has vastly improved. All I want to do is be in bed listening to my brown noise machine. This has damn really knocked me.

 

Update: just got in my car with doors shut. Can't hear anything... maybe some very very faint noise but cant really be sure.

 

That's great news James. I hope you continue improving. I'm starting to get better as well. It's slow but it's progress.

-David

 

I am in the same boat as you were at the start. It almost sounds like the resonance of a wine glass at an extremely high pitch and intensity, or one of those machines they use to scare away deer. It makes me want to drop to my knees and grit my teeth. It hovers on the edge of perception but it's piercing - really weird to describe.

 

@LilSass

Would a device such as an EarPopper for your eustachian tubes help with this? I get the cracking thing when I swallow too.

 

Hi Guys,

Reading through the above, there's definitely a correlation with what I've been going through. I've had my tinnitus since mid-May and unsure if it is noise-induced (I took up running in lockdown which meant I was wearing headphones a hell of a lot. I also had the nasty habit of listening to music too loud in the car, so could be years worth of noise taking its toll) or sinus/ ETD issues as I get the crackling, popping sensation noted above. I also had sinus issues a couple of years back which effected my balance and gave the me the same 'full ear' sensation, without the Tinnitus. Luckily the dizziness seemed to subside and I'm hoping for the same with the tinnitus. I had a course of sinus spray and have been taking antihistamines, which does seem to be improving the symptoms. I have mostly good days now with the occasional spike but this seems to accompany stress or my anxious brain looking for the noise. Also worth noting that I had my ears cleaned a few weeks after onset and heard absolute silence for the full day. However, at night I began stupidly stressing about it coming back and low and behold, it did a few minutes later. I really believe stress is a key factor in controlling the noise and the effect it has on you.

From a personal point of view, it's definitely getting better for me. I can go without noticing for full days and only really coming back to a period of loudness when I'm stressed or particularly anxious about it. Still hearing a hiss at night or in particularly quiet rooms but can now sleep without the aid of masking quite normally, which if you'd have asked me in month one, I'd have thought impossible.

Another note is that I also stopped looking on this site and any others for any assistance and help, other than the success stories. I am of a naturally anxious disposition anyway and felt I was obsessing on the bad news, which ultimately made the noise worse with the stress of it all and the fear of this being a permanent affliction. It could still be the case that that I do have to deal with this long term but have definitely felt progress over the past four months, whether that be habituating or reduction in noise (I feel a bit of both). The best advice I would say is find something to distract you. Look for the good news and keep hope. There's many cases on here and other forums of this fading away and we just have to keep that belief that it will eventually subside and if not, learn to live with it with relative ease. Still not fully there yet but I'm most certainly in a much better frame of mind then after the first few weeks of onset.

Anyway, sorry for the length of post. I started writing and wanted to put everything down that I could think of that may be helpful!

Hopefully the progress we are all seeing will keep improving and we find that quiet we are searching for. One thing is for certain, I'll never take my lugs for granted again.

Have a great day,

Danny

 

Did you see a doctor during this time?

 

What is the OAE test? I may have had one although I don't think so. They only tested to 8000 Hz in my audiograms, which is pretty standard here.

 

I don't think so. I also have this crakling sound when i swallow. I've had it for years and I don't have ETD.

 

Hi I am really happy for you that your hell sound has disappeared.

I myself am more or less in the same boat. Since a sudden hearing loss in April I am tortured with a super high pitched 14 kHz sound. Sometimes it's in my left ear (maskable with music), sometimes it's in the middle of my head (unmaskable, absolutely ZERO chance to habituate to that frequency). Everyone that tells me you can habituate to that frequency, uuuuhm no, I am pretty sure you can't. I am doing a TMNMT therapy, and I am hoping every day that tomorrow I will wake up and it will be gone because my hair cells (or whatever causes this monstrosity) have recovered, but after a long 7 months hope is going to get a little frail.

But reading your story gave me new hope, especially since this kind of high-pitched frequency is super rare and I thought I am the only one that is tortured by it. So there IS the possibility that it will vanish eventually.

Could you tell me if you did ANYTHING different? Like, sleep, sports, nutrition, whatever?

Greetings,
Sym

 

I notice if I have a headache or head cold, my tinnitus will get amplified a bit, but it goes down once the head is clear. That's what I've noticed so far. It IS bothersome trying to keep track of all the little things that go on in the head lol.

 

How long were you using the nasal spray and antihistamines for before you noticed a difference? I have been doing both routinely for 3 weeks and no difference.

ENT threw me out of our 2.5 minute appointment after declaring I had allergies. I knew it was BS, but decided to follow his nasal spray/antihistamine protocol anyway but I am thinking of stopping.

 

Hi @Jamesd -- If you truly do have some kind of OCD situation, here's a link to a pretty amazing article on how it became clear inositol can successfully treat OCD. -- LISTENING TO INOSITOL: CLINICAL NOTES

 

I have hearing loss in my left ear. And I have an associated tone/ring as a result. It first happened last year and then I had additional loss earlier in this year which resulted in increased tinnitus.

But my biggest gripe is that a month after I first had hearing loss last year, I developed bilateral high pitch tinnitus hiss/whine. It happened out of nowhere and I have no hearing loss in my right ear, which is the ear I most hear it in and no high frequency hearing loss in my left ear.

It persisted for several months and then went away. It came back this year a — a little bit sooner than the time of year last year that it presented itself, but I’m wondering if it’s coinciding with allergies because it did go away during the fall/winter months.

I have started to be more consistent in my use of nasal spray and antihistamines. It’s hard to tell because it varies from day to day and varies from hour to hour. When it’s really loud it’s so annoying. Generally speaking I can hear it over everything due to the high pitched nature. Last night was so loud I had a hard time hearing the TV.

I’m hoping that the antihistamines help.