Intermittent Pulsatile Tinnitus, L>R

Hi! I am very happy to have stumbled upon this group as when I speak to my friends and colleagues at work (all doctors), people look at me like I'm nuts and say that they too hear a heart beat if they exert themselves or lie on their ear a certain way. I get frustrated trying to explain that it is not a hear beat, but rather blood gushing.

It all started mid January as I was preparing to get into the shower. All of a sudden it felt like I was underwater and heard something in my left ear that sounded like water--but I had not gotten into the shower yet! I gave it a few days, getting very anxious and losing a lot of sleep, and eventually realized that this was not water because it totally coincided with my heartbeat and intensified with straining or activity. Further research lead to a very concerning list of possible causes. As a physician myself, I started to panic which set a downward spiral.
As I was headed on an airplane in a few days, I went to my local ENT who did a very superficial exam of my ears and concluded that all was well, but gave me a steroid taper "just in case" there was inner ear inflammation. About 5 days into it, the whooshing disappeared and I forgot about it.

Fast forward 3 months and a bunch of other vague symptoms such as irregular periods, epigastric pain, nausea, and UTI's. All workups negative.

Finally, last week in April I had UTI symptoms again but as I was on vacation, I did not test for it, just empirically treated with Bactrim. By day 4, I wanted to jump out of my skin--restless, muscle twitching, heart racing...2 days later, the swooshing began again in the left ear. Next day saw my endocrinologist who drew a slew of labs which showed that my sodium had dropped 7 points from where it was 3 weeks earlier--said I had SIADH reaction to the Bactrim. I had also gained 8 lbs in 1 week! Needless to say, Bactim discontinued, diuresed the extra water, sodium improved. Whooshing was mainly on left, but for 2 days was on right. Then stopped--it stopped 2 days before I was returning to ENT.

He did hearing test which was totally normal but did not order any imaging because this was not continuous which made him less concerned. At that point I had read about Dr Maxsim Shapiro from NYU, on the whooshers.com site. As I live in suburban NY I made an appointment and I will be seeing him in 2 days. I am very anxious to get this done. I just want confirmation that I dont have a time bomb inside my head! I will post any follow up.

 

So I met with Dr Shapiro 3 days ago and after listening to my story and examining me he truly felt that this was related to hormones affecting my cerebro-spinal fluid level. The first episode began 2 weeks after I had my progesterone implanted IUD removed and the second episode began in the midst of an adverse reaction to Bactrim which caused by sodium level to drop precipitously and I gained 8 lb of water weight in a matter of days. On examination of my head, neck and around my ears he could not hear any abnormalities and my neuro exam was normal.
Today I had my MRI/MRA and he just called me with totally normal results. Big relief there--however, today also happens to be the day where the left sided whooshing is the loudest and I am walking around with earbuds and white noise.
The plan for now is to wait as June is a very busy month for me but July is very quiet. In the meantime I will contact my gyn and try to get back to the hormonal state I was previously in. The next step with Dr Shapiro would be a lumbar puncture, measure the pressure and remove fluid.
Hopefully it will disappear as suddenly as it arrived...