High pitch noise (screechy hiss) 8-9 khz that modulates in time with my heartbeat what is this?

[NHSisbroken]

This terrible noise has been wrecking my life since I had covid and subsequent jabs.The loud rough high pitch screeching pulsating to the beat of my heart is hard to ignore and creates a hightend stress in my mind.

I have tried hearing aid to boost high frequencies in my left ear, and CBT with no help.

This noise appeared along with a stiff neck this I have today.

I can vary in intensity with jaw and neck manipulation.

I now have severe GAD constant cognative fog and fatigue.

Could this be labelled as Tinnitus or is there a specific name for this type of symptom?

Thanks

[TinnitusUKPat Partner]

Hi - thank you for joining this community.

As difficult as it can be to accept, there does appear to be a convincing reason for tinnitus being present and it's what a lot of us develop over time, a high frequency hearing loss.

This is a plausible explanation for why we may perceive the tinnitus tones which you describe in your post. In lieu of looking for another reason which will be nigh on impossible to prove, I think it's best to look at what we can demonstrate and not seek hypothetical, difficult to prove reasons for the condition.

This type of hearing loss in itself might not be immediately noticeable - it's a specific pitch which many of us are not able to hear as well as we used to do. That's an organic change which a lot of us undergo, but for some of us, the tinnitus aspect of it is far more challenging than the hearing change itself.

A hearing aid should, as you say, make it a little easier to hear those frequencies if our hearing is mostly within a normal range. If a hearing loss is more complex than that, then a hearing aid is working with an auditory system which is having to work much harder to hear the same range of sounds.

CBT is helpful when we can engage with it directly for what it is, a tool or way of managing a situation - like a hearing aid, it isn't a cure for tinnitus but something which can help if our thoughts about tinnitus are largely negative, fearful and catastrophic.

An example of this might be a belief that tinnitus can't get better and that people who have it are destined to be miserable. Many people posting here will go through periods when they have thoughts like that, but often our perception of tinnitus severity and impact changes for the better when our mood is different.

It does sometimes help to realise that what CBT can do is help us to manage negative thinking and unhelpful viewpoints about problems - it isn't a top-down quick fix, but something which requires us to be realistic about our thoughts and to limit the opportunity for distorted, negative beliefs to influence our actions.

Tinnitus can be just a noise - a sound, with no other meaning or importance to it than other sounds we experience during the day. If we don't find ourselves focusing on those sounds and having difficulty with them, why is it that we focus on tinnitus to the extent of other things?

[Happyrosie]

hello and welcome.

Pat is a real expert and he has said it all. Well, not all as there are books about tinnitus.

As Pat says there are many on this forum who find tinnitus very hard to deal with - but after a while the brain realises that the noise doesn’t harm you, so you habituate. Let me give you an example. I really stretched myself financially to buy my first flat, It was on a main road out of London. The traffic noise didn’t really calm down during the night and after several sleep-disturbed nights I was at my wits end. All that money and what have I let myself in for? Etc etc.

But after a few months this became the normal so didn’t bother me.

You too will I hope get there. In the meantime, what you have could be pulsatile tinnitus and there’s a section about this on the Tinnitus UK website which could be worth reading.

[Doxiemom1]

go to a Tmj dentist

[PABLR]

It sounds like pulsatile tinnitus. But going to a tmj dentist is probably a good idea. An MRI or CT scan would also put your mind at rest about there being any underlying cause.