Strange Hearing Muffle?

[anonymous20002]

For months, possibly a year or two, I have been having weird sensations with my hearing - which I am now convincing myself is hearing loss.

Some Info: Male, 20, Smoker for Several Years and practically live with headphones in (on full volume).

I am having multiple hearing issues and sensations so I will list them below.

The most prominent and common one of the sensations is a muffled / clogged sort of sound - as if my hearing is temporarily blocked or the volume is turned down. This usually last seconds and more often than not is in both ears. This also can quickly go back and forth from one ear to the other. It’s usually worse when i’m moving my head (or just moving), have a hood up, hearing a noise or… smoking.

A feeling of blocked ears / air pressure being off.

A high pitched ringing- which i’m pretty sure is tinitus (this is not as often)

The one that scares me the most however is when my hearing goes completely… weird. Like crackly and buzzy. As if everything has a weird sort of robotic sound effect. The best way I could describe this is from the film Sound of Metal. When he gets the implant and the hearing is all distorted.

I am very concerned and wondering if anyone has any ideas or solutions. I am planning on getting a hearing test this week as my GP has said my ears are not blocked.

Any suggestions or ideas on what this could be would be great as I have been losing sleep stressing.

Thankyou.