Tinnitus Louder After Neti Pot with Salty Water

Hallo there,

I have tinnitus since last March with no hearing loss which almost disappeared. But...

Three weeks ago I put salty water in my left eustachian tube to open it (I didn't know I should not) and the water went to my eardrum causing pain and burn sensation. Then I put into the ET many times water to make the salt go away. Tinnitus became much louder. Next morning I went to ENT who noticed water behind eardrum but he told me it is not possible that I made a damage to the cochlea. Tinnitus now it isn't as bad as then but still not like before this event.

Any idea if I possibly made a damage to the cochlea? The water was quite salty.

 

How would the water reach the cochlea? Theoretically speaking

 

I don't know exactly the anatomy of ear, I 've made some search watching pictures showng cochlea rigth next to mddle ear. I think there's a barrier between but not sure if there are passes through this barrier or if it is thin eanough to get perforated. I even worry if the salt in the water caused dehydration to the cochlea...or burn. I know I may sound silly but ignorance among with panic make me get fears that sometimes have no basis.

 

That is something I think we all well understand and sympathize with Konstadinos. I've used the Neti-pot thing quite a bit in the past myself, and it didn't cause me any issues beyond a bit of captive fluid that took some time to drain. Didn't help much either.

 

There are two very thin membranes that separate the middle ear from the inner ear, the oval window and the round window. In simple terms, the oval window is effectively the junction that allows sound to be transmitted into the inner ear following amplification in the middle ear. Because the fluid in the inner ear is incompressible, the round window is present to allow for the movement of the fluid in the cochlear caused by the application of sound from the oval window. As such, they move in opposite directions, with one moving in as the other out and vice-versa.

Failure of one or both of them is possible and is called a perilymph fistula, but I think you would probably experience more problems than just tinnitus if you had ruptured it.

http://vestibular.org/perilymph-fistula

Provided that you made the formula up as isotonic, it should have not had any effects on drying out tissue, or "burning", but fluid in the middle ear will almost always result in irritation.

 

Thank you all for your answers and information!

Thankfully, it seems that I didn't cause any rupture in the membrane as I didn't experience vertigo or other symptoms associated with it and the most important...tinnitus has fully calmed down to the previes level which means all this noise has gone. It's kind of unbelievable as I used to hear this loud noise all day and especially night, and was ready to accept it as something permanent...which finally wasn't.

 

Did you notice any other symptoms like increased sound sensitivity? I basically did the same thing (neti pot, leading to water in middle ear) and although I got rid most of the water the same night, after the week highly reactive T is still bothering me it this ear.