High-Pitch Pulsatile Tinnitus vs. The More Common Whooshing / Swooshing?

Hey all,

I was wondering a few things and hoping a few of you with a little more knowledge may be able to help.

I have both normal tinnitus & pulsatile tinnitus.

Who else has a high pitch (8 kHz-15 kHz) pulsatile tinnitus vs. the more common whooshing and swooshing?

I've seen a few of you mention high-pitch pulsatile tinnitus and was wondering did any of you tie it into acoustic trauma or hearing loss?

My understanding was pulsatile tinnitus is NEVER tied to hearing loss but I wanted to clear this up if any of you know.

Otherwise are there any other ideas as to why blood flow would create such a high pitch chirp as opposed to the obvious whooshing of a nearby artery?

Mine is personally about 10 kHz, in sync with my heartbeat and comes and goes for a total of 4-6 hours a day, sometimes soft, sometimes quite loud. I cannot tie it to anything in particular and I've been journaling for quite a while on it regarding caffeine, exercise, salt.

Any pointers by anyone that was able to work out a personal trigger?

 

From my understanding, pulsatile tinnitus like that results from a disruption of blood flow through the head or neck. Did you have a Doppler study done on your carotids to make sure nothing is up there? Is the sound in both ears or just one?

 

How did you determine the 10 kHz value?

 

No Doppler study yet as it’s only a small thing. It’s in one ear only.

So what is the regular cause for lower frequency whooshing sounds? I thought that was also head and neck.

 

I do music and can work out those frequencies pretty easily. It’s above 8 kHz for sure. Whereas most pulsatile tinnitus is a lower swoosh or whoosh that actually sounds like blood from what I gather. This sounds like a normal high pitch tinnitus modulated in volume by heartbeat. Makes me think it would have to be a pretty tiny artery. It doesn’t even have a pshhh sound to it of any sort.

 

I have high pitch pulsatile tinnitus and also low pitch. I actually have 1-4 pulsatile sounds at a time depending on the day. All in sync with my heartbeat. I just had a CT scan done and am meeting with a neurologist. I’ll try and post something after the appointment to update. In my case it might be intracranial hypertension.

 

Yeah, let us know how you go. Have you had other intracranial hypertension symptoms?

 

Sometimes I’ll have a gray streak go across my vision and I get headaches that feel like pressure.

 

Mine is as you describe.

I have no information for you though. I waited 2.5 months for a phone call with an ENT to determine he wants to see me in person and I get to wait another month and a half for that.

Mine comes and goes. I haven’t been able to consistently correlate it to anything. It also switches ears. Usually it’s gone in the morning.

 

Yeh same with me. Comes and goes randomly. If you start to notice any cause, let me know.