by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
A lady explained,
I have tinnitus most of the time—day and night. It nearly drives me mad as I have an irregular heart beat, once going into fibrillation. I hear every heartbeat which scares me. I guess I am hearing it as the carotid artery is close to my ears. This all started right after my husband passed away after a long illness two and half years ago. Is there anything that I can do? I am 71 this year and as far as I know my hearing is good. I would be so happy if I could just even soften the sound a little. It’s a ringing sound.
Your tinnitus may have been caused by the stress of your husband’s long illness and death, possibly resulting in higher blood pressure, for example. This may have caused turbulent blood flow in the arteries close to your inner ears which you now hear as tinnitus.
If your tinnitus pulsates in unison with your heartbeat, you have pulsatile tinnitus. There are at least 25 different known causes of pulsatile tinnitus.
Pulsatile tinnitus often is a drumming, beating, pounding, throbbing whooshing, thumping, booming or fluttering sound. However, less commonly it may be a zinging, squeaking or ringing sound such as you have.
One of the interesting things about pulsatile tinnitus is that it may have single beats, or biphasic beats (like the clip-clop of a horse).
The good news is that pulsatile tinnitus typically is responsive to medical treatment. A good cardiac or vascular surgeon should be able to treat your pulsatile tinnitus. It may take a bit of detective work on his part, but it often can be treated either medically or surgically so that it disappears, or at least, is greatly reduced in volume.
You can learn more about the various forms of pulsatile tinnitus and what you should do about it in my book, When Your Ears Ring—Cope with Your Tinnitus—Here’s How.
First of all, thank you for all the work you do.
I am going to try to make this as short as I can, but hard to do with all the questions I have. And I know that there is a lot of subjectivity surrounding tinnitus, so I am aware that most of your feedback will be more in line with responses than with clinically proven answers. And I am incredibly appreciative of both.
I have been suffering from tinnitus for about four years and know that there is no known remedy. Over the past year or so, it has gotten louder, however, to the point of having a hard time concentrating and falling asleep.
I also have hearing loss, but that hasn’t worsened over the years, and was happy to learn that the two are not related to each other.
A brief history. I moved from MN to South Bend, IN about 10 years ago. Since moving here, I developed allergies, which I never suffered from before. Over the past 10 years, I have taken every OTC and prescribed medication I could for allergies because nothing seemed to work for me, many of which are on your list, such as: Allegra, Allegra-D, Benadryl, Claritin, Claritin-D, and Zyrtec. I am currently taking Stahist-AD, Flonase and Singulair. Question #1: Is it possible that one or a combination of these are more ototoxic than the other, and what are my alternatives (besides moving, although I would consider it if meant a cure) for allergies?
Over the past year I have been taking Lisinopril for high blood pressure, which was recently increased in dosage. I feel like there might be a positive correlation to this and my ringing getting louder. Question #2: How does Lisinopril rank in the field ototoxicity?
I also take a lot of Ibuprofen due to soreness (I’m 45 years old and play a lot of tennis, which don’t always mix well). Based on many of the previous postings, Ibuprofen seems to be quite ototoxic, so I’m planning on just dealing with the soreness, and only take aspirin as needed for things such as headaches. Question #3: Am I correct on the ototoxicity of Ibuprofen, and, if yes, is aspirin the way to go?
Staying with this thread of pain and stress, I have heard that stress is potentially associated with tinnitus. I have seen chiropractors that have claimed the sure cure is acupuncture (didn’t do a thing over 2 months); physical therapists that massaged the knots out of my neck muscles in an attempt to relieve stress running to my ear canals (after first visit I swear that night it was gone, but came back again; ENT’s both here in South Bend and at Washington University, the latter asking me to be a part of a Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy clinical trial, which I would have done if not for the logistical challenges of going to St. Louis once a week for 12 weeks. Question #4: Knowing that your responses are more medicinally-based, what are your thoughts on the above attempts for a cure?
In addition, I have a case of hyperacusis, and don’t know if that is further exacerbating the tinnitus. Question #5: Is that a possibility.
Finally (I think), I had an MRI that was clean, and ruled out TMJ. I am in contact with Northwestern, the Mayo Clinic, the University of Michigan (which was really hard since I’m a Notre Dame fan) in order to conduct further evals and/or participate in any clinical trial possible for any answer or possible relief, including rTMS, TRT or anything else. Final question: What are your thoughts on the above being just one big waste of time on my part?
I know this was long, so thank you for sticking with me until the end. I’m desperate. I’m sick of saying “what?” all the time (my wife is too, by the way). Any input would help. Any at all.
Thank you so much doctor. You’re a blessing to many.
Dan