How to Manage or Get Relief from Pulsatile Tinnitus?

Hello everyone, this is my first time on any sort of support forum so be patient please.

I recently found out the whooshing in my left ear that I've had for around 5 years now is pulsatile tinnitus. I had an intensive hearing test done and everything came back good. I was then referred to an ENT and he suggested I get an MRI done. I have it scheduled for next week and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared.

I hear it during any time of the day, but it's worse at night time. I use a fan but I physically cannot sleep on my left side because it gets so loud with my ear muffled into my pillow.

I'm writing in hopes to hear how you guys find relief, some different ways to manage it, or if you would just like to discuss/share your story.

 

@Mia Zurawski Wear ear plugs during exam and take a magnesium tablet one hour before exam for ear noise protection. Stay relaxed. You should be just fine with the exam (sound of MRI) with having just pulsatile tinnitus and good hearing. Post again whenever you wish and post us back after exam.

 

Aside from treating the root cause, there is not much else you can do to control the symptoms. Please read this:

If You Have Pulsatile Tinnitus, Here's the First Thing You Need to Do to Get Answers and a Diagnosis

 

I don’t know if it will help you but I have two things that will reliably help remove my PT for a couple of hours:

1. take a long hot bath. I suspect if something like this was going to help you, then you would have discovered it by now, but it helps me quite a bit. I’m left with a sort of high static in place of the PT but it is more tolerable for me.

2. this I think you should be careful with as I could see it causing a neck injury, but if I lay with my shoulder blades on a Bosu Ball, lift my arms over my head but still roughly parallel with the ground, and then just completely relax all the muscles in my upper body - this has the same effect as the bath but doesn’t take as long to achieve.

This one I did to try to overcome some of my posture problems (the classic hunched over posture from looking at phones and screens all day).

I’d be careful doing it though as if you are not careful I suspect it may cause other spine problems. Release slowly and come out of it slowly. Maybe use a small pillow under your head so you can still get that sustained backwards curve but with some neck support.

I’m not giving medical advice, just sharing what has helped me get some temporary relief.