Tinnitus (Nearly) Cured by Chiropractic Treatment

I just wanted to share this with fellow tinnitus sufferers.

I've had pretty bad ringing in my left ear for over a week, with no signs of an ear infection. The recent suicide by Kent of the Texas Roadhouse chain due to tinnitus put me into panic mode.

I'm getting married soon and faced with the prospect of permanent tinnitus, it felt like my life was being taken from me.

I was referred to a ENT but they couldn't see me for weeks, so I decided to give chiropractic treatment a try.

After the chiropractor adjusted my neck, the tinnitus was pretty much instantly gone. It is still there a bit, especially after eating, but has dropped to a 0/10 - 2/10 from a 7/10 - 9/10 and I have my life back.

Thank God for chiropractors, if you haven't tried that it may work for you.

 

Great news to hear from you.

What made you decide to go to a chiropractor? Did you have neck/jaw, etc. symptoms. Did you go to a upper cervical or NUCCA chiropractor?

Thanks,
KWC

 

Do you know the cause of your tinnitus?

 

People are probably getting sick of hearing about this from me, but I had the exact same experience in 2016. Tinnitus came on completely out of the blue after being sick for a week, it came together with pretty extreme vertigo. Saw a chiropractor after 4-5 weeks, he did some moves, basically fixed me up completely. Vertigo was gone, tinnitus was reduced to a 1 or even a 0.5 which ended up disappearing completely in the next 2 days. I was tinnitus free and normal again. Just super unlucky that I got tinnitus again in 2018. Chiropractor didn't help this time.

 

If they never come back and reply, it's usually a scam.

 

Not true. When some people find a cure for their ailment, they unsubscribe from forums such as this one.

 

Your tinnitus was caused any Valsalva maneuver? How did that happen if you don’t mind me asking?

 

I had been sick for a week. Just a common cold. By the final day I was mostly fine again, but I had this unbelievable pressure in my ears. It was bothering me. I decided to do the valsalva maneuver. I did it too much/too forceful and after doing it I could immediately hear the tinnitus in my left ear.

 

Do you feel like you have any other symptoms like pressure or hyperacusis? I wonder if you gave yourself inner-ear barotrauma or PLF. Aren’t there treatments for those things?

 

Inner ear barotrauma is exactly what I've been thinking too. I don't know what PLF is. If there are treatments for that, please tell me about it! Haven't found anything yet.

I had hyperacusis for 5 months after onset of tinnitus in 2018. It eventually passed, but I still jump a bit at some sounds occasionally. But generally, most stuff sounds normal.

 

Chiropractor has been helping me as well. Atlas misalignments are a real thing when it comes to tinnitus. People say "but the auditory nerve doesn't run through there." But there's the brain stem itself which can get squished. A good way to know if going to a chiropractor might help is if heat on your neck helps or if lying down makes it worse (due to pressure on head/neck).

It's worth a shot. A lot of places take insurance and any place that can check upper cervical stuff should have software to analyze the X-rays to quickly find misalignments.

 

As the website you linked to a while ago says, if the PLF is suspected after an implosive or explosive trauma, the surgery is not recommended for anyone unless their vestibular symptoms are unbearable, unless they have progressive hearing loss, or unless their Tulio is so bad they fall from pain. If not, no.

On the other hand, restrictions might help people even if they have not been diagnosed so avoidance of straining, bending over, air travel or using high speed elevators or high speed trains, or any other activity that is a potential explosive or implosive barotrauma might help spontaneous improvement.

 

PLF is perilymph fistula. You can read about it here for example:

https://dizziness-and-balance.com/disorders/unilat/fistula.html

@Backpacker knows a lot about the condition, you can search for her comments and advice on the forum.

 

PLF = Perilymphatic Fistula.

It’s basically a form of inner ear barotrauma. I’ve read that it’s extremely rare two have it bilateral but who really knows. It seems like a fair amount of under diagnosis happens so maybe it’s more prevalent than we think.

 

Yes I agree. At the very least, @Lurius could make an argument for strict bed rest for 3 weeks if the case was he has a PLF. I don't know the extent of his symptoms but one ENT I spoke to said the surgery was low risk and typically recommended in cases of moderate symptoms.

With all that being said, I think it's difficult to invest 3 weeks of your life to strict bed rest without knowing if it will ever help so that's where I believe a diagnosis is crucial. For me, I wouldn't be able to justify even one week of bed rest without knowing with good certainty that my issues could be resolved by it.

 

Bro, before this goes any further I'm going to have to correct you.

By the way, was it one of those "clear MRI/CT means no PLF" ENTs? Depending on the surgeon, the person and the symptoms, the person might get away without any additional issues and improve the pre existing, but if additional tones, hearing loss, and hydrops are low risk for someone, that actually fits into what I said about surgery not being recommended for people whose symptoms are not unbearable.

There is no test that can rule out a perilymph fistula, and for the majority of people slim chances of ruling it in either. The extremely rare cases with extremely big fistulae might have shown some signs somewhere but that is extremely rare. Sometimes the fistulae are not even visible during the exploratory surgery.

I am just trying to inform people about the avoidance of explosive and implosive pressure movements and actions because sometimes it helps, at least until they do their own extensive research so they figure out what helps because we are all different. Not all ENTs know all about all types of inner ear injuries. And there are other matters I would not discuss in public so all I can say like this is everyone should do their own research, about inner ear injuries, about overlaping symptoms and about the doctors.

 

With all due respect, isn't all of the stuff you're saying here related to vertigo issues? Because I don't have vertigo issues anymore. I haven't had that since 2018. I only have tinnitus.

 

Thanks for the heads up. I don’t really trust ENTs for inner ear disorders because the majority of them know next to nothing about them. The ENT who told me about the surgery was one of the more knowledgeable ENTs I spoke to so (the only one who actually even knew what a PLF was) so I took his word as bible. I was hoping inner ear MRIs could diagnose PLFs with a high degree of certainty so it’s discouraging that this is not the case. I myself have noticed worsening symptoms when pressure is applied in a Valsalva type maneuver but not necessarily when exerting myself by lifting and bending (though I do limit it as much as possible).

Vertigo and/or hearing loss can be symptoms but not always from my understanding. I would say @Backpacker could verify if that’s true.

 

I don't think it's that low risk, but a blood patch certainly is low risk for minor tears, and I have no idea why no ENT brings it up. It's as low risk as things get for injections.

Once you start scraping stuff overtop with glue and manipulating the stapes bone, you might find more conductive hearing loss than what you gain. Blood patch is better at filling tiny gaps without getting in the way of conductive transmission (think superglue).

Obviously if you're leaking like a tap that probably won't work.

 

Ok, so... @Backpacker,

What would you say I should look for first if I suspect this fistula? And who should I see to talk about this, since ENTs seems to have no clue?

Both the times I got tinnitus, it was followed by vertigo for quite some time. But both of those times, I've been able to get completely rid of the vertigo from a combination of chiropractor and just taking it easy for a while. Lots of rest and when I felt strong enough, long walks. The chiropractor helped the most, though.

The only reason I have some grounds to suspect this is because of the nature of how I got tinnitus in 2018. With the forceful valsalva. But I still don't exactly understand how this fistula works... If I did have it, wouldn't it mean I had some kind of constant issue? Aside from the tinnitus I mean? Maybe I've completely misunderstood.

 

The ENT was talking about blood patch and not surgery. He said risk was very low and, if I’m not mistaken, even somewhat reversible. Either way it wasn’t full on surgery, just a blood patch. He said success rate was something like 85%.

 

I'm jealous. I mentioned it and got nowhere. Fucking pissed me off because all my symptoms make it obvious.

 

Honestly, if it's been a while, and if you are not dizzy, if I were you I would just do the internet research in order to understand what to avoid. The doctors that know about PLF are rare, usually Neurotologists (but if they are not already known for PLF online I wouldn't bother) but they usually neither diagnose nor treat people who do not have a history of barotrauma, sudden or progressive hearing loss, severe dizziness/derealisation or severe headache or severe Tullio. Also, some vestibular tests can be loud or put pressure on the eardrum, so if your symptoms are not unbearable I don't think you should do anything except informing yourself.

Neither do the majority of doctors.

You mean vestibular? I don't know. Sometimes this improves spontaneously if people avoid all the triggers, like for example all types of Valsalva (I am saying all types because there are people who are for example OK with blowing nose but sensitive to the other Valsava related to abdominal pressure during any kind of straining or lifting something heavy), flying and diving and other barometric pressure changes like high speed trains and elevators.