Beeping in ear and transient odd feeling when move head or eyes

[rlkl7007]

I had what I believe to be a viral infection about 10 days ago.  I had a rapid onset of nausea in the afternoon, which at the time I thought was food related.  I had a very difficult time driving home because of the emminent feeling I was going to vomit.  That evening I had a low grade temp of 99-100.  Sometime in the first day or two of the illness, I noticed tinnitus.  I seem to hear it in the middle of my head, so assume both ears are contributing.  During this illness, I also felt transiently spacially disoriented, occassionally causing a brief episode of nausea.  It's kind of like having, for a single second, the feeling you might have when you get off a carnival ride.  Because it comes and goes so quickly, it is difficult to really characterize.  On the third day of my illness, I was standing in a hallway in my house and heard a series of monotonal squelchy beeps.  At first I though it might have been a bird chirping or something, but when I walked down the hall, I heard it again and the sound followed me.  Since then, I have been hearing this beeping.  It kind of sounds like the tone one would hear pressing a button on a dial tone phone.  The beeps seem to come in bursts of either 1, 2, or 3.  They do not occur all the time, but seem to be related to body/eye movement. I do not get the beeps if I sit perfectly still and don't move my eyes.  I do get them when I move my head, or less frequently when I simply move my eyes.  For example, just now, I quickly moved my eyes about 30 deg to the side and back and heard a beep when the eyes moved each way.  However, I can't always induce the beeping by movement.  I can tilt my head and get a beep(s), but another time I may tilt my head and not get any beeping. Now, being 7 days since I first experienced the beeping, I am getting worried.  In addition to the beeping, I still get the odd transient perception distortions.  Often times, the odd feeling occurs with the beeps.  I have been communicating indirectly with my GP and he wants me to take some dizziness medicine for 10 days, and if after that time there is not improvement, to schedule an appt with a neurologist. I am not feeling the constant nausea I did when I originally got sick, so from that point of view, I am feeling better.

I have been thinking this could be some sort of middle/inner ear viral infection.  Now I'm concerned that it could be, (dare I say it?) a brain tumor or something equally bad.  Have people had these type of symptoms due to a virus?  If so, how long for resolution?  What are the chances it could be more....?

Thanks,
Randy

[Roger Gould, M.D.]

You are asking the wrong person but I still have an answer for you.  Most of what you describe is quite typical of a viral middle ear infection so I suggest you see either a neurologist or an ear nose and throat doctor, or if possible, an ear specialist. Its difficult to predict the course of this kind of infection so you should see a specialist.

[rlkl7007]

This is to update my current question.  I failed to mention that I had stopped taking Cymbalta for depression/anxiety about a week prior to the beginning of this incident.  So could this be some anxiety related manifistation?  I had a bought of benign fasciculation syndrome about 6 months ago, and which finally mellowed out to occassional bursts of activity.  Having BFS, and then this, and a recent panic attack, makes me start wondering about my sanity.