Pure Tone Sounds Distorted / Hearing Loss / Tinnitus

Hello,

I have a hearing loss in my left ear since August 2017. I have no idea what actually was the reason as I had a lot of stress but also "crusts" on my eardrum over 4 months that the ENT first noticed after the hearing loss, also my outter ear canal was swollen and somehow since 1 year itching in my left outter ear canal. Additional I had numb feeling on my skin beginning in my left foot and after a while in my left arm and after the hearing loss in my left face. Its not a paresis it must be something else. I am still in that condition and of course I have Tinnitus too.

Anyway my problem is that in the hearing tests (doesnt matter where) since my hearing loss I hear the damaged frequencies completly distorted. A pure tone sounds like a "bzzzzz" and I also try a hearing aid right now where I can hear that "bzzzz" when it gets sound from the surroundings. Like my keyboard in front of me making noise when I hit the keys. Its only a little time-displaced but that must be the hearing aid and the distorted sounds. Also I feel like the Tinnitus sounds like that distorted sounds - its a very high sound of the Tinnitus and flipping/changing all the time going up and down.

So my audiogram says I have hearing loss of 80db at 5khz and around 80db also on 8khz and in the inner ear I have around 50db at 5khz and 50db at 8khz. Why there is such a difference between air/bone is still a question to me but my major concern is the "bzzzz" sound. I use the hearing aid because I though that the "bzzz" sound comes from the new situation and that I cant "train" my ear around 80db because in my environment I dont have very often 80db sounds. Additional I hear 4khz completly normal it just like a cut in the audiogram dropping to 80db at 5khz.

Does anyone else have such a situation? I mean I was lucky that my hearing loss only started at 5khz but I cant even get up to 10khz with hearing aids because of those "bzzz" sounds - and I am just afraid that this is something more complex.

There are still two therapies incoming for me:

- "Neuronal" Lyme-disease (blood test was negative but...thats just 50:50)
- Hyperbaric oxygen therapy

I hope someone can give me some ideas.

Thank you so much!

 

I suggest you work with your doctors to diagnose your hearing loss root causes more deeply. Have you done any fork test? (Rinne, Weber?) - Have you done any imaging (CT & MRI)?
Your conductive losses could be due to many things. One possibility is otosclerosis, which can affect the middle ear and the cochlea, leading to mixed losses (conductive & sensorineural).

 

Thank you for you reply!

• No Rinne or Weber test yet I think
• CT sinuses and brain/head MRI - everything fine
• cervical spine MRI fine
• Blood tests fine
• Borreliosis/lyme disease - negative
• Tympanogram - fine
• Took antiviral medication - no result, dont know if it was useful

No we are right now done with searching for any root causes. We did a lot since last year August 2017 but no result, no idea, visited over 10 ENTs/clinic have again an appointment in June at the clinic.

Otosclerosis would mean that I have a mixed loss over all frequencies I think? Also the tympanogram was ok. It would be a mixed loss in ONLY high frequencies - never heard of that.

It is like a cut with a scalpel at 5khz everything above 4khz is "bzzzz" when I get sounds around 80db and inner ear around 50db.

Some ENTs said thats a physical phenomenon of pure high frequency sounds that other hair cells catch them up and give that "bzzz" sound. But I am not sure about that. Also the inner ear damage is in sync with middle ear damage if it is really a mixed loss.

I try to get antibiotics from a doctor for a lyme-disease/borreliosis therapie just by trying as there is no result in the blood test that says it could be borreliosis but I have to try it. I just got cortisone therapies 4 times even in the middle ear - no result.

I dont think it was stress as I also had that swollen outer ear canal and 3-4 months "crusts" on the eardrum even when the ENT removed them they appeared again 2 weeks later. They said they freak out because they dont know where they come from. At the end of the 4 months I had a white very thin layer on the eardrum which seems to be normal for an eardrum infection I think.

I have no idea...I think about dysacusis or hyperacusis? Is that what I describe?

 

Perhaps something to look into?

2 things:

1. show your images (not the written report) to a handful of doctors: it took half a dozen doctors on my end to finally find someone who found my root cause from the same images. He found what all the other ones had missed, perhaps because they didn't feel comfortable questioning the written report of the radiologist who said it was all normal. I went "out of network" (ie private practitioner that wasn't covered by my insurance, so there was no conflict of interest), and finally got an answer, after a couple of months of deteriorating hearing.
2. to "fish for otosclerosis", one typically needs to do a CT of temporal bone, so you can see the middle ear bones (malleus, incus, stapes) as well as the cochlea. I'm not sure your CT of sinuses would have shown those critical parts.

No there is no rule with otosclerosis: mine started presenting as sensorineural only (across pretty much all frequencies), and then within 6 weeks a 50 dB air-bone gap opened up in the low frequencies, but I still had losses throughout the hearing spectrum.

I don't know what you mean. If you feel comfortable about it, you could post your audiogram in here.

 

That’s so strange you say about the numbness in your left foot, also the crust in your ear. I had these same issues for about a year before my T. My hearing is fine apparently and my ENT appointment is a fair few months off so I’m still not sure what caused my T?

 

Yes I will talk to the ENT about Rinne and Weber need to look that up first. Thanks!

Have to add I just checked my images/reports and I also had one image for the full ear (middle ear components and inner ear, mastoid air cells etc). Nothing. But you are right I have to show someone else the images again. The ENT looked them up but said everything is fine same with the doctors at the CT/MRI. First was thinking about acoustic neuroma because of the numb feeling and high frequencies - but they said its ok.

OK I didnt know otosclerosis could still be a root cause in my situation. I dont know much about it as most said it cant be otosclerosis.

No sry I didnt know how to upload my audiogram so here it is. As I said beginning at 5khz up to 8khz I only hear "bzzz" sounds. So in a hearing test I hear every pure tone normal in low frequencies and every pure tone I get within the damaged areas is completly distorted and like a "bzzzz" or some kind of buzz sound - completly weird. I can also hear that distortion if I play on my smartphone a youtube 6khz video test tone.

It is impossible to wear a hearing aid!

@Jcb some think about neurological infections like borreliosis / lyme disease can also start with typical symptoms like you have from problems in your back (sciatica). The crusts were all on the eardrum itself. It was an infection of the eardrum and an outer ear canal swollen. Didnt hurt nothing.

 

Thank you, this is very informative. I’ll have to look into it some more.

 

@Jcb What I heard concerning borreliosis / lyme disease is that it often comes in combination with a virus. So I was thinking that my hearing loss came from borreliosis in combination with such a virus and I did a blood test but a few months later now I know that the blood test could be wrong or at least useless. There is a another method called in english I think "spinal tap" but also not 100% safe and I dont wanna take that risk so I might just try to get the antibiotics from a private doctor and make a therapy with those antibiotics, food supplements, etc. because those bacterias can also stay passive for a long time after they did harm to you until they get active again. I saw that I get always two kinds of responses from the doctors some say a blood test is enough and some say that the blood test is completly useless. So at the end I think its a disease that you can only identify by looking at all the symptoms but nothing is 100% of course.

 

Anyone else who has experienced or still has those "bzzzz" sounds on a hearing test? Completly distorted pure tone frequencies? Impossible to wear hearing aids because they just give you distorted sounds on the damaged frequencies?

Its crazy that I cant even use a hearing aid to get at least the high frequencies back.

 

Somehow I don’t think I have Lyme disease (not ruling it out) I’m definitely going to look into this more, make an appointment with my GP and see where it takes me. Thank you for the information, it’s been an interesting read. Let me know how you get on.

 

@Jcb Yes I would just make a blood test first and look at the overall symptoms. Check for Neuroborreliosis - has numb feelings one body side, symptoms of disc prolapse etc. could occur - all things that have to do with the nerves.

Thank you! Well I hope that someone else can explain me what I actually hear or if it is auditory nerve OR cochlea damage or maybe both who knows. The damage of the auditory nerve and overall strange symptoms would link to that Neuroborreliosis. Most people tell me that when you have hearing loss you hear things distorted, but distorted in connection with sounds that go over all frequencies. That I hear distorted pure tones in a hearing test is I think not that often at least I was not able to find one entry on the web.

The problem with borreliosis is that it can stay a long time in your body and its not 100% sure that you can find it in your blood. the borreliosis makes the damage and after that stays passive for a while and comes back to make again damage. Well at least thats what I read about it. My "bzzz" sounds made me think that it could be auditory nerve problems. It would also make sense to me because I was in that year often outside in the woods/mountains. But yes I just dont know Hope it helps you!

 

It has streeter, thank you. Hope you get to bottom of your issues man, I will be looking deeper into thIs myself.

 

I got 15 units for an Hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

I add here my tympanogram. What I dont understand is that making the pressure compensation on my left ear totally feels different to my right ear. I got a balloon to train it and I found out that when I train with it on my left side that it hurts when I swallow in the area of my throat (left side top).

I was not able to get an additional appointment at the ENT to discuss that problem. Maybe one of you knows more about that tympanogram? It seems that the left ear is kind of different to the right ear. The ENT told me that that is normal. I know its german but I think for someone who understands how to read the tympanogram its easy to read...I dont understand it

Just wanna be sure that I dont miss something that could led to problems within the hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Thank you so much!