I posted a couple of weeks ago about the possibilty of my sudden onset tinnitus being linked to hypothyroidism......
My GP agreed to increased my Levo to try and get my TSH lower. My bloods last week showed it now to be down to 1.5 -,which is great, - but am still suffering quite severe tinnitus
I'm awaiting MRI results but am getting scared of being told I have a brain tumour or acoustic neuroma. I am also almost as scared of being told the MRI showed nothing abnormal and that I just have to live with this.
I can't.........
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mrspinkrat
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I've had tinnitus for years. It started with high pitched noises in my right ear decades ago but I adapted to it and I rarely notice it now. However, at the beginning of this year I developed a much lower-pitched drone in my left ear and I found it almost impossible to adapt to this. I asked for a referral to my local hospital audiology clinic and I have to say they were superb. (Not something I say in relation to the medical profession very often!) I've had lots of help and advice and support. I would definitely recommend trying to get a referral. You have nothing to lose. I hope you get as good a service as I did from your local audiology service.
I'm not an expert on this, but I think some of the options available are :
While you are awake...
1) If you have hearing loss then getting hearing aids to deal with it can help. For me, and probably most people, the tinnitus is most obvious in a quiet environment. Getting hearing aids has amplified normal sounds that I simply couldn't hear before. And apparently the brain "seeks out" sounds in order for it to do the job of keeping you safe in your environment. If you can't hear well then the sounds that you start hearing come from sounds inside your own head. So dealing with hearing loss helps because it gives something for the brain to latch on to rather than internal sounds.
2) For people without hearing loss I think it is possible to get hearing aids which produce sounds to mask the tinnitus in some way. I'm not really sure how this works - I actually have hearing loss, so normal hearing aids have been helping me.
When you are trying to sleep or for quiet periods during the day...
The best way to deal with this is to actually play sounds which mask the tinnitus.
As an experiment in using background sound to mask my tinnitus I bought a tiny little speaker - one of these :
I already have an mp3 player. I found sites on the internet which have downloadable pieces of "music" which can be played as masking noise.
The things to look for are white noise, brown noise and pink noise - look for "free downloads white noise" (or whatever). Here is one page that is well worth reading and it describes what the various coloured noises are, but there are loads of others around :
An alternative is to use nature sounds for masking tinnitus - this is my preference. You can make your own using this site and it is rather fun, or you can listen to what other users have created :
I suppose the simplest thing to do would be just to have a wireless laptop playing next to your bed all night but that might not suit you or be possible. I use my mp3 player and my tiny speaker instead. There is also an app you can download but my technology is all old-fashioned stuff and I have nothing that can run apps...
Once I created some pieces of "music" or sound that I liked I downloaded it. Annoyingly, it comes in a format that my old mp3 player can't play, so I have to upload it again to another site which converts it into a form my mp3 player can cope with (wmv files).
Once I've got a few samples I like I play the same track over and over at night on a repeating loop. I set my mp3 player to turn off after 30 minutes or 60 minutes and it helps me to ignore the tinnitus.
What I've described above was my experiments on doing everything on the cheap - all I bought was the little speaker.
But for my birthday I'm going to get something more sophisticated - a tinnitus relaxer which can be used at night or during the day. They do the same job as I've outlined above but the sounds are supplied for you :
I hope all this helps. Once I realised I could forget about the tinnitus for a while with the aid of the hearing aids and the relaxing masking sounds at night it stopped having the power to upset me.
Hi, did your tinnitus start suddenly round about the time you got symptoms of a thyroid problem or did it come out of the blue? Is there any chance you injured your neck in the weeks before or even that you sit in an awkward way at a computer all day? There's a post running at the moment about taking a drug called betahistine for dizziness and tinnitus and I've been replying on there because I had dizziness for years which was thoroughly investigated with all sorts of tests, including MRIs which scared me horribly, but it turned out to be a musculoskeletal problem from my neck and back caused by what I thought was a minor injury at the time it happened. Recently I lifted and carried something that was much too heavy and the dizziness started up again and with it came constant tinnitus. It all got better after a session of massages to relax my neck muscles again, and now I know when they're getting too tense because the tinnitus comes back a bit. This is just a thought for if your doctors don't come up with any idea what has caused it and if none of their treatments work for you.
I know how worrying it is to wait for MRI results, at the time I comforted myself with the thought that if any of them had shown a problem like brain tumour or acoustic neuroma then I'd have had an urgent call from the doctor. Also I thought I'd have had other problems as well. I'm sure yours will be ok too so please try not to think about them until you get the results, easier said than done I know! The good thing is that the ENT surgeon took you seriously and did an MRI.
Hi I have had tinnitus for 4 years. I do have a history of going to rock concerts however mine came in suddenly and was accompanied by a floor moving feeling all the time. I saw an ENT... had an MRI. There were no abnormalities. He said it was migraine. I got referred to a neurologist to confirm. I kind of bought the diagnosis but still think its linked to the post partum thyroiditis I had in 2005. It took me 6 months to feel comfortable with the tinnitus. It's not an easy ride but once you start to realise you are starting to not think about it, you are on to a winner. I thought I'd never enjoy silence but I can. Id love to be free of it but it really is a minor issue now. like above I used to listen to radiocomedy programmes at night to drop off. Mine is high pitched kinda white noise sound. There's alot of top advice here. Re the MRI it is a worry and you think the worse however brain tumours are relatively rare and are often accompanied by a whole host of other neuro symptoms. There is an online programme run by a auditory nurse in Lancashire that is good. Its a 6 week course and she has downloads for relaxation. Can't get the link while on my phone sorry. Mindfulness is also helpful.
Thank you all for taking the time to reply to me. I was in a bit of a state last night
Your replies really helped. I feel more positive today and will check out some of those websites!
I've not had an injury Framboise. I've never used ear phones or worked in a noisy place..... It came out of the blue. I'd been diagnosed with hypo since last August (2013)
I'm in early menopause (I'm 44) and tests showed vit D deficiency. The tinnitus began exactly one day after I started vit D supplements but I can't find any connection between Vit D and the tinnitus. To be safe, I stopped the supplements after a few days.
I do have a 'creaky' neck - when I turn it I can hear it! And I've noticed that sometimes (without realising) that I'm clenching my teeth very strongly!
I too have tinnitus which comes and goes - can hear my heartbeat thumping in my ear when I lie down at night - recently I have had a cold and sinus congestion so am hoping that is the present cause and it goes away again. We all fear the worst and I did too when I had to have an MRI but everything was fine and you will see from a lot of posts on here that most people's MRI turns out to be okay. I find mine comes back when I have stopped taking vitamin B complex for a while so don't know if that is a contributing factor.
Good luck with your appointment and please let us know the outcome.
Hello yes it's horrid I get it also and so did my mum she has hashi and so do I thankfully not that often and I also believe it's due to hypothyroidism mine seems to have improved since changing from armour to thyroid gold I've asked for an antibodies test to see if it's improved
I too have suffered for many years with tinnitus. I had a MRI scan, it's just procedure and mine was fine. I now where hearing aids as my hearing has deteriorated. You will feel better when you have had your test, it will put your mind at ease. It's a common problem with people with Thyroid problems. Try not to worry, I am sure all will be fine x
My tinnitus began a few months before I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. I remember going round the house to find out what I had left switched on because of the noticeable deep humming noise at night when I was trying to sleep. Once my TSH was down to 0.2 (so FT4 above 16 on a range of 12-22) it completely went. It comes back if I forget to take the meds for a few days (forgot to take them with me on holiday once). I hope this helps.
My OH and I have tinnitus. Last year he was put on levothyroxine and the dose gradually increased but when the GP upped it to 100mg (or whatever mcg?) his tinnitus became so loud he was almost suicidal and it nearly wrecked our holiday. When he came back he went to GP, stopped the levothyroxine (which is a known ototoxic drug - as are some antibiotics, aspirin etc). He has now had two MRIs and they discovered that he has a accoustic neuroma on his right side. The consultant says it is very small and nothing to worry about but they are going to keep an eye on it and he believes this could be one of the reasons his tinnitus has got worse. There is no real correalation between the neuroma and his tinnitus getting worse and no real link to the levothyroxine increase. However, he said it could be a contributing factor.
OH has now had an appointment with an Audiology consultant about getting white noise generators and we are back for an appointment at the end of this month when he will agree to having them. He uses underpillow speakers at night with soft noise and music to help him habitualise the sounds.
My tinnitus is bad at the moment because of a cold but nothing like he had after taking the levothyroxine (OK could be coincidental but he's not convinced).
My OH has now started his own forum for tinnitus sufferers and if you would like to have a look go to thetinnitusforum.co.uk.
Hi i read the other day that b12 can also cause tinnitus just something to think about aswell
I've had tinnitus since 1999, I think mine was linked to HRT I took very briefly after a hysterectomy. But there again my health then through a hospital infection just went crazy. I also had the feeling like my head was underwater and I lost hearing in my left ear. The tinnitus started in my right ear, an engine running sound. Then after grommets a high pitched whistling/white noise sound in my left. I hear it all the time, it's incredibly loud and adds to my loss of hearing during conversation. I do use a hearing aid, but not all of the time. It's for my left ear where there is a moderate hearing loss, it does rest your ear trying to hear things which then reduces the volume of the tinnitus.
Mine gets louder the more tired I am, and when I'm stressed. Thyroid meds, and B12 injections have had no effect, I think because they came 10 years too late. I often feel I'm locked in my own world with this tinnitus and contributes to feelings of detachment.
I have had tinnitus on and off from as long as I can remember. It has come back since doc put me on citalopram luckily I can mostly ignore it it varies from a constant humming/ringing noise to sudden onset of deafness that moves across my head and is gone in a few seconds to very weird noises indeed thankfully these are very infrequent.
I too have the "swooshing noise" mostly when I am tired (or more noticeably at least) I have suffered hearing loss and vertigo and my specialist put me on 16mg of Betahistine, three times daily as he diagnosed Menieres disease. It is interesting to hear the connections between Hypothyroidism and Tinnitus.
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