Woke Up to Horrible Bilateral Tinnitus 6 Days After a Visual Disturbance

I woke up on February 1st with both ears ringing and a terrible "loudness." I had a visual disturbance 6 days before that and went to the ER and they gave me a CT scan and came back normal.

I followed up with a neuro who told me ear ringing is not related to visual disturbance. I've seen a bunch of doctors who did nothing for me. I also have sound sensitivity. Seeing a good ENT in Fairfield County (In Connecticut where I live - Rich mans land for those who don't know) and I am hoping to get some answers as to why this has happened.

I am very upset, depressed, anxious and miserable. I've never had tinnitus in my life and it's ruining my life. Please help me.

 

Welcome to the forum.

There are many causes, single or combined, which can trigger or aggravate tinnitus including by not limited to drug reaction or side-effects from ototoxic drugs, ear wax build-up, inner ear infection, Eustachian tube infection or ETD, ear drum injury, fluid build-up in ears feeling pressured or fullness, sinus infection & congestion, TMJ, TTTS, high blood pressure or blood circulation problem, loud noise exposure or acoustic trauma/shock, head trauma & injury, neck injury or muscle problems, SSHL, gradual hearing loss due to aging, Meniere's Decease, barotrauma from sudden change of air pressure such as during landing & taking off on flights especially with blocked nose causing failure to balance the pressure changes, slapping of the ears, deep grief for the loss of loved ones, untreated sleep apnea, extreme, extended stress, anxiety & panic disorder, sleep deprivation, etc., etc. T can also be caused or made worse by unhealthy diet such as too much salt, sugar, caffeine, MSG, alcohol etc. or by lacking some mineral or vitamin supplements, such as Magnesium, Zinc, B12, D3 etc. So visual disturbance is not commonly known to cause tinnitus by itself. Check the above to see if you have anything like those causes around the time your tinnitus started. Good luck. God bless.

 

What kind exactly? And did anything happen a few days before these disturbances? (And is your vision ok now?)

 

Doctors are mostly full of DoOdoo. They cannot think outside the box and go by what they have learned in textbooks from med school. I can tell you for a fact that my tinnitus bouts come with visual disturbances. Mostly flashing light sensation when I close my eyes in a dark room. I also notice my eye floaters are worse when my tinnitus is worse. I also get this vibration sensation like objects are vibrating/slightly shifting. All these symptoms come with headache, pain and pressure in my head and nose and other cognitive symptoms. I believe it's related to migraines and/or abnormal neural activity in the brain that interferes with the auditory cortex and amplifies/induces tinnitus along with the other symptoms. I also get sensitivity to sounds and difficulty concentrating during these episodes. Hope you find what's causing them.

 

I’ve always had headaches too. Do you think this could be corrected? I meet with a neurotologist in two weeks.

 

Well there is no doubt that headaches could make tinnitus worse, that's well documented in medical papers. Whether or not your specific condition is related to headaches is the unknown. I know for me, headaches make my almost non-existent tinnitus into an all consuming monster so for me controlling my tinnitus is controlling my headaches. This includes diet changes, making sure to get good sleep, managing stress etc. My neurologist put me on beta blockers but I found that taking them consistently was not very effective. The side effects and the fact that the medication itself can give you headaches and dizziness doesn't really help. What I've done is monitored my condition and experimented with the beta blockers to find out what works best for me. I have found that using them on an as-needed basis is more effective for me. Whenever I feel the headache coming, I take the beta blockers along with regular OTC meds such as Tylenol and I have found that it shortens the lifespan of the headaches to a day or two as apposed to a week or more if left untreated.

It sounds like you are just at the beginning of this so you will learn a lot more as you go if it's not a obvious condition such as tumors or worse. Of course the Neurologist will first rule out those by imaging and other tests. If everything comes back normal, you will begin the experimental treatment phase where they will throw one or more meds at the condition to see which helps. That's the phase I'm currently in.

 

Hi,

I’ve had every test done, MRIs and blood work and an MRA. Saw neurologists, ENTs, neurotologist. Everything came back normal. Just on antihistamines for right now. I’m just a nervous wreck honestly. I miss silence.

 

I would encourage you to do an online search on the antichistamines you're taking, and find out whether they can cause or exacerbate tinnitus. Many of them fit in those categories. -- I always look first for safe, natural non-drug therapies whenever I'm trying to address some kind of health issue. I could give you some tips on natural sinus cleaning if you think that might be an issue for you. -- All the Best...

P.S. I wouldn't be surprised if your tinnitus is connected to your headaches. --- I've learned many things on how to mitigate my own chronic headaches--using mostly natural approaches. Modified intermittent fasting was a big factor for me, along with various self-massage, self-acupuncture, and self-reflexology techniques.

 

Although not fully proven why, an awfully large number of visual snow syndrome patients have tinnitus. There is likely some correlation between a brain that responds to ear problems with tinnitus and one that responds to visual problems with visual snow.

Did you wear hearing protection during the MRI? If you got the MRI without protection and it didn't make it worse, that's probably a good sign.

 

I had protection during the MRI and the MRA. Why do my ears go crazy after the shower now? Ugh. This is completely insane.

 

I struggle immensely to even take a shower; it's rough stuff.

Do you have any idea what caused it? I ask because it's curious to me that it's bilateral. Is it progressing? Is the noise sensitivity progressing?

My problem, with high likelihood, is caused by an autoimmune disease (had one before tinnitus) spreading to my inner ear. Therefore, mine has been 100% symmetric and progressive.

 

Noise sensitivity - I was able to talk to someone on speaker phone today without their voice killing me. But last Sunday spending time with my family killed my ears. Lately I just feel like my ears are going “nuts.”

 

How long ago did you have an MRI? Sometimes people get tinnitus several days after having an MRI. I don't think CT scans are loud enough to cause problems.

It is good that you had a CT scan done and that it came back negative. My dad passed away after being diagnosed with brain cancer. It is good to know that you don't need to worry about that.

 

Just a constant sensation of noise.

 

In my opinion, constant is much better than progressive. I would consider it to be a great sign if the MRI didn't worsen it.

 

@Tara Lyons Hi Tara: Your tinnitus, migraines, and visual disturbances may improve.

I wish that I could take hypertension meds, but they temporary spike my tinnitus. Besides loud hearing loss tinnitus, I have pulsatile tinnitus and high pitched somatic tinnitus. I also have 5 physical areas where I have 10/10 pain and disease.

Vestibular migraines, tinnitus and visual disturbances can relate - I have all. My cause is stress and hypertension - quick sudden and brief blood pressure changes call hypertension moments.

To note this, blood pressure must be taken several times a day and when feeling stressed to catch changes. One can place their blood pressure results into an internet search and a personnel score will show in search results with examination - example - BP 120/90

Being wired to a monitor for heart rate, heart rhythm and blood pressure is advised by many professionals when one has emotion and physical happenings. A sleep study is sometimes used.

Below is an easy to read basic article. but there's are many professional medical studies that go into more detail about the stress/hypertension connection per tinnitus, migraines and vision. Research hypertension.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320244

@Lane makes a good point about antihistamines.

 

I feel like they hurt from ringing!

 

I have visual snow and DPDR. I'm getting an MRI and bloodwork done to help possibly find the cause. I think when I first got visual snow back in September 2019 I also got a bit of background static noise. It didn't bother me much but I kept feeling like my left ear was feeling weird and like there was static coming out of it. I noticed that I can make different static noises by moving my neck and jaw. I have a really bad neck but I'm not sure if it's connected.

Anyway, I had a bit of a reactive tinnitus episode last month after smoking some weed. It was just a whistle that reacted to outside noise, it eventually faded a lot. But last Wednesday I was talking to my friend over bluetooth headphones and I felt a pop and then a tone in my left ear. It seems like the same static sound that's been there for months, just a lot sharper and like ringing, but it's still like static/hissing. I was hoping it would have faded a bit by now but it just hasn't really. Sometimes when I lay down, there'll be a ton of different loud tones, and slowly it'll all die down to a faint static. But then when I get up and walk around it goes to the baseline piercing hissing noise.

Of course I'm an idiot for wearing headphones. I can't believe I messed myself up right after recovering from my last version of T. I'm really worried that it's permanent but right now I'm just trying to get past this so I can move on with my life. I wish it would give me a sign like fade just a tiny bit for a few minutes. It seems like it has sometimes but Im not sure if it's just because there was another noise in the background. This morning they were running lawnmowers on my apartment complex and my damn window was open and I kept waking up and falling back asleep without realizing how loud it was. It was probably for like half an hour or something before I got up and closed the window. My Tinnitus seems louder today too. I don't even wanna think about how that might have messed up my recovery, it's all so upsetting.

The Audiologist said my hearing was fine but only up to 8khz of course. He did the test on my hair cells and he said that was fine too which is good, but I know that it all doesn't account for the dead synapses and everything. I suspect there is some kind of damage to my inner ear, but idk how severe it really is compared to the average person. He referred me to an ENT who will talk to me about steroid treatment. I really have to call them back tomorrow, but I'm unsure about whether or not I'm supposed to take it. This main onset happened May 6 at night, and then the lawnmowers the morning of the 13th. Is it really likely that they've physically damaged my ear in a way that should be treated by the steroids? I know that time is very limited here.

I think my main question for this is how it might relate to visual snow. Is it possible that even with noise induced tinnitus, it could fade if the neural mechanism for producing the noise was turned down? Maybe whatever is overstimulating the visual cortex is doing the same to the audio cortex? So people with hidden hearing loss and whatever gives them visual snow is just more susceptible to it. My family has a history of auto immune issues and I think generally just brain issues that have to do with overactivity in certain regions. I'm not sure what I'm expecting people to tell me here. I'm not sure "what" is exactly caused my visual snow anyway besides probably years of mild emotional trauma leading up to a panic attack. DPDR is a neurological and psychological disorder where your brain is so panicked and overstimulated that it just shuts itself off from the outside world and from its own mind and emotions. I guess my brain has been overstimulated and constantly panicked since I got visual snow months ago, and maybe tinnitus is just another part of that? Even though it's noise induced, it was technically from weed a month ago, where I remember panicking, tripping, and hallucinating loud crashes and explosions in my left ear. The second time was wearing headphones which I should not have done, but what's with the pop and instant tone? Is that a normal thing to happen with new T with headphones? Hopefully the lawnmowers don't count but I'm actually scared that my T is worse since it happened.

My point is that I wonder if the same panic and hyperexcitibilty of my brain that caused my visual snow and DPDR is the same that is causing the tinnitus. And maybe if I solve whatever is giving me these other psychological and neurological issues, then my tinnitus might fade as well. If it was just go back to the static it was that would be fine. I just can't imagine it being so piercing forever. Can anyone relate to what I said?

 

Our symptoms are very close. I too have fluctuating noise sensitivity. They correlate directly to my headaches. Also one of the symptoms of migraine is sensitivity to light and sound so again there's a correlation. Migraines don't always come with headache, especially the vestibular type. I'm convinced at this point that my initial issues started with a viral inner ear infection that caused some nerve damage. This nerve damage now triggers constantly migraines which intensifies the tinnitus and brings on all the other symptoms of migraine. I have good days and bad days. The only thing consistent between good days and bad days is the lack of headache and tinnitus. If I wake up with no headache, that whole day is likely to be headache and tinnitus free. If I wake up with a headache, there's always the tinnitus with it and I know I will suffer that whole day. Sometimes the symptoms start when I'm awake. I sense this jolt of electricity in my head followed by fleeting tinnitus that doesn't stop and headache begins.

I'm learning to control the threshold of these events. Lack of sleep, bad diet with high sugars and carbs tends to reduce the threshold and increase the chances of this happened. Good sleep and good diet creates a buffer that allows me to get away with bad sleep and diet habits up to a certain point. This point is typically reached when I tell myself "I've had 4 good days, maybe I'm cured" and then the next morning BAM!

 

I tried a marijuana edible for the first time a couple weeks ago to see what it would do to my tinnitus. It made it 10 times worse for almost a week. Not a fun experience to say the least.