Living with On & Off Tinnitus

Hi everybody

I am a 38 years old male from Scandinavia with Tinnitus. Thanks for reading my story which I belive can be interesting for someone with similar experiences. I have been suffering with fluctuating and low Tinnitus for 1,5 years. I can`t really remember the first time I noted the tinnitus because there where no dramatic situation due to my T onset. One day I just started to hear a faint morse code ringing in my right ear. It didn't bother me much in the begining because I was pretty sure it would go away. But so far it has not. I remember most parts of the early days I had relative low tinnitus with minimum activity, the ringing was barely audible and sometimes complete gone. On scale 0-10, the ringing was fluctuating from 0/10 - 2/10. Sometimes the ringing was very weak and the morse code ringing sounded bip.....bip..bip....biip..........biiip with multiple seconds between the bips. A simple yawn or Valsalva manouvre could actually stop the ringing. The tone of my T'(s) has never been high pitced. The frequensy is probably around 1000-3000Hz. I have never been to loud conserts, or had any dramatic acustic trauma before, but I used to play the electric guitar with headphones. But I never played on very loud because I have always been whatching out for my ears. I stopped playing with headphones once I noticed the ringing back in summer 2015. As for my medical background I no have diseases, but my GP measured some slightly high blood pressure after a couple of times I visited him to talk about my tinnitus situation. Some years before I got T, I had long term problems with vertigo. I was feeling constant dizzy. Not really vertigo dizzines, but it felt much like jetlag with mild dizzines and neck pain. I can still feel it sometimes today but it's usually only lasting for minutes.

After a half year with faint T I had a nasty flu and the Tinnitus suddenly become louder and more disruptive. Suddenly I started to hear the T during whole days. Sometimes as a morsecode ringing or as a single tone. This was new to me and I started to feel anxious and stressed. From here the T started to take control of my life. I saw a ENT doctor at the local privat clinic. The doctor there said that I had ETD. My left ET was complete clogged and she suspected this was causing the problem. The only problem with this theory was that the T is in my right ear and the clogged tube was in the left ear. Today I know this is not causing my problems because I have managed the open the clogged tube and the T is still there. I also did MR. The pictures shows that I have swelled tissue in the pharynx (throat/swallow) that might be blocking the eustasian tubes . Surgical operation was proposed by the doctors to remove the excess tissue. I didn`t go through the surgery, because another ENT doctor said that it would probably not help or was causing the real problem to my tinnitus. At the local hospital I did hearing tests with state of the art equipment. The audiologist said that I have normal hearing for my age. Although the audiogram shows that I have a little dip -15dB at 4kHz in both ears. According to youtube tests I have done I can't hear sounds over 13kHz. I asked my ENT doctor about this and she said that is normal for a 40 year old person.

The time period between april to november 2016 I experienced alot of fluctuating tinnitus on and off / loud or weak. Although I believe my T has never reached louder than 5 out of 10 on the scale, it was still very difficult to sleep sometimes. I started getting weird hissing and metallic sounds in head and ears. Specially after drinking alcohol I got strange metallic hissing sound which could stay for several days. This still happens today when I drink alcohol. I also had occasionally Fleeting Tinnitus. One time I was in my bed reading and suddenly out of nowhere the strongest fleeting T ever hit me in my left (non T) ear. The very next day I noticed my left ear had suddenly started to hiss. I still have some slightly hissing that comes and goes in that ear. I have also experienced that my tinnitus has completely dissapeared over several weeks giving me the hope that the T will some day be gone forever.

I am coping alright with my Tinnitus and I can live with it, but what's worries me is that since tinnitus is so unpredictable, my T might get severe some day. Although I dont think my T is due to hearing loss, I try to protect my ears as much as I can. I use ear protection when I am at the cinema, bar/discos etc. or working with power tools, lawnmovers etc.

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This morning I woke up with a pretty noisy weeeeeeeeeee in the ear. I went to the gym and forgott the T for a moment. Came back home, took a shower and notised I had no T at all. Had the rest of the day without T wondering how tommorow will be like, or next week...

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Gona see a new ENT next week. I belive there is still hope for me since I am having these "time outs"

Any suggestion to what might be causing my T?

Thanks for reading and take care.

 

You may want to check this post out and check the link to TTTS, which is known to cause morse code beeping type of T. You can mention that possibility to the ENT. If you have time you don't hear your T or you can ignore it, then this is a good sign that things can improve. It is important to keep positive with things as this will reduce your anxiety and stress which are bad for T. Take care. God bless.

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...t-over-sudden-hearing-loss.19273/#post-223119