[[NOTE: The update on my symptoms and the resulting diagnosis is in the comments if you're curious. I get a lot of comments on this post asking for updates, so please look in the comments for the answer!]]
I’ve had the most distressing symptoms over the past week, which sparked my biophysics curiosity. At first I thought that I was just groggy and out of sorts. Then I realized that my head didn’t just feel like it was stuffed with cotton, it sounded like it was stuffed with cotton. I felt disoriented, my head was a bit stuffy, and things didn’t sound quite right. I was talking to my boyfriend on the phone, and I asked him, “Are you OK? You sound really weird.” He sounded like he had a really bad head cold. He swore he was fine. He sounded fine when I talked to him in person. Talking to him on the phone later, he sounded strange again.
Ever the scientist, I realized I needed to try varying some parameters. I switched the phone to my other ear. He sounded fine. Back to my left ear: He sounded like his nose was plugged. Back to my right ear: Normal. So, there was something odd about my left ear. It seemed to be cutting out all the high frequencies. Am I becoming deaf to high frequencies in my left ear?
Later, I go to the climbing gym. There are many small children laughing. The high tones in their voices sound weird, mechanical, and like they’re vibrating in the very back of my left ear. Everything with a high pitch has a mechanical whine that sounds like it’s coming from behind my left shoulder. Disconcerting. Weird. And seemingly totally at odds with my observation that my left ear is cutting out the high frequencies on the phone.
I start to notice how different men’s and women’s voices differ. Men’s voices sound mostly normal. Women’s voices create that mechanical buzz and are difficult to listen to. Ambient sound has similar high-pitched buzzes. I’ve developed my own internal high-frequency monitoring device. I’m less than thrilled.
So, I go to the doctor to find out what the heck is going wrong with me. He’s totally gorgeous, a nice perk in the midst of my health troubles. More science ensues. He taps a tuning fork on the table and holds it by my left ear (the one that’s acting strangely). I wince with the loudness of the sound. He taps it again and holds it against the bone behind my ear. Is it louder then? No. He does the same with my right ear.
Results:
- When the tuning fork is held next to my ear, it’s louder in my left than the right
- When the tuning fork is held on the bone behind my ear, it’s similar loudness in both ears.
So, what’s that mean? Because it sounds the same when the sound is traveling through my bone rather than through the air, that means that there’s nothing wrong with my auditory nerve (whew!) But it sounds different when traveling through the air, so that means that something is selectively amplifying the high frequencies as they travel from the air to my auditory nerve.
Apparently what’s wrong is that my eustachian tubes are blocked, creating a high pressure area inside the canals of my ear. Usually I could clear my ears (getting that “pop”) to equalize the pressure, but if it’s swollen (like if you have a cold) then it’s hard to get my ears to pop.
What struck me about all this experimentation was just how much the scientific method came into play — observe, test, try changing variables, compare. You can find out a lot just by thoughtfully testing different parameters.
The cute doctor didn’t have much to say about why this caused the odd pitch distortions, so I batted my eyes at him and went off to do my own research.
First, what about when I hear the odd buzzing amplification of high pitched sounds in the air? In that case, the sound must travel through the air to the tympanic membrane, or eardrum. The eardrum is what transfers the sound from the air to the little bones of the ear (the hammer, anvil and stirrup). If the eustachian tube is swollen, that restricts the movement of the eardrum. But that seems like it would reduce my sensitivity to high frequencies, not increase it. Perhaps, instead, the high pitched vibrations of the eardrum are somehow amplified, maybe via a resonance. Perhaps the swollen eustachian tube has tuned my hearing to be more sensitive to higher pitches than the normal human ear?
Apparently there is a rare condition where, instead of the tube being swollen shut, the tube is left open, which allows the sound of your own breathing and heartbeat to move from the body directly to the eardrum, so you hear the amplified echo of your own voice and breath. (Strange medical note: A new procedure to relieve those symptoms involves placing a small piece of Blu-Tack on the eardrum to muffle the sounds. “The Blu-Tack has to be replaced at regular intervals,” says Wikipedia. Ugh. I guess I could have it worse.
What about when I talk on the phone, and my boyfriend sounded like he had a cold because all the high frequencies were reduced? In that case, I think, the sound is traveling partially through the air and partially through the bones of my skull. A dampening of the movement of the eardrum by the swollen eustachian tube might explain that (though it wouldn’t explain why the same isn’t true when I’m not talking on the phone, as above). Or, perhaps, the high-frequency sensitivity only happens with frequencies that are not contained in my boyfriend’s voice. Perhaps some high frequencies are being amplified, and the rest are cut out?
Obviously, I haven’t managed to find an ultimate answer to my queries. If anybody has any ideas, or insider knowledge, please share. This has made me very curious. If I’m going to be suffering, I might as well learn something new about my body!
Image: Perception Space—The Final Frontier, A PLoS Biology Vol. 3, No. 4, e137 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030137 ([1]/[2]), vectorised by Inductiveload
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{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
There’s a frequency-dependent issue with the phone system which might help resolve some hypotheses.
The phone system has a band-pass filter applied eliminating everything outside the band of 300-3000Hz. Enough speech components are within that range that speech over the phone is easily recognizable and you can identify people by voice. But it makes phones lousy for high-fidelity sound applications like music.
So my hypothesis is that your ear isn’t amplifying high-frequency components, but rather attenuating and distorting stuff in the 3000Hz and lower region — and your brain is automatically compensating to make things sound normalish by essentially getting generally more sensitive. The higher-pitched overtones in female voices aren’t muffled compared to the lower-pitched fundamentals, and thus the voices sound metallic.
Does this match your experiences?
Hi Blaise,
I forgot about the frequency cutoff of the phone system. A clue!
And a good hypothesis. But it doesn’t seem to match with the data point that the tuning fork (which should be a pretty pure tone, albeit with overtones) sounded louder in my left ear (the damaged one) than the right one, when the sound was traveling through the air.
However, it does fit with an experiment I just did with my iPod. I should have tried this before. Listening to some techno with a strong bass, it sounded beautiful and rich in my right ear. In my left ear, it sounded like I was listening to it through the cheapest $2 speakers in the world. All the low tones were gone, it sounded tinny and thin. It’s really quite an amazing experience — to have one of my sensory organs completely not sensing things that I know are there.
Perhaps, indeed, the movement of my eardrum is being dampened so that bass frequencies are muffled and my ear is overall more sensitive. Perhaps certain high frequencies are painfully sensitive to my newly-sensitive ear, but those high frequencies are not present on a telephone, which cuts them out.
I have a low-fi ear!
I stumbled upon your post here and couldn’t help but respond!
I too am having this issue as of yesterday. I try whistling and it sounds as if I am whistling in two different tones. Normally, it isn’t to big of a deal, but when im in conversation with someone it gets pretty distracting and it is all I can think about!
Anyways, I don’t have to much real relevant info or tips. My eye was just driven to your post and the similiarities of my ear issue when I found this on Google. You should update on here if your symptoms get better or worse at all! Like you, I want to know whats going on!
Good Luck!
Erik
Thanks for the comment, Erik — it’s really an interesting (if annoying) phenomenon, isn’t it? I find the sounds of a large crowd to be particularly difficult to deal with. It’s been two weeks and it still hasn’t cleared up (though it’s better with a decongestant), so I guess I’ll go try for heavy duty medication.
Good luck to you too!
I have been experiencing this problem as well. I have had this once before this one now about three weeks ago. I sleep on my left side and one day i woke up with this weird ringing. I noticed that every one that spoke to me, mainly my daughter and some other people i would hear them in a double tone. I’ve related it to piano keys that won’t play the full chord when pushed. But it’s so weird. Especially on the phone, when I would dial a person and the ringer sounded very low and not like usual. So I hung up the phone and redialed my husband and checked it on the other ear. I could hear the higher pitches when it rang. I hung up again and redialed my husband, who, after all of this, was very annoyed, and did a weird check this side and check that side of my ear and they sounded different. One low and one normal. I haven’t seen a doctor but now since this is my second time, I’m going right away.
Hi Danielle,
Try listening to a headphone in your right hear and left ear, separately — that will also help you figure out just what each ear is hearing or not.
My doctor originally thought that mine was Eustachian tube disorder, but now it appears that it is actually a nerve disfunction, which could be temporary or could be permanent. There is a 6-8 week window to treat one of the possible causes of a nerve disfunction, so it’s good to get into the doctor and have them treat you. Oral steroids will reduce swelling of the nerve if that is what is causing it, and it’s important to get that done as soon as possible. There are other possible causes. I’m also now on a low salt diet and taking diuretics in case it is a fluid buildup in the inner ear.
I have that same perception — that higher tones “ring” when I hear them through the air, but it sounds like they’re gone when I hold a phone to my ear. For me, it turned out that the very low tones are actually *gone* from my bad ear, and my brain is compensating by turning the volume of everything up, causing these strange effects. The brain is weird.
Good luck, and do get to the doctor. I know it feels weird and distressing, but now that I’ve had it a few months, it’s less difficult to deal with.
Hi, I found this in a google search and very glad I did. I am currently experiencing these symptoms and it is quite disturbing. I feel better now that I’ve found a reasonable description of what is more than likely happening. I am acutely aware of what happens in my ears as I am a sound geek too.
Just wanted to say thanks for including this.
Cabreetoe
so, how is something like this fix. I’ve been experiencing something very similar. Dial Tones sound different in each ear. I hear a whistling echo with all the sounds that are coming in. Is there a surgery for this or OTC meds?
Hey Mike,
You should go to your doctor. There are three things that it could be — a viral infection (which will get better over time, but you want an anti-inflammatory to reduce long term damage) or something more permanent. It’s still unclear what mine is, but it seems that it could be the viral infection, as it seems to be getting slowly better. But only an audiologist will be able to do some of the necessary tests. There are no OTC meds, though oral steroids was one of the things that they prescribed for me, short term.
Good luck!
Hiyah, just wondered how your ears are now ?
Mine have been similar since about 11 days ago, I too keep shifting phone from left ear to right ear to hear the difference, and constantly sticking my finger in each ear to test the differences. Mine started when a friend blasted my ears with loud headphones, but 5 days later I also came down with a massive cold which I still have, so now I am trying to work out if it was the loud noise that did it, or if that was coincidental and it is due to the cold. I had something similar happen 3 times before all with the same ear, one time was due to being right next to a low flying jet which made my ear not only hurt like hell but also deaf, hearing came back within 5 days though. The other two times were when I had my ear syringed, either the water hitting the eardrum or the loud noise from the machine made my ear muffled and half deaf for about a week each time. This time though it seems to be sticking with me longer. Speaking of which, did you ever get your ears cleaned ?
I hope yours has cleared up as you mentioned it was starting to in January. If so, did you find out what it was ? Really weird isn’t it how one ear being different can cause such annoyances.
Many thanks and all the best !!
Jon
Hi Jon,
Thanks for your concern.
My ears are mostly back to normal, but it’s variable. Some days I can hear OK in the left ear, and sometimes I really have to put the phone to my right ear. It’s overall better than before, for sure, and my hearing tests show that it’s on the mend. But I might end up with some lasting damage. The best hypothesis seems to be that it was a viral infection that damaged the nerve, but it’s regaining some function…
It’s certainly been an interesting experience! The brain is amazing.
Have you ever heard of ear allergies?
I am 48 and never heard of such a thing! I went to my pp and she told me i was basically crazy,because I told her I couldn`t hear.
Come to find out from a specialist(had to go through an insurance mediator to see one,because pp said I need mental evaluation)That,indeed,I have severe allergies to black mold!
I live in a old house that is prone to flooding in the basement,black mold was everywhere,and lo and behold,I found a great allergy specialist,and he got me back on track!
Shame on these so called doctors who cant see a problem without associating some kind of drug use or mind disorder!
Used google : “can’t hear” and your site ranked quite high.
That in itself is quite interesting, because the symptoms you have are very much the same as mine.
For me I also have this constant noise generated , sounds like an conditioner running in the next room -a bit of white noise.
When I lay down for sleep it sounds like my a cheap transistor radio is playing in the other rooms of the house, when in fact none are.
I have been having theses symptoms for about a week.
I also have a further complication of having a bad left ear to start with , and the new problems are in my “good” right ear. Which is currently worse than my bad ear.
Just realized that when I put my ear phones on to listen to something yesterday!
I will have to get to a clinic fast now that I have waited so long!
How are you doing with this?
Very similar symptoms here:-
-Fluctuating hearing loss – some days it’s nearly fine, some days noticably muted
-Tinny, whistly echo – predominantly caused by female voices, music, ambient sounds. Also fluctuatess
-Mild dizziness/spaciness
ENT today confidently told me it was an inner ear problem. Could be viral, could be who-knows – prescribed anti-inflammatories and then Beta-Histine as plan B. Hopefully it will get better. I’m not so sure it’s the inner ear – it intuitively feels like something more mechanical / middle ear-ish, but I dont base that on anything concrete.
One thing that’s really taken my interest is the effect that trigger points in neck muscles can have on balance and hearing loss:
http://www.triggerpointbook.com/vertigo.htm
In this thread there’s an anecdotal report from someone who’s seen 7 ENTs, 3 of whom diagnosed Menieres, and subsequently healed himself purely with neck massage of trigger points:
http://www.steadyhealth.com/Blocked_Ear__Tinnitus__Fullness__Vertigo__Nausea____I_have_ALL_of_it________t82542.html
(its about 2/3rds the way down, username “swimmer31nc”).
Anyway I’ll let you know how I progress. Be good to hear your current status. I’m aiming to nail this thing one way or another!
sciencegeekgirl, and everyone else here on this board,
I am so grateful to have found you. For the past four months, I have been suffering with what seems to be near identical symptoms as you. I have been to an audiologist and two doctors, one an ENT.
My experiences with the doctors were frustrating to say the least. My initial visit had me put on prednisone for two weeks, tapering off. it was awful, and didn’t help a bit. i will add that in addition to this strange metallic distortion, i also have a low tone tinnitus that comes and goes, and changes between two tones when it is at its worst.
I am so confused because at the moment that the symptoms started, I wasn’t doing anything that would affect my ear. I hadn’t been listening to extra loud music, and I wasn’t really congested. I had a cold a few days later, but after that subsided, the ear symptoms remained.
The ENT I saw about a month ago suggested that I get an MRI to rule out the possibility of an acoustic neuroma. I haven’t gone in to have it yet, but I will admit that I have my doubts about that being the problem.
I am scared. I’m only 27 and I love music with all my heart. The fact that my favorite vocalists and guitar solos sound distorted in my right ear TEARS me up inside. I try and stay positive, thinking that it will go away soon, but I have no answers about where it came from and what could possibly be done to cure it. Once again, I am so glad to have found you, because you seem to have a positive outlook about it, and it made me feel a little better. If any of you on this board have any more insight into this strange affliction, please let me know. I will be checking back regularly.
Shawn
And Erik,
I also whistle to test if my ear is getting any better. any whistle i hear is distorted into two tones. and sciencegeekgirl, i forgot to mention that my audiogram showed mild low tone hearing loss. i was so frightened when i heard that.
Thanks,
Shawn
Hi Shawn,
First, I’m happy to say that my hearing loss has almost completely resolved itself.
Second, I’m not a doctor, and so anything I say may not relate to your situation — if you’re not pleased with the medical care that you’re getting, see if you can see someone different, or ask lots of questions to make sure you understand what you can expect from the treatments you’re getting.
My understanding was that the hearing loss that I experienced could have been due to one of three things (and I think I now know what it was). From what your doctors are telling you, it seems that they are also testing those three possibilities.
And, like you, I had hearing loss only in certain frequencies. And I just woke up one day with my hearing sounding strange — no cold, no loud music. Unlike you, my brain was able to mostly compensate, so while things sounded odd in that one ear, I could go around fairly normally and not notice the difference unless I had a headphone to that ear only.
Here were the 3 possibilities, listed from worst to best:
1. Neuroma (cancerous or not). That is a low possibility, but there can be something pushing against the auditory nerve and causing the hearing loss. This will be ruled out by an MRI, so you might as well get it.
2. Meniere’s disease. This would have caused dizzy spells for years, and the cause is unknown. If #1 or #3 were ruled out, the default diagnosis would have been Meniere’s.
3. Viral swelling. Called a “viral insult”, if a virus attacks the auditory nerve, it can cause swelling. This can happen even if you didn’t have a cold. Whether the damage is permanent depends on how bad the swelling is. That’s why they put you on prednisone. Prednisone reduces swelling. You wouldn’t see the results of prednisone right away — rather, it would just minimize the swelling during the viral attack, reducing the changes of long term damage. I was told that, to be effective, you have to get the prednisone in the first week or two after you have the symptoms. Otherwise, the damage to the nerve can be more permanent.
I believe that I had #3. Prednisone didn’t help right away. My hearing tests showed that my hearing was reduced in the low frequencies, then even worse a month later, and then it stabilized, and then started to get better. I believe that it just took some time for the auditory nerve to recuperate.
I hope the same is true for you. Do be patient. Myself, I’ve come to appreciate not having any other more debilitating damage to my body — it’s scary when one of your senses goes wonky.
Stephanie
Thank you Stephanie,
I really appreciate you taking the time to explain your experience to me. You have no idea how much better you have made me feel. If you ever have any more insights into this problem, let me know.
Thank you,
Shawn
Hi there,
Hope you are doing fine by now. I would like to know if sometimes you hear like echo voices ( when people talk , especially women and kids and even your own voice) loud breathing sounds too? Have you confirm you don’t have a patulous eustachian tube?
Let me know how you are progressive of this weird condition and what was your actual diagnosis.
Thanks a lot and best of luck!
Hi i dropped here not to say something helpful but to state something about my own hearing problem.
Because in my case my right ear has difference with my left ear. as my right ear can’t hear bass of a sound and the voices are so small and sometimes it’s difficult to hear. unlike my left ear. and i feel that something was there inside like blocking or something that clogging my ear. and other strange feeling. that sometimes if i do a light touch near my right ear like on my right face, below my right ear anywhere as long as it’s near my right ear, there’s a strange sound creating inside my ear, it’s like my right ear is reacting with the light touch.
Dennis,
How long have you had this problem? I have similar symptoms. The bass in my right ear is pretty much non existent. However, since my left ear is fine, I don’t notice the hearing loss too much in everyday situations. If I shut my left ear though, I can notice a difference in the range of sound my right ear picks up. Low tones pretty much are gone, and the higher tones seem softer as a result. It’s a little worrisome, but hopefully this problem resolves itself within the next year or so. I had an MRI taken, and it was normal. So my symptoms are a mystery to every doctor and ENT I’ve talked to. It’s frustrating. Let me know if you have any breakthroughs with your situation.
Shawn
Look back in the previous comments on this post for the most recent update, folks!
I also have recently suffered sudden hearing loss in the right ear. It first started as muffled sound but now has disintegrated to almost no sound at all. I am taking the prednisone, and trying not to get depressed about losing my hearing.
Reading that you have had improvement gives me some hope.
Stephanie,
Let’s hear it for the internet! I JUST started getting the symptoms you described a couple days ago. Searched it up and found your blog. Tones in my right ear are definitely lower, and there’s a metallic sound to voices I hear in my right ear as well. I did have some dizziness and disorientation yesterday; today seems more “stable” but the sound in my ear is a bit worse. I’m going to make a doctor appointment ASAP to get this checked out.
Thanks for your blog and your follow ups!
Aloha everyone…I too am having hearing loss; it has been about 2 months now and I am very concerned about it. It started out with a plugged ear, now I have a 24/7 sound in my ear (not a ringing sound); it sounds like waves. I have been to two ENT and both have said I have lost my low tones; I also have amplified sounds and echos. My MRI was neg. and I took prednisone pills (no help). Last week it seemed the low tones were coming back (wave sound still there, tho) so I was thinking it was getting better, but yesterday it seems to all have come back; the amplifies, fullness, and echo…I see the ENT again after Thanksgiving, but don’t know if there is anything else they can do. Does anyone have the constant sounds in their ear?? Even when I sleep, the sound is always there. Sometimes is is softer than other but always there. Thank for your help…
I have similar symptoms, my left ear for the past 3 days has bothered me. It was like a clogged or plugged sensation for the during the first 2 days, like as if I had water in my ear. Then the 3rd day, which is today, a lot of noises sound hollow or empty, like if all sounds were filtered through a plastic cup. My right ear is fine, everything sounds as it should, but the interesting thing is, when I recorded my voice then played it back on each ear individually with headphones, my voice did not have the hollow/empty sound accompanying it. My voice sounds exactly the same in both ears, but music I have listened to, especially piano pieces, sound completely different to each ear. Also I went on youtube.com and listened to some sound frequency tests, and my left ear is definitely impaired (not serverely, besides the hollow sound) in comparison to my right ear. I could not hear the highest frequencies or the lowest frequencies, only from about 40Hz to 13000Hz for my left ear, whereas my right ear was from 20Hz to about 16000Hz. I’ll probably see a docter within the next few days. I just thought I’d share this because I thought it was interesting my voice sounds identical to both ears but almost everything else to my left ear sounds like it’s been recorded on a tape from the 1950′s.
Anyways, thanks for taking the time to read this.
-Nick
Hi Nick,
Sounds definitely like some similar symptoms to what I had, though that doesn’t mean that the cause is the same. The most likely reason your voice sounds the same to you in both ears is because — as you determined — your impairment is in the highest frequencies. Those are out of the range of what the human vocal cords, so you don’t notice the impairment with your voice as a test sound.
Good luck with it.
Stephanie
I have started to have constant ringing in my ears with amplified hearing. My ears are so sensitive it is painful to hear regular noises sometimes. I also have pressure in my head and feel like my ears will explode. This all came about around the time I realized the PG&E station across the street had gotten larger and noisier. Do any of you have exposure to a PG&E station or other equipment that would admit unusual frequencies?
Trying to find an answer like many of you.
Wow! What a great help this site has been for so many of us! I’ve had the exact same experience as you sciencegeekgirl, (minus the cute Doctor
but am still waiting for some improvement… Has been 5 weeks since I lost 60% hearing in my right ear, along with the muffled hearing, voices almost sound robotic when phone is put to that ear, and that ear is overly sensitive to loud or high pitch tones. I too, took a course of Prednisolone, but didn’t really notice a difference at the time, looking back, my hearing is marginally better now, but still far from perfect.
It is a bit more difficult in my situation as my sudden hearing loss came on due to viral infection, and I was at the time 3o weeks pregnant at the time; very run down. ENT specialist thinks I need to wait until after I have the baby (approx 5 weeks away) to see where my hearing is at exactly. But the fact that months down the track, you feel that yours is back to normal, gives me the hope that I desperately need at this time!
I have been trying acupunture but don’t feel any improvement as yet. Had it twice so far and 3rd session tomorrow. Has anyone had success with acupuncture for sudden hearing loss? Would be interesting to know of other people’s experiences.
After I’ve had the baby I’m planning on taking something I found online called “The hearing fix”. It sounds too good to be true and is probably just a gimmick, but as some of you may know, the prognosis for sudden sensorineural hearing loss is not good at all. Pretty much no help out there for us, which is so disheartening. It’s not just the hearing loss that is so hard to deal with, but the high sensitivity that ear has to noise (hard with a 2 year old and another bub on the way), and the echo of some sounds, my voice mostly.
Would love to hear some more success stories if there are any out there, or any advice as to what may have worked?
Thanks, Karly.