Inner ear problem

[Golf-1]

Since starting Prednisolone in March 2022 my hearing has worsened, particularly my right ear. I keep my ears clean so wax is not the problem. I initially thought it might be an infection that would clear in time,

Nearly 12 months later the right ear is still a problem the symptoms being regular gurgling in the inner ear that changes depending on the position of my head, I can actually make it happen !!!

Has anybody else experienced this problem, is it PMR or Prednisolone related? or any other suggestions.

Pete

[123-go]

Hello, Golf-1. I haven’t heard of prednisolone causing the ear problem that you describe. Exactly how do you keep your ears clean? Have you consulted a doctor?

[Seacat30]

Not me but people have posted on here about tinnitus.

[MiniSpec in reply to Seacat30]

Including me. I'm listening to the two jet engines, one in each ear, as I sit here and write this.

[pigeonCl-HU in reply to MiniSpec]

oh that is grim;😦 tinnitus is such a pain. Coping with tinnitus is a never ending uphill struggle.

You are very brave.

pigeon

[MiniSpec in reply to pigeonCl-HU]

I don't feel brave, just a little annoyed at the constant noise. However, after 12 years I've got used to it. I find that if I'm busy I don't notice it too much, but if I'm tired or under the weather then the jets get reeeaaaalllllyyyy LOUD! and especially in my left ear rather than my right. A bit like an off balance stereo, except that the two ears are ringing at different frequencies. The left ear rings at a higher frequency than the right one, and just occasionally the two frequencies clash, which can be quite odd to experience.

So I try to take care of my general health as much as possible in order to minimise the intrusion from the tinnitus

[pigeonCl-HU in reply to MiniSpec]

Yes, I as well find the tinnitus especially intrusive at night.

Your description of the jets in your ears is so vivid... kind of hard to believe you are actually talking about something that is happening to you, now, and is relentless.

I am a person who likes peace and quiet, I like to be in nature; listen to the silence, if that makes sense....I cannot any longer. Not with this blinking hum going on 24/7.

But as you say, you learn to live with it and I still count my blessings.

pigeon

[JuneWalker in reply to MiniSpec]

I have a white noise machine to use at night but the buzzing/humming never goes away.

[JuneWalker in reply to MiniSpec]

Same here. Sounds like 1,000 bees buzzing in my head,

[SnazzyD]

I used to deal with people’s ears on a daily basis as a GP’s nurse. It can be a bit of a detective job to work out what is going on but your symptoms don’t sound unusual on the face of it. So naturally, I have some questions which you may or may not wish to answer. When you say you keep your ears clean what do to mean? You clean them yourself or you go somewhere to get them cleaned? If you do it yourself, how do you do it? If it is by someone else, how do they do it, how often and do they look with a scope afterwards? I have ideas but don’t want to foist an essay upon you if it’s not needed. Also, do you have any catarrh or post nasal drip?

[Golf-1 in reply to SnazzyD]

Thank you for the replies

As far as how i keep my ears clean - perhaps every 5 or 6 weeks if my hearing is not so good or I feel as though there may be some wax in my ears i put a few drops of "earex" in whichever ear just before I go to bed and then lay with that ear uppermost - the following morning I wash the ear with soapy warm water making sure water goes into the ear. That has usually worked but it does not now for my right ear

[SnazzyD in reply to Golf-1]

I do the same with prophylactic oil drops since getting impacted wax that laughed in the face of Earol and became a hard pellet. I’ve seen the same with patients who usually came in with complaints of sounds of water sloshing about caused by water getting behind the wax and not draining out. I would caution literally washing your ears out, especially with soap. The wax is our cleaning substance and jolly good it is too for trapping debris like dead skin that sheds all the time, being mildly bactericidal and fungicidal and stopping waterlogging of the delicate skin. Breaking that down with a surfactant like soap removes it and can irritate the ear so you get more wax production. It is a shame that wax is seen as dirty, that’s often what we were told as children. The skin in the canal is not as tough as the skin of your earlobe. Enthusiastic ear cleaners and frequent ear irrigation flyers usually found their problems improved with less care. I would use Earol just oil not Earex other things that can cause irritation that you may not notice but the ear does if used on a regular basis.

People say, “But I’ve always done it and it’s been fine up to now”. The ear has a natural clearing process where the wax is moved towards to the outside. This can be disrupted by the ageing process that slows it down, causes growth of thicker hairs or you develop allergic type reactions or constitutional changes. Pred increased my wax production. For some it is irritation like mild eczema, reaction to substances, swimming, being in a dusty environment that causes excess shedding of skin. To look down the blocked ear you find not wax but a blockage of dead skin. If water or oil is put in, it can just into an immobile lump of sludge that stays put and the patient gets no relief.

Another cause of water sounds is if the fluid is behind the ear drum. This can be caused by blockage of the eustacian tube that runs into the throat and is supposed to both equalise the air pressure with the outside and act as a drain. All you need is a bit of inflammation or catarrh at the back of the throat, even slightly and you have a problem. This can cause a feeling of fullness and tinnitus. It’s worth chewing some gum with menthol to see if it helps because the chewing action also helps mechanically with the tube.

The bottom line is you need to get them looked at to see what is going on. A ten second look could reveal all.

[SnazzyD in reply to SnazzyD]

just realised you may have meant Earex oil not Earex the hydrogen peroxide one.

[pigeonCl-HU in reply to SnazzyD]

What a thorough and helpful answer, Snazzy, as usual. Your answers are always based on knowledge and experience.

[AyJayBass in reply to SnazzyD]

Another vote for Earol from me. A squirt every few days does the trick for me. I have to keep the wax under control otherwise my hearing aid inserts can become clogged up.

[marionofnorwich]

I can't offer any advice here but jumping on to SnazzyD 's answer I developed tinnitus a little few months before I developed PMR along with a very annoying mucus 'collection' / catarrh at the back of my nose and throat. I had it investigated (poorly, by a consultant who had to catch a plane back to Greece on a Sunday afternoon) but no solution apart from nosedrops that made my tongue sore. I don't think that my ears are particularly bad for my age (66) or have got worse with PMR but I do have a sense that both my tinnitus and PMR have their basis in a flu-style virus I had in early 2019 - so I am interested in whatever answers you get

[MiniSpec in reply to marionofnorwich]

That's interesting.

For me the PMR came first, then two days after I started on Prednisolone I got tinnitus. Now 12 years of Pred later the tinnitus is still with me, and in the last two years or so my hearing has deteriorated badly. Then again, I am now 72 and did lots of things when I was younger that could contribute to hearing loss, so I only have myself to blame on that score.

As to hearing gurgling sounds in the ears, I get that as well. I haven't had it lately, but in the past I've had it quite often. I also suspect that some of my hearing problems are down to partially blocked eustation tubes, due to the way I hear my own voice from inside my head as well as from outside of it, i.e. I can hear it more clearly if I put a hand by my mouth to direct my voice toward my ear. When I do that I can hear all the consonants much more clearly than I can without the hand. So something inside is blocking the higher frequencies, is my thinking.

I also keep living in hope that one day I'll get off Pred and the tinnitus will fade away, but as I'm not likely to get off Pred anytime soon, it's a bit of a pipe dream really.

[JuneWalker in reply to MiniSpec]

My tinnitus started just before I was diagnosed with GCA. Before starting Prednisone l.

[Flivoless]

I have problematic ear problems all my life and what you describe sounds awfully like soft wax build-up. I suggest you go to one of the many "ear wax removal" clinics that have sprung up recently. They use the safe suction method rather than the old high pressure water that felt like it was also washing your brain. Worth a try as it's not expensive.

[tempusfugi in reply to Flivoless]

Have you experienced the suction method, Flivoless? I was discussing this with a friend recently: it was the first time I'd heard about it. I know I have a problem with my hearing, particularly the left ear, but I'm so wary of having something done about it because, a few years ago, I had my ears syringed at the surgery and shortly afterwards, I developed water behind the ear. It was horrible for some months because I had mono-type hearing. My left ear stopped working.

Fortunately, I eventually got a bad cold and after sneezing several times and blowing my nose, the hearing suddenly came back. It was such a relief...I am wondering now if I should try this suction method.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to tempusfugi]

Unless you had a hole in the ear drum, the syringing cannot have been the cause of the fluid behind it. This explains:

medlineplus.gov/ency/articl....

Chewing gum or hard crusts of bread helps the inner ear drain through the Eustachian tubes.

[tempusfugi in reply to PMRpro]

I wonder if I did have a hole in the ear drum then. That's what keeps me thinking I don't want to tamper with it anymore. I remember the nurse apologising and really pushing the syringe in my ear, at the time, because she was having difficulty removing the wax. Kept asking me if I was ok and I said yes but in fact it did hurt. After that, as someone else said, I kept hearing my voice echoing in my head - it went on for some weeks like that.

This has reminded me (having read the link that you sent, PMRpro) of my son having glue ear as a young child. He had grommets inserted twice. It seemed to be quite the thing at the time. I don't know if it still is. We were living in Zimbabwe when the second lot of grommets came out and I remember they said they would reuse them, as they couldn't get them in that country, at the time!

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to tempusfugi]

I hope you reported her - if the wax doesn't come out, you do more softening with oil first. And you certainly don't PUSH!

[Flivoless]

Yes, a few times and my F-i-L had very regularly. No dramas at all and infinitely better than the old system.

[tempusfugi in reply to Flivoless]

Thanks, Flivoless. I might give it a go then. 😕

[whitefishbay]

Well I had a muffled sound in my right ear and thought it was hayfever. Saw a GP who didn't have a clue but PMR Pro said I should go to A&E to get it checked out which I did (as they treat it like a stroke). I have sshl (sudden severe hearing loss) which in my case is caused by a vestibular schwanomma (benign brain tumour on my 8th cranial nerve). All good (if you like hearing aids..haha just kidding). I get MRIs every sixth monts as I am on watch and wait. The moral of the story is get your ear checked out by an ENT. thx.

[Golf-1]

Thank you, I did consult my GP about the problem as I thought it might be PMR/Prednisolone related. He examined my ears and could not see a problem so prescribed a week of antibiotics to see if it cleared. It did not, so GP has now referred me to ENT Dept. - And - like everybody else, I am awaiting a hospital appointment. !!!