Low Frequency Gets 10x Louder When Lying Down

I have a low frequency that comes and goes. Now it is constant and 10xs louder when I lay down. It sounds like a foghorn or tugboat. Does anyone know what this is or why it is so loud when I lay down? I can't get any doctor to listen to me. As soon as I mention the tinnitus sounds their eyes just glass over.

 

That's odd that it gets louder while laying down. My T is the same constantly.

Sounds crazy, but maybe it's how your lying down? Is your ear right on the object your laying down on?

Also, I reccomend trying Magnesuim supplements as they help with tinnitus.

 

No. It's if I'm laying on my left side or back. I can't lay on my right side at all. If I lay on the right side, my T will be way louder the whole next day and that side of my face will be numb. I can't figure this out.

 

Hi, mine also is louder when laying down, something to do with change in blood pressure I'm thinking.. Had this chat with a few other members.

 

The other tones get slightly louder when laying down but this low tone gets much much louder and becomes the loudest tone when it wasn't before.

 

Just wanted to resurrect this one again. This tugboat is back and super loud. Anyone have a clue about this one?

 

mine too.....

 

I think this one has something to do with blood flow. I don't think it's an actual tone. More of some kind of physical problem.

 

@Jkph75 I had a question. Does your low pitched T increase when you bend over, lift heavy things, do anything that requires some sort of straining? Mine does not get worse lying down, but it can when I increase intracranial pressure from doing certain activities. Lying down by itself does increase intracranial pressure (I think).

 

Yes - housework, ending etc. been noticing a pattern. Do u think blood flow has something to do with it? Would melds help that?

 

Meant "bending down"...

 

@Coyotesheaven

It stops when I talk and usually when I move around. When I am still it ramps itself up.

 

@Jkph75

Well, I really don't know I am in a similar but pretty much the opposite situation. The humming starts when I do strenuous activities as described or do anything that could cause a rapid change in blood pressure around my head or neck.

In my thinking (not a professional here), low frequency tinnitus usually is an indication of something wrong with the inner ear fluid (i.e. Meniere's disease, hydrops, or dehydration), or a vascular problem which may be localized or systemic.
Low frequency hearing problems tend to be a good indication of circulation issues. If you don't have other problems like chest pain or labored breathing or blood pressure issues, then I would say it is likely a localized problem, maybe with the basilar artery or the branches off to the inner ear (probably the branches because you would be much more symptomatic if something were wrong with your basilar artery).

How is your blood pressure by the way, and do you have any other neurological or systemic symptoms that you also suffer from? Since you develop the rumbling when you are sedentary, it kinda seems like the blood isn't flowing as well for whatever reason.

I would go to see a neuro-otologist or an otologist if you can find one in your area to describe these issues. If they don't think Meniere's or hydrops is the culprit (and I don't think it is), they will likely want to order an MRI or an MRA to look at the arteries in your brain and around your ears. I really don't know what kind of medications you would need and it depends on the outcome. They may prescribe anything from blood thinners or vasodilators to diuretics, or you may need something to modify your blood pressure, etc.. It's an area I have no understanding of so I wouldn't really know where to go aside from seeing ear specialists and getting those tests and letting them give you advice.

If you are concerned about inner ear circulation though, I can recommend supplements. You can start taking Gingko Biloba, and possibly upping your dose of riboflavin (please tell me that's vitamin B3), vitamin E, and vitamin B12. There are others out there that I can't think of off the top of my head. They haven't necessarily helped me, but at least they provide a sort of 'safety net' and might lessen some of effects if this is indeed a circulation problem.

 

What is an MRA? I've had an MRI, saw 2neurotologists, 2 ENTs, and 2 neurologists. They don't know what is wrong with me. I also am unable to drive due to dizziness unless I take Prednisone. I can walk around fine but getting in a car makes me incredibly dizzy but no spinning dizziness. I have had some migraines, pressure in my head and on the bridge of my nose, shoulder head and jaw pain. My blood pressure is fine, so they don't think that it is my heart. I have some kind of congestion in there. I can hear my heart beating and this whooshing at times on top of all these other sounds.

 

@Jkph75

An MRA basically looks into the interior of all of the major arteries in your brain and neck. They can check for plaques, any kind of swelling or narrowing or damage. Because it is not time-lapsed however I do not believe they are able to measure the flow of blood over time. But it is informative.

Hmm, your symptoms are sounding more and more familiar to mine. I also have the migraines and pain in the same areas, though fortunately I no longer have 24/7 dizziness, just 24/7 hearing goes out from some stupid trigger. Guess we're in the same boat of cluelessness together. What is your hearing doing these days, may I ask? Also, this is just an FYI but I am being checked for Lyme disease right now, and a few of the things you describe, especially the heart stuff and the neuro stuff, almost looks lyme related. Do you live in a lyme prevalent region?

 

There is Lyme disease here but I don't know how prevalent it is. My hearing has always been normal. I've had at least 10 tests in the past 6 months. At first my audiogram looked like a reverse ski slope in the normal range. Now it is better and doesn't look like that. In the beginning I felt like I couldn't hear well, though I never had a hearing loss. I have never had my hearing go out. I have felt like it was but then used my phone app to test it and i could see that it wasn't. I am taking a low dose of Prednisone until this gets figured out. It helps tremendously.

At first they told me that they thought I had Meniere's Disease which seems like what I have. Now they seem convinced that I don't have it.

 

It could be patulous Eustachian tube

If the Eustachian stays open (Patulous) as from physical abnormality, one will likely experience another type of objective tinnitus: described as an ocean roar or hollow effect, like a sea shell

 

My tinnitus disappears during the day but if i lay down it eventually starts up...right now its pretty low as i lay in bed but was gone before this. Any advice?

 

@Jkph75
If you are in a lyme ridden area, I would definitely get tested ASAP just in case, and then make an appt. with a lyme literate doctor (because the tests are not very accurate). You don't need to have evidence of a rash or bite to be infected. And lyme disease can affect hearing and balance, and I think I read in one study somewhere that it seems to like to attack your low frequency hearing...

Also, if you did have a reverse ski slope audiogram that means you may have had some small level of hearing loss before. Just because it stays in the normal limits does not mean it is behaving normally. My hearing tests have stayed low-normal nearly consistently, but I have drops of 10-30 decibels in some frequencies in audiograms that are spaced just 2 months apart. That is not normal to have such massive fluctuations in such a short amount of time.

By the way, how have you been kept on prednisone for such a long amount of time without hearing loss? I really wish I could have it at least on a short term basis so that my hearing would stop behaving like a roller coaster, but all of my ents refuse to prescribe it even though they can see the fluctuations on my audiograms.

 

I have been tested for Lyme disease. The test was negative. What is a Lyme literate Dr and how do you find one? Would I need to do that since my test was negative?

0-25db is considered normal and my hearing has never gone below that in any frequency. 15 is apparently the standard deviation. If you look at all of the hearing tests I have had you can find a few outliers but they are random. My hearing doesn't fluctuate between a reverse ski slope and normal. It fluctuates randomly and not dramatically. Basically, this doesn't readily fit the pattern for anything and since it is all in the normal range they are not concerned.

I was born deaf in my other ear. When all of this started I asked the Neurotologist to give me some Prednisone. He said it would not help and wouldn't give me any. I got some from another Dr and it helped so he kept me on it. Recently, another ENT took me off of it. My hearing didn't go down but i became very dizzy. Then, my primary put me back on it until he can locate a specialist out of town for me to see. I only take 5mg a day now. Do you have any other symptoms? What is your story?

 

@Jkph75

That's the thing with lyme disease testing; all of them have high false negative rates, so it is better to be evaluated by a lyme literate doctor to see if your symptoms correlate to those seen in lyme patients. To quote some website, a lyme literate doctor is an "MD practicing medicine according to the diagnostic and treatment guidelines of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (or ILADS)".
So here is some info of how to find a lyme literate doctor:
http://mylymediseasetreatment.com/l...ind-a-lyme-literate-doctor-llmd-in-your-area/.
And just as a side note, from my visit today, the Doc. believes that I do have lyme disease and that is why my ears are really screwed up.

But I didn't know that you had deafness in the other ear. Do they know if the vestibular system is out of commission in the 'dead' ear too? I would think if you have just one inner ear doing all the work, that you may be particularly sensitive to even slight changes in the function of your vestibular system. But IDK.

So my story is pretty long. Basically it all started with a firecracker exposure in early 2015. I got hearing loss, T, and H, and depression. But I was fine otherwise.
A few months later I got exposed to very heavy bass on two occasions in may (like over 100 db), around the time I think I may have been bitten by the tick. Of course, I had more T, hearing loss, and also a little bit of tensor tympani flutter after that. I started getting migraines and trigeminal neuralgia, which was really weird to me that noise could do that long after the exposure. I recovered after a few weeks (my hearing stabilized), but I was still bogged down by a really weird depression and my thyroid started malfunctioning.
Then in August I was exposed to a really loud scream. I had earplugs in, but that noise was 110+ decibels and shook the floor. I got hearing loss right away, but a few days later I was suddenly plagued by migraines and vertigo and feelings of dissociation for 4 days straight. The bad migraines went away, but the vertigo persisted; I sometimes needed help walking and even had cognitive problems the next few weeks. The vertigo lasted for about 2 months, and my ears were from then on forever super vulnerable to loud noise.
During last fall sudden or short term loud noises around 80 decibels started giving me sudden hearing loss here and there. I also started getting tingly feelings throughout my body and hydrops symptoms in one of my ears. Nobody could explain why my ears were made out of glass; so I just got by by wearing earplugs whenever I was out in public places. Usually did the trick, but without them the world was absolutely intolerable and scary.
In the winter, I started experiencing migraines and sudden hearing losses for really strange reasons. Hiking in cold winter weather, even quieter noises than before, people talking in a group setting, certain foods, too much fun. Not to mention terrifying hyperacusis where it would feel like I was receiving an electric shock in my head from people talking to me. Eventually, I stopped having days of remission where my ears were not bothered and fell into what seemed to be a never-ending migraine. I began experiencing basilar migraines around January (chronic fatigue, dizzy feelings, seizure like experiences, dissociating, weakness, blaring tinnitus, tingling, and small bouts of sudden hearing loss in the left ear 24/7).
In March I had another 'noise accident' which turned into a whole new level of weird. I lost a bit of hearing in my right ear (a bit), but it was just like I couldn't understand my right visual field or the right side of my body anymore. The right side of my body had a dulled nauseating sensation about it, and I sometimes denied that my right arm existed; objects in my right field of vision seemed weightless and distorted, and improperly configured in space although they appeared as they should. I also had visual agnosia from time to time. I started to get more and more panic attacks, which fueled the migraines and the sudden hearing losses, which were now in both ears.
Then May came with all the dreaded senior finals and huge amounts of stress. So for the last two weeks of school, I had stroke like symptoms and seizure like experiences, not to mention my hearing was still going up and down (but mostly down) all the time. They were all migraine induced, but it still scared the living hell out of me.
I came home in late May, and my migraine triggers kept increasing to include certain body movements, postures, facial expressions, crying and laughing, which in turn all fueled sudden hearing losses. I started to get muscle spasms and pains in my neck and TMJ. Sometimes I also got what felt like mini-ischemic attacks in my ears, where my hearing would suddenly be cut in half, the room would spin wildly, and I would feel the need to throw up immediately or that I was going to pass out. Part of that was due to being on propanerol, which lowered my blood pressure far too much.
And for the rest of the summer I stayed sick with the migraines and having to deal with small hearing losses every day from almost every move I made. My circulation slowly became affected as and I lived with cold hands and feet, chronic fatigue, and always feeling like I could never catch my breath; stairs became #1 on my hit-list. For some of the summer I became so intolerant of pressure changes that I could not wear earplugs, so I became housebound and would not dare leave the house most of the time except for a brief walk or two.

And here I still am today, 3 months after that. My ears are still ringing, my head still hurts, and my hearing is still going down every day. But thankfully I now have the right diagnosis and the means to make all of this go away.

 

Would you mind sharing your audiograms with me? I would like to see if they are similar to mine. I went on that site. I didn't see a listing for Lyme drs. How did you find yours? From what I understand, there is no cure for chronic Lyme.

 

So here are most of my audiograms (there are a few I never recieved or could not find). Sorry that I don't have one pre-noise exposure. I can tell you that back in 2011 by audiograms were in the -10 decibel areas for all frequencies, and that I had a 10 db drop maximally at 8k in 2014; that's all I remember.

Here is the one taken 2 months post firecracker exposure:






Here is the one taken 1 month post loud scream and 3 month post loud bass music exposures.



Here is the one taken post ear infection but once I started getting the weird migraine attacks from loud noise



Here is an audiogram taken in December, after experiencing about 5 or 6 small sudden hearing losses from migraines. Notice how how the right ear got better though.



And then here is one in March 2016, just before I started having the problems with my right ear. I think that many of my losses from December-then were above 8k in my left ear, so I don't think it recorded much of anything. Once again the right ear improved, and it was very stable for most of the winter.



Here is the one taken May of 2016. At this point you can see the tiny injury in my right ear. This is when I was experiencing sudden, tiny losses just about every day in both ears.




And finally I have this one. There are actually 2 audiograms here, one taken in early July and the other taken just last week. Sorry for the poor quality; I didn't get my own copy of last week's audiogram, but I remembered where everything fell so I just plotted it as dots surrounded by circles on my previous audiogram. Notice how the left ear has been deteriorating a bit. Unfortunately, all of my low frequency losses occurring over the past month have happened below 250 hz, so there is no way to really see what is going on there.

 

Thank you for taking the time to do all of that. My audiograms don't look like yours. That is very strange, especially what you have going on at 6k. I wish I had audiograms from before I had problems. That would have been beneficial. Hopefully, they can do something to help you. It's awful having a mysterious illness.

 

@Jkph75

The 6k isn't really strange. It's a noise notch. I think the migraines/lyme/whatever keeps striking there because that area was previously weakened/damage by noise exposure. That is a common noise notch created when listening to too much loud music (and I did that early on before these audiograms were taken). If you look at my first audiogram you can see them first showing up a little bit.

Yea, chronic lyme in the inner ear is not going to be fun. I am terrified of the herxes, which could deafen me.

Anyway, I hope you as well get some help for your ears, whether or not it is lyme related.

 

@Coyotesheaven

I don't think I have Lyme, but who knows at this point. The noise notch isn't weird but the fact that it is fluctuating so much is. Here are my audiograms, since you bothered to post yours. I have other tests but these were all taken at the same place. That's a 5 under 1khz in the bottom row. I just added my most recent results to this. Sorry about the presentation. You can see how it's all still normal but fluctuating 15 dbs in random frequencies. The last one seems the strangest. Hope it's a sign of something healing.

 

@Jkph75

Good grief that is a lot of fluctuation; that doesn't look so great in the high frequencies. It's also odd because it seems rather flat. They checked for any conductive causes, correct?

 

They checked it once. It was within 5bd of the other results. First they said Meniere's, then Labyrinthitis, then MAV. It's not seeming to fit the pattern for anything. Last ENT I saw actually said that there was nothing wrong with my ear and that I needed to see a neurologist. Neurologist said it's my ear. I need to find a Neurotologist who is exceptionally knowledgeable, but I can't even get a name from anyone. It's so frustrating. Maybe I wouldn't be as concerned if I had another working ear. They act like as long as your hearing is in the normal range nothing is wrong with your ear.

 

@Jkph75

Yes, the majority of ENT's are never very good with inner ear issues and do not know how to take wild fluctuations in hearing seriously (I've only had 2 caring ENT's who took it seriously, out of the same practice). They only think something is terribly wrong if you are already not understanding conversation and are hearing impaired (i.e., if everything goes below 30 db); that way their audiologists can direct you to spend $$ on hearing aids!

Well, MAV is definitely something to consider however. That's what they thought I had originally, and it's a fairly common form of migraine. It does cause hearing fluctuations that would look like your hearing patterns, but many ENT's don't recognize that hearing can also be affected; it can strongly resemble Meniere's. Everything you describe could be lyme like, but it could equally be attributed to migraine attacks, and would more likely be migraines because they are far more common. Migraines are very weird and have diverse neurological presentations.

Have you tried a migraine med or have you looked for trigger foods in your diet?

 

Investigate TMJ. Read my posts on it. Maybe you are clencing / grinding on your teeth at night.
If it's fluctuating you are Lucky. Much better to handle than same volume T all day.
Investigate your neck as well. See a neck and face therapist to spot if something is misaligned or stuck.