Tinnitus of 5 Years Temporarily Stops When Swallowing After Ears Crackle

Discovery: When I swallow, my ears crackle and the ringing immediately stops and then starts up again. I thought to myself if it was just the noise of the crackle masking the sound at first but after having it for 5 years I'm pretty confident in noticing small things and differences. I replicated it over and over again in many different environments and I hear the volume go from baseline volume (5/10) to zero (0/10) and back up to baseline all within a fraction of a second after the crackle ends. Typing this out is very hard to explain. I hear it stop then work its way up to the baseline volume. Example: the volume goes to 0/10 to 1/10 to 2/10 to 3/10 to 4/10 and stops at 5/10 (baseline) in like a blink of an eye. Not from 0 to instant 5 which would make me believe it was just the sound masking it.

Background: I've had ringing for 5 years with my ups and downs here and there. I could say I was handling it very well and ignored it for the majority of the years. I could only hear it at night when very tired. Three months ago I had a very bad bout of spikes which made me have my first breakdown in 5 years. I then discovered my left ear (ear in which spike was occurring) was full of ear wax in which surprised my doctor. I used debrox and spikes stopped and the volume returned to baseline. I thought it was all done. I had my girlfriend look into my ears a few months later and it the ear canal was halfway blocked and I've had the itchy sensations and feeling of something inside my brain. I am going to the E.N.T tomorrow to get it this nugget manually removed.

Disclaimer: I don't believe removing the ear wax tomorrow will stop the ringing since I've had my ears checked a year into the start of my tinnitus and they were squeaky clean. I just hope the increased hearing will mask it like it was before.

 

forgot to add: Any thoughts or advice?

 

@John Smith,
It sounds like a sinus and Eustachian Tube problem but getting the nugget removed will help with a better look at your ear drum.

love glynis

 

@glynis Thank you for your reply as always. Little update, I showed up at the ENT and got the ear wax removed. I will tell you this, I specifically asked before hand to use hand tools to remove the wax. So that's what I was expecting as I arrived. Doctor put in solution and before I can even realize he turned on the microsuction machine and put it in my ear. I was extremely paranoid and pissed off afterwards but I was probably exposed for about 4 seconds total.

The ringing went from 5 years of being at a 5/10 to a 1/10 and I even thought it was gone for a moment. The following week I had kept looking for the ringing because I wasn't used to not hearing it. No issues luckily.