Just experienced one of those blinding insights... You know, when you’re loafing around and all of a sudden something SOOO FUKKIN OBVIOUS dawns on you and you say to your idiot self what the HELL was the matter with me that I didn’t think of this????
Yeah. What HAS been the MATTER with me?
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Welp…superficially the matter has been some kind of ailment that causes crazy-making peripheral neuropathy — tingling and stinging in the hands, feet, and lips — and just about constant ear-whistling. Either of these phenomena alone is enough to drive you off the edge of a cliff. Together, they pretty much guarantee suicidal ideation.
Nothing, but NOTHING that I’ve tried has helped. This has gone on for weeks, eliding into months.
Welp…it suddenly strikes me: nothing that I’ve tried addresses one major, very obvious potential cause.
Hey: what causes your ears to whistle and buzz when you’ve got the flu? When your allergies are flaring?
Yeah: sinus and ear congestion!
DUH!
My nose doesn’t feel stuffy (or rather, no more stuffy than usual: this IS Arizona, the land where you go to find out what your allergies are). But my ears do. They click when I open my mouth wide, like they do when you have a bad head cold.
In Arizona, you get sinus and ear congestion from the ambient allergens. And it develops that peripheral neuropathy can also result from allergies.
At the risk of repeating myself: DUH!
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Ya don’t suppose…????
Holy sh!t…why didn’t I think of this before? It’s been going on for weeks, months…and never once have I thought “why are my ears ringing all the time? like when i have a bad cold??? sorta like when i have an allergic attack?”
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Okay. I just dropped a Benadryl.
This should be entertaining: let’s see what happens. Give it an hour or two to kick in, if it’s gonna kick in.
Benadryl wires me to the teeth (which is why I don’t like to take it). But it doesn’t knock me into the middle of next week, the way other allergy meds do…so it shouldn’t be unsafe for me to drive the car or climb into the bathtub.
That’s the reason I don’t like to take the usual allergy meds: they put me into a damn coma. I need to be able to drive, and I need to be able to function around the house.
Hmmm…it’s 1 p.m. now. I’d guess it’ll take an hour or two for the thing to kick in, if it’s going to. Minimum. Actually, it’s been going on for so long, it may take a day or two for the allergy med to make a difference. Hmmm….
This will be innaresting.
I hope.
Please let us know if the Benadryl helps.
By 3:00 p.m. yesterday, the ear whistling was noticeably less intense. Not gone, but at least less crazy-making. It’s POSSIBLE that the Benadryl may have helped a little.
As we scribble, it’s 12;30 a.m. on Sunday, September 22. Ear whistling is still present, probably returning to its prior intensity.
Benadryl wires me up, so I hesitate to take the stuff in the middle of the night.
This is crazy stuff!!
Just made an enormous (and rather obvious) discovery: https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(15)00378-X/fulltext
More to come in a pending FAM post!
It does seem to have helped. At 3:30 in the afternoon, the noggin is not completely allergy-free…but then, it never is, this being Arizona.
Arizona: where you come to find out what your allergies are!
The head is much clearer, and the whistling, while not GONE gone, is much softer.