Tinnitus Changed Overnight & Hearing in the Right Ear Feels Muffled

Hey y'all.

Weird things have happened with my tinnitus and hearing overnight.

Last night I was on my computer and I had thought fan on it had spiked my tinnitus. My right ear, which is usually my least bothersome ear and just normally has static started ringing really loud intermittently. Then it began doing it non-stop. I decided to go to bed and see if it would reset in the morning, as that's what normally happens if things start to spike up at night.

Waking up this morning everything was haywire. My left ear, which usually has a few loud tones, just had a really loud static, louder than I've ever experienced. My right ear was still ringing really loud. I went back to sleep for a little longer and after waking my left ear was just a soft hiss, still no ring but right ear felt really muffled and was still ringing.

The muffled feeling is really worrisome. I went online and pulled up a tone generator and swept through the tones and my right ear cannot hear between 5000 and 6000 Hz. My tensor tympani in that ear is super sensitive and keeps spasming/flexing at every sound. It also is reactive to sounds. There's a metallic sound to everything in my right ear and it increases with sounds around me.

I'm not really sure what to do as it's Sunday. Urgent Care doesn't have any type of tests to see what's going, and the ER is super expensive and I just lost my job.

The only things I did differently yesterday was drive in town without earplugs, though I put them in when I got on the highway, took 20 mg of Nortriptyline instead of my usual 10 mg, and took one dose of Imodium because dinner did not agree with me.

 

Are any of those meds ototoxic? Have any Prednisone?

 

Sounds like delayed spike, or some exposure while asleep. This is why I sleep with earplugs which avoids the second problem.

 

I don’t think they are. I do know the Nortriptyline spikes me but not like this.

Unfortunately I don’t have any more Prednisone. Went to urgent care and they were no help. Will have to call my ENT tomorrow.

 

I used to sleep with earplugs but it’s gotten so loud I can’t fall asleep with them in anymore.

 

Same, I can’t either anymore. Plus my brain focuses on it and it grows louder and louder and I’m like wtf.

 

I was awake one time pretty early and my wife’s phone alarm went off. I was like wtf that is loud. Apparently it’s been going off daily next to me and I’m asleep.

 

I know that feeling.

I also have woken up to muffled hearing a few times. For me it was always from tapering off steroids.

However, I have also had fleeting tinnitus and moments where on my hearing test app (that I do periodically) my 6 kHz will drop out by 30 dB.

The moments are triggered either by me talking loudly which sets it off (why, who knows) or taking Amitriptyline (which turns into Nortriptyline). I found that SSRI either made my distortions better, or made things worse overall, definitely more of a gamble med (not as gamble as pred).

Given it amps up serotonin which has who knows what effect on hearing nerves, and can act as a sodium channel blocker, my first guess would be your larger SSRI dose.

Waking up to static instead of a tone is usually good news. Do you wake up to a tone usually? If so, I would strongly point my finger at the SSRI and recommend tapering off if hearing nerves are no longer firing to sound.

And like people here, you should be on Prednisone yesterday if your hearing hasn't come back after 12 hours.

 

After spending the day with this strangeness, I have found it's highly reactive. Opening packaging, crumpling up paper, putting things in a plastic bag it changes volume with each sound, almost like a reverb effect. Does it while I talk too.

Using the audio notch slider and with earplug in my left ear, I cannot hear between 5600 Hz and 6000 Hz unless I crank the volume way up.

 

It may be the Nortriptyline. I have bumped up the dosage twice before, once for 5 days, and though I increased the static hiss to intolerable levels, it never did anything like this. I went back down to 10 mg last night. This morning there is no more constant ringing in my right ear again, which is normal and good. Buuuuut, I still have a reactive ring. Just rubbing my hands together sounds gives a sort of metallic echo.

The ring in my left ear is also quite a bit higher in pitch than usual. I still have the clogged feeling in my right ear and my tensor timpani is really sensitive. I had just gotten over that. Oh well. Whatever I did really messed everything up. Debating whether to call my ENT. Just had to pay $100 for one of his medical students to remove the tiniest piece of wax from my ear, so I'm not all the that thrilled to go back and be nickel and dimed.

 

Buy her an Apple Watch. The silent alarm on it is great.

 

Alright it's back to being weird again.

I keep getting really loud intermittent ringing in my right ear and a head rush each time it comes on.

Maybe it has to do with going back down on the medication, but it's tripping me out. Never had this before.

 

This happens to me when I stand up too quickly. Ringing in both ears at 90 dB solid, feels like passing out.

It's ischemia of some kind. Is your blood pressure bottoming out?

I know we say "never" take Aspirin... but maybe taking a bit of Aspirin is a good idea right now if it turns out it's some clot causing a mini-stroke (not a complete blockage, yet).

 

I had this and it is fucking annoying. It has "abated" in volume since. Given the frequency, are you sure you didn't hear more loud noises recently?

Given that's the weakest link area, any pathology is likely to be symptomatic there first. If all nerves are damaged equally, a greater proportion would be the damaged ones by a carte blanche drug or effect as there were less healthy ones of them to begin with.

 

You sure know your stuff.

 

I sure didn't when this all started. I was like anyone else, being told that it's permanent, nothing you can do, I've seen suicide from this, your only hope is $$ treatment.

Definitely made myself worse.

That said, a broken clock gets to be right depending if it's in the right place at the right time.

I just guesstimate followed by whatever sprinkles of logic I have.

 

How are you now? Mentally, tinnitus wise?

 

The only that has happened recently is I knocked over a metal media console frame onto the hardwood floor. I had no immediate changes after that though.

I have so many different sounds going on I can't even tell what's new anymore, but it just seems more distressful now. Feels like gradually more and more intrusive ringing. Not sure why it can't stay one way and let me get used to it. I feel I've had 20 years worth of worsening in 10 months.

 

Damn annoying to wake up with the ear fullness. I avoid it at all costs.

 

Yea things are just going haywire. I've got so many different weird sounds going on now along with the old sounds coming backing slowly throughout the day.

I don't know what to think except they are annoying as hell and completely unmask-able. The only time I ever got a break was while eating... all my ringing would completely go away while eating. Not these new ones. I can at least still listen to music for the time being, although I have to listen through 3 new sounds. oh well I guess.

I envy all those success stories where people get habituated. Mine won't stay consistent long enough. It just keeps building on itself. maybe I need to just live in complete silence, which sounds like it's own personal hell.

 

Me everytime I came off steroids.

I don't know how I'm alive. IF I had had gotten it this bad immediately I would be on suicide watch.

I don't know how I haven't gotten steroid ear shots yet, nor an MRI.

I'm not holding up well basically. Shit is wearing me down and I'm running out of options. Can't afford a worsening but living life does not seem to mesh well with this.

 

Do you think you would benefit from an MRI? I mean it seems like everything we do is a double edged sword. MRIs, ENT exams, meds etc .

It’s why I’ve held off so long getting an MRI until now, and why I haven’t touched meds either. Mainly because I’ve read your posts about not experimenting if it’s new tinnitus. However, I’m not improving either, so time for the next step.

Maybe there is something you can try or do that would damage you further but may give you some answers.

 

I was telling others that chewing food or hearing chewing can kill my left ear high pitch shrill noise at times. It’s odd.

 

I may try Aspirin if the same thing happens today. It only happened for a short while yesterday morning.

 

Go with under 50 mg or 100 mg because duh.

 

I do get really intense premature atrial and ventricular contractions that last for hours. I went to a cardiologist a while back because I worried I might have Afib, but he said it was nothing to worry about health-wise as long as the symptoms weren't bothersome. I wonder if it cause blood to pool though after having it for so long.

 

Reporting in again, more as a log for myself I suppose:

Things settled from going haywire but my the static in my right ear is now more of a "tire losing air" type of sound which is f**king annoying.

Left ear now has somewhere around a 5000 Hz ring that rings over most things. It's probably the single-most devastating outcome of this whole ordeal. Hopefully this is all just a spike and will go away with a week or two.

 

Hey @kingsfan, can you help me with something? I'm in panic mode here.

Yesterday my daughter dropped something hard on the floor next to me. I had a little spike but nothing serious.

This morning I woke up with extreme hissing in both of my ears (the loudest hissing in the last ear) and, the thing that scares me the most, I don't hear good with my right ear anymore. My right ear is very muffled. I did the finger rubbing test, I can still hear the sound but totally different in my right ear. I also feel like I am extremely sensitive to sound. I don't know what to do, it's Sunday, nobody will see me now. I don't remember having hearing problems until now, I think I have had muffled ears in the past but I don't remember it being something serious.

Did your hearing go back to normal?! What happened then?

 

Hey @aura. I’m sorry I didn’t reply sooner. I was up when you wrote this but I didn’t see the notification until this morning =\

My hearing went back to normal after a couple of days. I remember this being a weird experience. I ended up going to urgent care after I had started this thread, where they clumsily gave me a basic hearing test... which came out perfect even though my hearing felt muffled.

Can you describe how your hearing feels in each ear, or is it just more muffled in one?

 

It is better now (my hearing is better) but I have aural fullness, I feel like my right ear is under pressure, slightly painful, I can't equalize the pressure and I am extremely sensitive to sound. I can tolerate TV volume at level 1, maximum 2. My hearing in my right ear was also affected. If I rubbed my fingers next to my ear, I could still hear the sound but not the details (I don't know how to explain).