Looking for Information About Loud Buzzy Tinnitus without a Cause

One of my relatives is having a very difficult time with tinnitus, and I would like to research the topic in order to help her out. Her tinnitus started without any cause. The sound is not constant, but can be characterized as a sort of buzz that modulates. The tinnitus is usually loud, but every few days it gets quieter, it's been two months now.

Is there any information relating to this kind of tinnitus and possible treatments? The situation is rather severe as the person is talking about suicide and can't work. We have visited all the doctors in the country, but none of them sadly have much to say.

 

@PhantomNoise - what tests has she done so far?
In particular, hearing tests done at an audiologist (resulting in an audiogram)?
Any imaging? CT? MRI?

 

Yes, she went to the hearing test. They came back normal.

No imaging has been done, I don't know why, but the doctors have not recommended it. I should also say, the tinnitus is only in one ear.

 

Does she have an audiogram that she'd be comfortable sharing?

 

I will have to ask her. As far as I am aware the results were completely normal. I believe they went up to only 8 kHz, but I can't recall for certain unfortunately.

 

So sorry to hear this for your relative. T is so difficult to cope with and also very stubborn.
The depression sound quite severe and maybe that needs treatment to help cope with the T. A Clinical Hypnotherapist can’t erase the T, which might erase itself. But they can help a lot with the accompanying anxiety and thoughts of ending life.

 

@PhantomNoise

MRI is usually recommended in the case of unilateral T without root cause. It is done to check for acoustic neuroma (a type of relatively benign tumor). Hit rate for the neuroma is less than 0.5%.
Extended audiogram to 16KHz is also recommended to check for hearing loss asymmetry in one sided T.
Unfortunately, the most common T cause is some sort of sensorineural loss/damage and not much that it can be done.

 

Ok the reason they didn't recommend a scan is because there is no apparent hearing damage, and apparently a tumor would also cause hearing damage.

I took a look at the audiogram. The ear that has the tinnitus has worse hearing, about 10 db dip at 2-3kHz compared to the other ear. Every frequency is within 15 dB of each other and 8kHz, which was the maximum is down only 10dB.

(Note that I think the result is calibrated according to some loudness curve).

 

A bit of new information and clarification. The buzzing type of sound, which I believe would fit the category of pulsatile tinnitus, does not modulate with heart-beat but is slower. Further, the tinnitus itself changes daily/every few days usually at night time between the pulsatile sound which is not very bothersome, to a very loud constant tone at around 2kHz, which is very bothersome.

I have been reading the following article:

https://www.tinnitus.org.uk/pulsatile-tinnitus

Could this condition be the issue? The page doesn't really detail any form of tinnitus that changes between two sounds, if you have any ideas I would be very happy to hear them.

 

The situation is still very bad. Every second day the tinnitus is louder and every second day more faint.

If anyone has a pulsating tinnitus like this, I would be very happy to hear information, especially regarding if it gets better and if there are any treatments.

Still no MRI for the time being.

 

One thing that helped me settle was actually watching Julian Cowan Hills videos on youtube. Recommend them for her, worth a shot.

 

Get some medical help to take her through the diagnostic flowchart.

 

@PhantomNoise

My T is very cyclical also. One or two good days followed by a loud day is one of my main patterns. Sounds change often even if there are some repeated sounds. I have my own theories about this, but I have not been able to prove them.
Was the T onset of your relative gradual or sudden? In my case, it started very softly and it took a few weeks to become louder and strongly cyclical.

 

Thanks for posting.

The start to the tinnitus was sudden.