Thought My Tinnitus Was Better, Now It's PULSATING!?

I honestly don't know where to start, how to start, or what to do anymore. I just need answers. I just need help. I guess I will start with the good news...

For those who need a super quick summary, I went 14 years without my tinnitus (in one ear) being a problem, then it was aggravated on a crazy loud wedding dance floor on July 15th 2018 that brought me back into this awful world of Tinnitus, something I rarely ever thought about in those 14 years short of a few short term non serious spikes. So if the July 15th 2018 spike and return to this world at 34 years old wasn't horrific enough, I then developed what I believe was stress induced "head buzzing" one night after a flight while freaking out all day that the flight may have made my tinnitus worse. So the last 2 weeks I have been dealing with TWO tones, all while eventually calming down and trying to stay positive. I got "used" to the head buzzing and assumed it was stress induced and was too bad to be true and would eventually subside. And guess what, it soon did. Some mornings it would be non existent, and then this past Thursday and Friday, it was the best thing ever...

My tinnitus returned as close to its baseline as it had in the 2+ months now since my spike. Head buzz completely gone, only dealing with minor regular tinnitus in my one ear.

But it didn't last long. While I was telling my friends and family all the amazing news and beginning to pick my life back up in certain ways, I went to bed Friday night, and woke up after about 5 hours of sleeps with a throbbing sound in my one ear now along with the head buzz returned. It took me a little bit to figure out what was going on, but this was now pulsating tinnitus, the sound matching my heartbeat. Saturday came and went and it wasn't there anymore. Then just last night, Saturday night. SAME story. Woke up at 4am (ironically after a very bad/scary dream) with a PIERCING pulsating tinnitus. Never able to fall back asleep. A zombie now this entire weekend.

The regular tinnitus I can fight. The regular head buzz I can somehow push through until it fades. But THIS, I cannot fight. I lay in my bed right now after another horrible nights sleep scared, with the pulsating tinnitus STILL lingering. (seems like it was at its worse when laying down on pillow). What in the lords name is going on at this point. Is this all stress/anxiety induced? It does feel that way, but who knows. It should be noted that only recently did I even find out about Pulsating Tinnitus and I thought to myself oh thank god I don't have that. Did that maybe trigger this with my anxiety??? Why would this start NOW just when I was starting to do better?

Somebody please help and explain pulsating tinnitus to me. Is there treatment for it if I need it? Please God help me at this point. Thursday and Friday were like a miracle. Now I'm broken again, and worse than ever before. I will have to take sick leave from work for the first time in my career if this persists, because I cannot work on 4-5 hours of sleep every night.

 

Go get examined, maybe there's a problem going on causing pulsating tinnitus. Good luck I hope you get better, cheers

 

Examined how exactly? I went to an ENT recently. He looked in my ears. No infection, fluid, wax, etc.

Do you mean MRI?

 

Can you describe your PT? Is it a whooshing (like maybe blood surging) or is it a high frequency hiss?

 

High frequency. In and out of my ear. In and out. Made worse my noise a lot of the time it seems.

My spike was your normal "everyday" spike. Suddenly I'm experiencing all these noises but this PT is by far the worst and most scary. Contemplating doing an MRA now.

 

Really sorry to hear it. I can relate to your predicament as adjusting to this kind of PT is a challenge to say the least.
I think the whooshing type of PT has a chance that there is a physical cause that may be able to be identified and corrected. I had an MRI ... but down here in NZ I don't think they had a clue as to what they should have been looking for so as usual nothing was found.
I know it's ridiculous telling someone with spiking T to reduce stress but I'm sure reducing stress does lessen the annoyance level of T (particularly hard with high freq PT). Sleep is essential too but of course try sleeping with loud PT and major anxiety. Lorazepam has helped me a lot with both but as with everything in this crazy wold of T - benzos are thought to be a cause of T. We can't bloody win!

 

The crazy thing is that as I noted about in my original post, last week, specifically Thurs and Fri, it felt as if my anxiety was fading. The head buzz was gone. I felt that I was finally moving on and that this all really WAS stressed induced. Friday night I went to bed happy. Then out of nowhere I'm woken up at 4am by PT??? Just makes zero sense to me how this all played out. This started out as a regular spike, nothing more. Then shortly after I started to become stressed out about it all these new noises began. One would think its stress then, but its just hard to believe at this point.

 

There is no sense with T - it is utterly random

 

Just an example... All day today I dealt with the Pulsative Tinnitus. Almost nonstop.

Ever since I got home from work around 4:30 it switched to the head buzz.

This all of course on top of the regular T

 

I hope i can ease your mind a little with this example

Last year around this period i had sudden bursts of pulsatile T too, above my H and regular T. Out of nowhere this came. The one that wooshes along with your heartbeat. I panicked off course.
The PT went away after 2 episodes lasting about 2 weeks each and didn't come back again. It mostly came on lying down in my bed in the evenings in short episodes of like 20-30 minutes. So i geuss it was caused by blood pressure changes, fatigue, stress (didn't had a cold or other ear problems then) ... or god knows what. I've got TMJ, tight muscle problems too ...