Questions for My Six-Month Follow-Up with ENT

Hi everyone, it's hard to believe it's already been seven months since I joined this forum, and eight months with tinnitus. I've received great support and advice here and I'm very thankful for it.

Overall I'd say I'm not as bothered by the T anymore, even though I'm far from habituated. I feel that it's taking me much longer than the average member here to habituate, especially considering that my T is fairly mild. I think what's holding me back is that I'm still struggling with symptoms like ear fullness and occasional ear pain, while most members seem to agree that these other symptoms go away in the first few months. My reason for writing this post is that I'll be going back to the ENT for my six-month follow-up on Thursday, and I want to know if there are any questions I should be asking to determine if there's anything else that could be causing my problems.

My last visit to the ENT was fairly disappointing, because he just checked inside my ears and said that he could not see anything wrong, and that I should come back in six months. My audiogram did not show any hearing loss in the 250Hz-8kHz range. I haven't had an MRI and don't particularly want one. The dentist says I show no signs of TMJ, and my former jaw pain has disappeared completely.

Here are some of my symptoms:

1. Fairly mild T in my right ear that I can only really hear in a quiet room or when I plug my ears. The sound is very similar to crickets outside in the summer. When I'm tired it grows louder and then I'll also hear it in my left ear. Sometimes I'll get fleeting T, when this happens in the left ear I can't hear the primary T in the right ear anymore.
2. Reactive whistling. I thought this was gone for good, but it's recently come back. Whenever I hear white noise (kettle, car, computer fan), I'll hear this whistling tone over it. Whenever this reactive whistling is troubling me, I'll also hear a faint morse-code T in my left ear when I wake up in the morning and it's quiet.
3. Reactive tones. With my computer fan running, if I turn my head sharply to the left or right I'll hear a high-pitched tone coming from the fan. This doesn't happen all the time, and it also doesn't happen if I turn my head by turning my body instead of my neck. It also doesn't happen if I plug my ears and then turn my head. Occasionally it happens with the fridge too, but this is rare.
4. Ear fullness. This started about three weeks after the initial noise exposure, and it's still troubling me. When I move my jaw down and forward, I'll hear a crack in my ears and I can feel my Eustachian tubes opening. This is usually a pleasant feeling (it feels like cool air is moving in), but I'm not sure it's something I should be doing often. The ear fullness only troubles me during the day, when I wake up in the morning my ears never feel full. Is there anything I can insist on the ENT checking? When he checks inside my ears, can he even see all the way to the Eustachian tube?
5. Binaural perception (I don't know what this is really called). When I listen carefully, the sounds of things will change when I turn my head. For example, if my computer is on my left and I turn my head to the right, the pitch of the fan may sound slightly higher (this is different from number 3, which is an entirely different tone that I know can't really be coming from the fan).

Does anyone have any advice regarding these symptoms? I think that if the ear fullness would go away, I'd have a much easier time trying to habituate. Thanks for reading and please ask if I didn't explain something well.

 

The ENT can not see the Eustachian tube from outside of your ear drum. You have to do a tympanometry to see if your tubes are functioning normal or not. In my case, I had total negative pressure in my left ear which was due to a huge ear wax build up blocking the ear drum. When my Eustachian tube started to recover after removing the wax, the Tinnitus gradually faded, and eventually the hissing noise vanished completely after five and a half months.

BTW, it looks like you are recovering, hang on.

 

Your problems are probably related to muscle tension from anxiety. If you can get rid of your anxiety the "reactive" stuff and your fullness feelngs will go away. You'll be just left with a little noise that you only hear in a quiet room and you'll realize that it isn't a very big deal. Good luck

 

Thanks for the information! I suspected that the ENT won't actually be able to see into my Eustachian tubes. I had a test done that I think was a tympanometry, where he placed something in my ear to test the pressure. He said it looked normal. Do you think it's possible that I have some kind of inflammation or swelling in the Eustachian tubes? The fullness isn't consistent, but it comes and goes throughout the day. PS. I'm really happy that you made a full recovery!

How do I know if I have anxiety? I don't "feel" anxious, the way you would before an important or stressful situation. Do you have any suggestions to release muscle tension, just to see if it helps? If everything goes well I'll be able to take several weeks off work at the end of the year, I'm hoping that will help my recovery.

 

Your ENT can also do a nasal endoscopy. The test allows your doctor to check your nose and sinuses and look for signs of Eustachian tube disfunction.

 

I may ask him about this. Have you had this done?

 

Yes, twice. It's not the most fun you can have, but it can be helpful diagnosing problems.

 

I also had this test done in last November. It is a bit uncomfortable but you should be okay.

 

I just want to first say that I am not in any way trying to belittle your pain. There are many many people who have a small sound that they only hear in a very quiet room and even more who hear something when they close their ears. Most of these people do not consider this to be much of a problem
They wouldn't go to a doctor for it once or keep track of their symptoms or even think to find this site. The reactive noises you describe are from anxiety. I had them too at first. Most of it went away. You don't have to feel panicky to be anxious. You probably are just someone who runs a little higher than other people, a type A personality, etc. You aren't going to necessarily really feel your anxiety because it is normal to you. You only become aware of it if it increases a lot. You can notice it better by taking note of your thoughts and actions.

And BTW, 99.9% of the people posting on this site are anxious to varying degrees, myself included. It's probably also played a role in the fact that we got tinnitus to begin with.

My suggestion would be to not do anything to deal with your tinnitus. Don't take time off for it. Take time off because you want to do something enjoyable and then do it. If you hear your tinnitus in a quiet room go to a noisier one. Literally just forget about it, because it's not important. There is nothing wrong with you. I think that is the thing that you really need to internalize here. Your T is not representative of anything significant. In time you will come to realize that.

 

I've never really thought of myself as an anxious person, and up until this I've usually been good at handling stress from work etc. I have to admit, however, that I had some problems with anxiety during the first few weeks with T.

See, the thing is that I feel I would have a much easier time trying to ignore the T if I could get rid of these reactive noises and feelings of ear fullness. Currently they're always there to remind me of T, even when I can't hear it because of ambient noise. Although the T itself isn't a problem per se, to me the feelings of ear fullness and occasional pain are indicative of a problem that I'd like to resolve.

It's hard for me to believe that there's really nothing wrong with me, because even though my audiogram is normal, I suspect that I did some serious damage to my auditory system the night of the noise exposure. Of course, we know by now that an audiogram is hardly a sufficient test.

 

I am in similar situation. I also dont "feel" anxiety, and i do not think its thr cause of my symptoms but i think my symptoms cause my anxietyams then everything fets worse. Horrible cycle.

I have pressure in back of the head. Not a big thing but it wasnt there before my noise exposure. Two visits to Ent, all tests are normal, but i still think i messed up my head somehow. I almost feel like i gave myself concussion, but i cannot find any cases online where loud noise can cause concussion.

 

That sounds horrible. Your noise exposure is fairly recent though, there is still a chance that things will improve for you. It's difficult to know which symptoms are a direct result of the noise exposure and which are a result of the anxiety. Shortly after I first got T I also developed really bad jaw pain, but that went away as my anxiety improved. I'm hoping the ear fullness will also go away as I start to habituate.