New to This Nightmare/My Story

Hi everybody,

My name is Mike and I'm 21 years old I've been playing the drums for nearly four years. I have started to use shooting protection headphones for over a year after realizing that I don't want to get hearing loss. Little did I know, the headphones reduce sound merely by 20-25 decibels. While at times it is enough protection (I am a quieter player), other times I find myself in situations with extremely loud guitar amps and or drummers. I have stopped playing the drums and have stayed away from headphones/loud sounds ever since the onset of my symptoms. Needless to say, I am getting custom earplugs made tomorrow and will resume my hobby of music once I get those in about 3 weeks.

My pulsatile tinnitus and ear spasms:

It all started around July-August when I had very itchy ears. During this time, I was using q-tips a lot. I did not have any symptoms of tinnitus at this point. On around September 5th, I was cleaning my ears with a q tip like a normally do. About 10 minutes after I was done, I noticed this strange vibration sensation in my right ear. It was kind of like a rapid low tapping sound. It sometimes happens in bursts, or just one at a time. The vibration/spasms will occur every 5-10 seconds for the first few hours. Then 10-15 seconds in the third and fourth and so on...It kind of freaked me out but I thought nothing of it after it went away fairly quick. Come the next day, I felt the same sensation. At this point I was beyond disturbed and scared out of my mind.
I went to my family doctor and they prescribed me amoxicillin (wtf) and said there was a bit of fluid in my right ear. Much to my regret, I took it for about 5 days. On the fifth day I noticed a pulsating in my left ear. I am afriad the amoxicillin may caused this.. After noticing the PT I went in to full panic mode. I went back to the family and told them that I now have PT along with the spasms. This time around the family doctor prescribed nasal spray and ear drops. None of the two did anything. Finally, I was referred to an ENT.

I went to the ENT and the first thing he did was clean out my ears with this suctioning tubes. He said that there might be a hair on my ear drum or something causing it (this didn't help and was very loud and slightly painful) He then told me that I was using my nasal spray wrong and showed me the correct way to use it (pointed horizontally towards Eustachian tube). I tried this for about 2 more weeks while still using the ear drops. Still no change. 2 weeks later I went back to him and got muscle relaxers. They however have not exactly helped stop the vibrating. Well I guess I can't really say for sure as the length of time the vibrating lasts can vary from 1 minute to 10 hours. The flexiril doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

I went and got a CT scan and found out the cause of my PT. Here is my post related to that. https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...cause-of-my-pulsatile-tinnitus-ct-scan.24513/

I can live with the PT. It only occurs when I lay down, or if I'm out of breath from running or something. Sleeping isn't difficult at all for me at least. I just use a sound blocker or turn on a fan to mask the puslating. The ear spasms however are unbearable, end of story. When they start, I have to do my best to contain, and calm myself down. There have been a few instances where I literally had manic episodes involving uncontrollable crying and crazy thoughts I would never imagine thinking. Yes, it is that bad. The sound has driven me absolutely INSANE. While I have gotten much better at controlling and calming myself, it is still extremely difficult to cope with. I've found that a combination of stretching and drinking A LOT of water helps. I have also increased my magnesium vitamin b2 and vitamin a intakes (no supplements). I exercise almost every day and eat very healthy.

Here's some other potential causes of the spasms I ruled out:

Wisdom tooth:I had been having pain in my bottom right wisdom for the past few months and got it removed 14 days ago. My PT and spasms have not decreased/went away after this.

TMJ: My ENT doctor told me I have a healthy jaw line after looking at my CT scan pics and said I most likely don't have TMJ.

Loud Sound exposure: While this is possible, my doctor said it is very unlikely considering I have been using hearing protection for a while and because the unusual shape of the bones in my ear are congenital.

I appreciate any advice and would love to hear from anyone that has been experiencing anything similar.

Here are my other threads

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/pulsatile-tinnitus-and-ear-spasms.24390/

CT https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...cause-of-my-pulsatile-tinnitus-ct-scan.24513/

 

Welcome @Mike Evangelo - fellow drummer here.
It sounds like you've found the cause for your PT. You are wise to ask for a second opinion. Get a second one, but also a third one. Surgery isn't without its share of risks, so you better have as accurate data as possible. I did surgery last year and it wasn't really a walk in the park in terms of recovery.

Get a good set of custom molded musician ear plugs for your drumming sessions. I've been using an e-kit so I can control volume, but if I was behind an a-kit I'd probably be wearing a lot of protection.

Good luck

 

Nice to know there are other musicians on here. I am definitely am going to get more opinions. While I can deal with PT, I would much rather not live with it. My doctor mentioned that hearing loss is one of the risks which is why I am hesitant.

What was your surgery for if you don't mind me asking?

I'm getting two different pairs of custom plugs. One for sleeping and one for shooting, drums etc. They both are said to provide about 35-40 decibels of protection. I am thinking about using these with the shooting headphones to get about 55-60 db of protection. While this might seem like overkill, I am taking no chances. Anyways I have been using these drum mutes on my set in the meantime for practice. That and I play the drums on my keyboard.

 

Yeah, when it comes to touching the ear, the stakes are quite high unfortunately.

Not at all, it was a stapedotomy, because of otosclerosis. They open your ear drum, take out the stapes bone, drill a hole in the cochlea, and put a prosthesis (a piston) acting as a fake stapes, and close your ear drum back into place.