Should I Be Freaking Out or Not? Did Valsalva Maneuver Cause This Spike?

I have really loud tinnitus, but the past couple days I did the valsalva maneuver a few times. It seems it's louder now in my right ear, I'm not sure if it is just a spike, my stress/freaking out, or if it is legitimately louder because of valsalva. Either way, I'm not doing it again.

I'm going to get over the counter nasal spray tomorrow and see how that helps.

Any suggestions/comments/support would be greatly appreciated. Feeling pretty emotionally destroyed lately.

 

NEVER DO VALSALVA MANEUVER. IT'S DANGEROUS.

 

Interesting it made it louder. Maybe you have obstructed eustachian tubes and it made it more obstructed, thus making it harder to hear and worse tinnitus.

 

Super helpful, thanks a lot. I definitely didn't mention in my post that I won't be doing it again.

 

I'd be happy if this was it, at least I'd know some f**ky shit is going on with my eustachian tubes.

Although i have been to an ENT and they didn't mention me having ETD issues but I feel like I do

 

Actually, if you do Valsalva gently, it should help greatly, at least it did for me. I am writing down my experience here. As per my ENT's advice, I did Valsalva everyday for more than 4 months 20-30 times each hour throughout the day right after using the nasal spray. It cleared my Eustachian tubes and eventually got rid of the tinnitus itself.

BTW, if you just spray the fluid into nostrils without making it go through your Eustachian tubes, it won't change anything. I am not advising to do Valsalva here. Once again, just writing down my experience.

 

Why were you doing the VM in the 1st place? I think whatever is going on with your ears/sinuses that led you to use the VM is probably the culprit. I agree with above comments. I would avoid the manouever though.

2 things. go to your dr and have your ears checked in case you have perforated your drums or an infection is present.
the other thing is you could look at having a tympanogram with your audio which will tell you if you have a middle ear effusion.

Steam inhalation, decongenstants etc will help. antibiotics/antimicrobials if there is an infection present. My ears misbehave whenever I have an infection/inflammation present.

I think kaelon? has a thread on here about eustachian tube dysfunction. have a look at that.

I doubt this is going to be a permanent spike. Let us know how you get on.

 

I'm more on your train of thought, I don't really see it as dangerous until I had this spike. Define gentle though?

 

Hi Rick, I also have a question for you or anybody else who cares to answer. I'm not 100% sure, but believe that my T is caused by clogged Eustachain tubes. I have been using the Valsalva maneuver for a couple of weeks, and for about one week I have used a Eustachi exerciser device which is gentler. I also use saline spray on my Eustachian tubes, practice mouth and jaw exercises, apply hot compresses around my ears, and other things. My daytime and evening T seems to be getting better but I still wake up with mild to severe, depending on the day, white noise/static-like sound in the morning, which takes about two hours to go away. I've had the static sound in the morning every day since this started about 10 weeks ago, in fact at first that's all there was and shortly after that all hell broke loose with high pitched tones, frequency switches, fullness, and other problems during the day and evening. My T has gotten considerably better over the past few days, I've also been wearing ear plugs when outside on noisy streets, but I still have that static in the morning, and today it was extremely loud even though my T was virtually silent last night for hours. Has this happened to you, or have you run across anybody else who has a similar situation with T after sleeping? Thanks very much!

 

I think that you probably had some mucus in your Eustachian tubes loosen up and move, perhaps not in the best direction for hearing, so your auditory nervous system went on Red Alert. I doubt that it will last long.

Try putting warm compresses against your ears, with you finger on one side of the washcloth pushing it a bit into the ear opening. You will likely hear some crackling sounds, which I believe is the mucous being softened and loosened. I do that while stretching my jaw forward followed by opening my mouth wide, and other isometric types of jaw exercises which my DDS told me to do, when I thought I might have TMJ, but doing this seems to lower the tinnitus a bit, most of the time.

If your recent setback clears up soon, you'll know that it wasn't anything to worry about and that you didn't cause any permanent damage. I've have had several scares from this maneuver, nothing happened that didn't resolve itself, but to be on the safe side I have decided to mostly use the Eustachi Eustachian Tube Exerciser device, for which I have found no evidence of anybody hurting themselves with. There's a less expensive device, invented in Sweden, the Otovent, which uses a balloon and appears to do essentially the same thing.

I can hear non-tinnitus sounds of crackling at times when there's certain sounds in my home, such as bathtub water running or silverware clinking, right after my Eustachian tubes have been stimulated through heat and/or exercising them. This doesn't last long, it usually stops after about five or ten minutes. I actually like when this happens, it means that there's been some progress.

Please let us know how you're coming along, if you have time. Good luck!

 

Hi Luman,

I did not read all of your previous posts before this one. I have one question, didn't your ENT do a tympanogram to check your middle ear pressure. I am asking because you said you were not 100% sure but you believe your tinnitus is caused by clogged ETs. If that is an assumption, I strongly advice to do a tympanogram. That said, IMO, what you have been doing at the moment will definitely help improving your tinnitus. Please keep going as your are having tinnitus only for 3 months, and this amount of time mostly isn't enough to see a considerable improvement.

As for the static sound you mentioned, nope, I never had this experience. I was affected by tinnitus only the first 2 months (high pitched noise). Starting 3rd month, it became an unnoticeable hiss and remained the same for 3 and a half months before disappearing in the end.

BTW, did you check my thread in the success story section? If not, please check the below link. I have written down everything I did in that thread.
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/my-battle-with-tinnitus-was-over.21013/

 

Thanks very much Rick. When I went to the ENT doctor in August, they conducted hearing and other tests, and I believe the one you mentioned (tympanogram), and found nothing wrong other than loss of high frequency hearing which is probably not unusual for my age (64). I still have a strong feeling that I have clogged, not actually blocked, Eustachian tubes, because I have often have fullness, and I sometimes get crackling that is not tinnitus, when I use my Eustashi Eustachian Exerciser device which is similar to doing the Valsalva. This crackling reacts to sounds like water running and silverware clinking and usually subsides after a few minutes. I also had the fullness, but no noticeable T, when I was in my 20's, a long time ago, I sought help from a doctor but all he did was give me Valium. I eventually got used to it. I suspect that I have narrow Eustachian tubes with gunk inside of them. I've heard, and felt, strange things going on in my ears for years, but never paid it much mind until now.

I worked very hard last week steaming my eustachian tubes (via nostrils) with a face steamer, then using Saline Nasal Spray, followed by using the Eustachi, and doing other exercises, and had relative quiet for a number of hours during the late afternoons and evenings of last Friday, Saturday and Sunday, except for the morning which is somewhat noisy every day but faded after a few hours. Yesterday, Monday, I had no silence at all, which was disappointing but it's been extremely humid which may have affected my tubes - if in fact that's the cause (and I hope it is). I was "listening" to the silence, last week, which was not a good idea and may have led to the backslide today of hearing T all day, perhaps a little joke my brain played on me. In any case, if it turns out that the tubes are not causing the T, even a little, then at least I'll have ruled that out once they're cleared relatively better than they are now.

One thing I forgot to mention, because of noisy neighbors, before the tinnitus first hit me in July, I slept with earplugs every night for over 5 years straight. I often wonder if this didn't have something to do with my morning tinnitus which I wake up to, in various degrees, every day. If I get up to go to the bathroom, it's there. If I fall asleep watching TV it comes. Until it goes away, subsides , or even gets worse, I'm just going to have to learn to treat it like an annoyance and start to to learn habituation just in case I am unlucky in finding a solution. Of course, I can seek professsional help, as I am in NYC, which I may do in five or so months if there's no improvement, and perhaps sooner if there's a bad turn for the worse.

Edit: Just noticed that my T got a little quieter, not by a great deal, but I guess writing this helped a bit!

Thanks very much, you've been very helpful.

 

@Luman & @Rick Garner
I wonder why this site has created such a stigma against valsalva. As I understand unless you're blowing with hurricane force winds it shouldn't be dangerous. I.e a soft blow, and if your ears don't pop then don't force it.

 

I believe that the Valsalva is not dangerous when done as you say, gently. I had some trouble with it, nothing too painful or anything, I just can't get it to work by being gentle, so I got the Eustachi, which does the job, and is very safe.

 

If Valsalva is dangerous, my ENT wouldn't have advised me to do it such number of times a day in the first place. I initially had difficulty doing it but once the fluid from the spray starts to flow through the tubes, it became easier. I don't think doing it gently would do any harm.

 

Although it helps ETD in some cases, some ears are delicate and should never do it hard.

I agree that if done gently it shouldn’t be harmful in any way.

I’m my case it just made my fullness worse so i stopped doing it. No harm done.