How's your hearing?

I feel like a blog hog today but was really interested in knowing if anyone had symptoms related to their hearing or ears?  Pain?  Tinnitus? Hearing loss?  Unilateral or bilateral?  Thanks again.

[Heather3418]

Hearing loss-unilateral

Occasional ringing in ears

Heather

[PastorDan]

Ringing is near constant.  Very high frequency; I can barely hear it a lot of the time, but if I listen closely, it's there.

I was diagnosed a little less than two years ago with mild sensironeural hearing loss in both ears, and fitted with digital hearing aids, which have been a significant help.

Ear pain is a rarity for me.  I have had Swimmer's Ear before, but probably more from the shower than from swimming.

[fibrotj]

I have occassional ringing in the ears, and I often hear things that aren't there...like the phone ringing (when it's not), someone talking (when I'm home alone), strange "drum-beat" sounds, etc...  Then again, maybe my house is just haunted!!  LOL!!   No, sorry, can't use that excuse, as I've heard them in our other house too.  Of course, our old house back in Oklahoma was an Indian house, right beside a burial ground.  Come to think of it, I haven't heard the 'drum-beat' noises since I left there, nor the voices.  Spooky!!  Continue to hear other sounds though.  I also 'see' things flying at me from my peripheral vision, that aren't there!  Does anyone think I'm crazy, yet???  LOL!!  ;)
~tj  

[fibrotj]

Oh, and I've been getting "shots of severe pain" in my right ear for years.  Doctors said that was from my TMJ though.  Of course, I get that strange "buzzing/vibrating" sensation in my right ear too now...for 2 years now.  Wonder if they're connected??  I've not thought about that until now.  ??
~tj

[Alli78]

It seems we have the right ear pain, buzzing in common.  I have high pitched tinnitus at times too.  Oddly enough I lost somehearing in my left ear for 2 days or so but background noise is still throwing me off.  Maybe being an SLP has made me extra sensitive and worried about this new symptom.

[Nancy T]

Not diagnosed with anything. Auditory stuff has been my biggest thing.

Had a severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss (higher frequencies) in my left ear when I sneezed hard on July 2, 1999--permanent. Probably due to an inner-ear "stroke" precipitated by the sneezes, however, because the loss never fluctuated. I now have a bone-anchored hearing aid on that side and I love it!!

Of course I got tinnitus fries with that hearing-loss burger. :)

I have "highly abnormal" auditory evoked potentials bilaterally and abnormal acoustic reflex decay on the left.

Weird "cross-ear" stuff that happens--such as a sudden feeling of "going deaf" in my left ear (even though it's already deaf except 500 Hz and below) which "jumps" instantly to my right ear. But if music is playing, there's no change in my actual hearing--just a very distinct "closed-off" sensation that fades out after a few seconds. I think (guessing) that this must be some acoustic-reflex abnormality.

Also had a strange BPPV episode in which, whenever I'd tip my head leftward/backward, the ceiling would start jerking up and down while simultaneously there would be a beating sound/feeling in my RIGHT ear (thus contralateral to the BPPV). I know this is abnormal (not the BPPV but the contralateral beating--stapedial muscle?), but who knows why it happened.

No explanation for any of it! not even from the biggest MD/PhD dizziness/hearing specialist in the area.

Nancy

[saveone]

The Tinnitus is awful.  It is there 24/7.  Some days it drives me crazy.  I have had it about 3 years at this level.  I often hear someone spking to me or the phone ringing when it isn't.  Back ground noise or a lot of noise shuts my brain down.  I also get the Charlie Brown effect....someone is talking but all I hear is wah...wah..wah.  My boys say I am hard of hearing.  I tell them know I hear them I just don't understand them.  This is particularity bad if the person isn't looking at me when they speak.

[PastorDan]

I've had to explain to people more than once that, if they are looking away from me and speaking to me in a large room, I cannot hear them, even if i am only a few feet from them and looking in their direction.  This is in spite of the fact that my hearing aids are designed to pick up more sound forward and backward than from the sides.  There's a simple explanation for this phenomenon, though.  In a large room, there is nothing nearby to reflect the sound waves emanating from their mouth back in my direction.  Any sound I pick up in my hearing aids is coming out from the back of their head, and sounds like it.  I compare that to the sound you hear in the motel room next door.  You know it's there, but you can't understand a lick of it.

Sometimes when I am trying to go to sleep, I will try to focus on the steady high-pitched ringing in order to try to block out the more intermittent sounds that capture my attention and keep my mind too active to relax.  It usually works.

[fibrotj]

Alli, my tinnitis is usually high-pitched too, although, I have heard those low, drum-beat noises...and rest assured, it wasn't my hearbeat, because I was differentiating the two during those times.  

Nancy, I think that everything about MS is just about as 'ABNORMAL' as you can get.  Snowflake disease for sure!  I've been hanging out in several MS forums for several years now, and if I've learned anything, it's that MS is more diverse than your mind could imagine.  As I've said before in other forums...."Our nerves sure have a wild imagination!!!"

Saveone...I know exactly what you mean about the "Charlie Brown...WahWah!!"  LOL!!  Somedays it's as though I have hearing loss, and I hear things in this manner too.  Strange how it just comes and goes, hugh??   I've often wondered if it's ever going to "STICK" that way??   I've wondered the same about my off-&-on "blurry vision" spells??
~tj

[Quixotic1]

Well, I'd like to add my 3 and 1/2 cents worth too.

When I had my first concussion in 1983 that gave me BPPV and tinnitus, I had my first severe bout with vertigo.  Since then I have had tinnitus.  From 1983 until about 2000 the tinnitus was always present, sometimes worse than others, but mostly I could ignore it.  It didn't affect my hearing.

Since the vertigo that knocked me out of my profession I have had a loud, fairly low-pitched roaring tinnitus that often drowns out conversation, TV, music.  We think that was from the perilymph fistula.  When the PLF was repaired my vertigo was improved, but the tinnitus continued.  The sound is like white noise, or the roar of rushing water or like being under a waterfall.   This is global.  I hear it throughout my head.   When I am tired it gets so loud and intrusive as to feel painful.  It is one thing that will make me cry.

Since the MS appeared (the last 4+ years) I also get a higher pitched tinnitus that is mostly on the left.  It is superimposed on the older, lower tinnitus.  I can switch back and forth between hearing them (the brain being only able to focus on one sound at a time).  The only solution for me is to take a sedative and sleep.

When I am tired I also get a "sensitivity" to eye movement.  This is very disorienting.  Someone recently commented that they get this too, and I forgot to post to them saying that I knew what they meant.  When my eyes move side to side, but especially to the left, I hear a beat in my head (like the beat you get with nystagmus).  Again the only solution is sleep.

I have had a mod-to severe very high frequency SNHL bilaterally since 2000.  But in the last several months, it feels like I'm not hearing well.  I should get it checked.  Maybe I just need my ears cleaned out, lol.  But, my sister says I have the TV blaring out and progressively turning it louder.  I mishear what everyone says if they are not close to me.  While entertaining, it makes me look like a dufus.

Paradoxically I seem to hear high-pitched sounds that no one else hears - like our big baby-voiced cat wanting in.  I also hear the phone ringing (like the traditional old ringing phones) ALL THE TIME!  And we don't have one of those phones!

I don't have pain.

I do have occasional episodes where I hear a clear ringing tone that begins loudly then fades over 5 seconds or so.  At the same time my hearing goes deaf and it feels like the world has tilted.  Slowly over about 30 seconds I adjust to the new "down."  I have had these episodes for as long as I can remember, so I guess they are normal.

Yes, I know, this sounds like a big, "Me, too" but my ears have been the source of a lot of trouble.

Terrie - Just tell your kids you are "hard of listening."

Nancy - You may actually have a bilateral combination BPPV - which can be treated BTW.   Or in BBPV, different problems cause the stimulation of different directions of nystagmus.  The position that your head is in does not necessarily indicate which side has the loose canaliths.

I have never had any visual symptoms, lol.

I agree, people with MS are not "classically wired."

Quixxle

[Quixotic1]

I'm sorry, I meant to direct that response to Alli.

q

[Alli78]

I have not seen much info about ms and hearing issues ok the net, mostly eye issues.  Thanks all for sharing your experiences.  "hears" to you!
Alli

[essdipity]

In recent months I've had tinnitus that's really EARitating. It's a high-pitched sound, not so much a ringing as an electronic sound. For a while I noticed it only late at night when there was nothing else to hear, but now it's with me a lot more. I think it's on the left, but since there's no way to test by blotting it out I can't really tell.

Is there anything that can be done about this or do I just need to suck it up?

ess

[PastorDan]

Just promise us that, if you find a solution, you'll share it!

[Alli78]

Unfortunately, I know people without neuro problems that have tinnitus and have not found a great treatment.  But if you haven't already been to an audiologist for a full work up.  They may provide clues to a cause and offer some possible treatments, including masking devices and supplements.  You can do a search on asha.org for audiologist search and find some suggestions for environmental modifications too.  I hope you all find some relief.  I am scheduling a hearing test asap.  Good luck. Alli

[Nancy T]

tj--yep, lots of weird stuff associated with MS; however, I myself am not diagnosed with MS or anything else. I like the thing about our nerves having a "wild imagination"--that's very apt! :)

Quix--you have it worse than I realized, especially with the tinnitus. You've been through so much! Was your PLF from the concussion too? So it sounds like some of your ear/vertigo problems were from trauma, some from the MS?

Those sudden episodes of loud ringing and "deaf" feeling that go away after a few seconds seem to be VERY common among the many people on the dizziness list that I've followed for almost 10 years now. I get those episodes too, though without any additional dizziness. As I said, that "gone deaf" feeling will jump over to my good ear, though the ringing does not.

Funny you should mention the eye-movement thing, Quix. A few weeks after my sudden hearing loss, I began getting "jolts" or "whumps" inside my head that felt like I was about to conk out and close my eyes involuntarily. (I thought I was getting epilepsy!) Though I would never pass out or even close, because these just lasted a split second. At the same moment, I'd get a "burst" of "extra" tinnitus, like static, over and above the constant whirring in my left ear.

These "jolts" would occur either spontaneously when I was sleepy--especially in the twilight between wake and sleep--but also when I'd hear a sudden noise like the phone ringing, or else at the cessation of a staticky sound such as when I turned off running water or changed the radio station.

Over time, these "whumps" in my head softened a bit (no more eye-closing), but I began to notice that moving my eyes--usually sideways but sometimes upward--would cause the same "burst" of static in my bad ear. I believe this is called gaze-evoked tinnitus. Some researchers in Buffalo, along about 2001, I think, published some research on this with people who had had acoustic neuromas removed--they would get this several weeks after the surgery.

So, it appears to have something to do with damage to the 8th nerve and/or brainstem (tinnitus comes from your brain anyway)--something about the visual system momentarily overriding the auditory, something like that. Crossed wires, basically--aberrant regeneration. Very weird stuff.

Quix, I don't think those BPPV episodes I had were bilateral--I am sure that the stapedius muscle must have been involved in the contralateral ear, which is NOT part of "normal" BPPV, because it was a distinct thumping feeling AND sound. I do remember once having an episode of right-side BPPV, but that was years earlier, as well as some other episodes of left-side BPPV with no thumping in the opposite ear.

I always thought that the rogue canaliths were on the side that made you dizzy when you turned your head, but I'm sure there's a lot about BPPV I don't know. I DO know that those BPPV-with-thumping episodes I had were somethign none of the approximately five ear specialists I asked (in person or via e-mail or forum) had ever heard of. After four days of it, I cured myself with a home Epley maneuver. Bingo! it was gone. Thanks, Dr. Epley! :)

As for other tinnitus effects, I occasionally still get a variety of distinct sounds on top of the constant whirring/tinkling noise, including a loud chirping, a faraway slowly-beeping alarm clock that lasts hours, the Wall Street closing bell (loud), and most recently "Morse code." I also get episodes of sudden, repeated stabs of sharp pain BEHIND my bad ear coordinated exactly with a clicking in the ear. No idea what that is.

Anyway... my sympathies to all suffering from tinnitus. It must be very aggravating to have loud tinnitus.

Nancy

[uk2]

Ringing in my ears right worse then right but in bouts of vertigo both as loud.

loss hearing of low pitch sounds in both ears

fullness in right ear and painful popping

off balance and dizziness

sensitive hearing to high pitch sounds

sam

[Quixotic1]

I had a couple of concussions after the onset of the severe vertigo in 1999.  After the last of these, I had to fly to a divorce hearing.  On the descent I began to get this ticking (high pitched glub-glub sound) and suddenly had much worse spatial steadiness.

This was the beginning of the PLF, I am sure.

I think the MS has caused the second type of tinnitus.

Quix

[uk2]

i get that high pitch piecing sound and everything else is silent and i can hear nothing i get it on and off only a short while buts its odd, i also get eye sensitive when i move them and hear a noise in my head i know so sounds odd.

if i tilt my head i also hear my heart beat so loud i think it will burst i get this in both eyes and when i lay down and turn my head to the side it fades after a while if i move my head around abit.

Going ENT tomorrow for results of my CT a new CT and another hearing test still waiting for the balence test to tell me if its inner ear or central.

I never knew how bad you suffered with your ears.

sam

[phontsha]

I have the same problem and i dont know what to do i hear sound in my head like something i crecking inside my head and my ears are blocked and went to see the general practitioner docter and she said my ears are clean as i told her that this is distaping my voice when i speak is like i am repeating words or the is an eco and i ve got the eyes problem now tried to use waxsol thinking that i ve got wax but unfortunately there are no wax in my ears terible hedaches as well please help me guys is now a month with this problem.

thank you and god bless

[supermum_ms]

Hi There,

I have to chime in here because only this morning i told my son off for mumbling so much i couldnt work out what he was saying, nice of him to point out he wasnt mumbling i was just going deaf again. I have audio drop in my left ear that is sudden and startling just before the high pitch sound screach which goes on for less than a minute but multiple times a day, I dont hear people that well if they are on my left. I have also been annoyed at next door for the thwump thwump sounds invading my head at night when i'm trying to get to sleep, only problem is it stops if i lift my head off the pillow, so its me, took me awhile to work that one out lol.

I got over the vertigo weeks ago but the hearing issues are still happening every day, though not as much as it was at the begining of this years episode, last year i had the hearing issues too, interesting if its another little thing that connects the dots towards MS.

Cheers.......JJ

[HVAC]

I have hearing loss but mine has nothing to do with MS. I have a heredity condition where the bones in the inner ear freeze up permanently. It is common in Northern Europeans. I had a stapeodomy ten years ago. They took the stirrup bone out and put a plastic one in. I have needed the other ear done for years but can't afford it.

My ears ring and hurt at times and I get vertigo but that is due to chronic sinus infections and allergies. I can't afford to see Doctors for those either. I constantly flush with saline. My PCP lets me pick up samples of steroid nasal sprays with out seeing her.

[steph74]

I do get occassional high pitched ringing.

My weirdest hearing sx though was periodic hyperacusis.  It sounded like someone just turned the volume WAY up in my right ear.  Luckily it was a relatively short-lived sx and isn't bothering me now.  

I do also notice I have trouble understanding what people are saying when I'm not looking at them, but maybe that's just my lack of attention...!