Unilateral Tinnitus for 60 Days

Woke up in early October with slight noise in ear, and some hearing loss. For most of October it would come and go. Good days and bad days. Kept a diary in October about it, could not find a pattern. I was around loud noise this year. Blood pressure mostly normal. Went to an ENT on a good day, the ear was not acting up. They did a hearing test and it was in normal areas. Was surprised to learn the doctor diagnosed me with bilateral tinnitus. Wrote the doctor asking to change the diagnosis to unilateral, the "clerk" that called me back said the doctor would not change it. No proof. I asked for a MRI, they would not do it.

I am going to get a second opinion. Concerned it is only in one ear. I feel that all possibilities need to be explored. When the ear is at its worst, I feel like I am in them verge of a head cold.

Would love to hear from others with unilateral and what was explored.

 

Hi, if you plug the good ear with no tinnitus, it should be quiet. That’s an easy test. Plugging will often make tinnitus louder, at least for me.

Be careful of MRIs, they are super loud and have hurt people here.

As I understand it , one sided tinnitus is extremely common, why would this worry you?

The diagnosis of unilateral vs. bilateral won’t change your tinnitus, but I completely understand that you want your paperwork correct.

Good luck.

 

Dan, if I plug the good ear, the slight sound I hear does not change. I got a second opinion and was told the issue could be allergy related. Could be a Eustachian Tube Disfunction.

They ran a small camera down my nose(not fun) and noticed inflammation. They started me on a steroid nasal spray, Nasenex, and Zyrtec. And I am getting allergy tested in a week. When I was a kid I was allergic to many things and got allergy shots.

Not sure what I am allergic to today, but look forward to it. I consume way too much sweets that does affect my allergies. Maybe I will get lucky and beat this.

 

Your issues may be due to a viral infection of the ear similar to mine that caused ear/nerve damage. I also went to ENT multiple times complaining of on and off tinnitus with hearing loss but every time I had a test done, it came back normal. Even the ear that I feel are missing some frequencies came back normal. It has been 3 years now and things are stabilized for me. Tinnitus is still there but I can no longer sense the HL or the strange pains in my ear that would come and go.

It's likely your tinnitus will become bilateral by the 1 year point if it's still around. You will just hear and feel the vibration in your head instead of just one side. This is the point where your brain develops Neural Synchrony and things become more permanent. It's where neurons in your brain fire off signals and those signals fire off other neurons. Essentially a chained reaction feedback loop. This for me is the absolute worst form of tinnitus. It's because it's no longer only a "noise" perception but a physical sensation that comes with with mild headache, lightheadedness, difficulty concentrating, difficulty sleeping and emotional changes. It's much different than unilateral tinnitus where you sense the tinnitus is distinctly coming from one ear and there is no physical sensation associated with it. There is research on this and if you're interested to read more, google "tinnitus neural synchrony" for more information. I don't know if doctors classify neural synchrony as brain damage but if I were to classify it, I would easily classify it as such however minor it may be.

Get good amounts of sleep/rest and try sound therapy such as ACRN (Acoustic Coordinated Reset Neuromodulation) to break the neural synchrony. It's such a relief when I have the head tinnitus sensation in my head and as soon as I listen to the tones, there's this feeling of relief and my headache almost immediately goes away. I've been listening to ACRN during sleep daily for over 6 months and have seen a major overall improvement.