I've had issues with motion sickness/vestibular stuff my entire life, but within the last 6 months things have gotten really bad to the point where i can't go in an elevator, up flights of stairs very fast, or ride in a car without having a problem. i also hear high pitch noises in my ears that no one else ever hears.

So I'm wondering....do I go to a neurologist or an ENT doctor for such an issue?

6/11/2009 8:42:05 PM

I'd start with ENT and go from there.

6/11/2009 8:44:01 PM

ENT. The ringing in the ears should be a sign that it's possibly an allergy/sinus problem which is leading to a problem with the fluid in your ears. The high pitched noises in your ears are probably just tinnitus. I have this now and the only issue I have is getting a medium-tone ringing in my right ear at night (it ruptured once, which sucks). Periodically I get bouts of dizziness, but am usually able to bring it under control pretty quickly. More than likely the problem is not neurological, but rather just related to a sinus infection or allergies.

6/11/2009 8:46:50 PM

Either one should be able to make the diagnosis, but depending on what it is either might send you to the other.

See your primary care physician and see if they can narrow the problem down to the central nervous system or something more peripheral (i.e., in the ear). That's what determines who you should see.

6/11/2009 8:53:37 PM

is it in both ears? or just one ear?

6/12/2009 9:12:38 AM

Quote :

"i also hear high pitch noises in my ears that no one else ever hears."

I have always heard that and assumed it was just me that was hearing it. Then, one day in class, this kid said something about it and it turned out that three or four of us were hearing it.

6/12/2009 9:31:36 AM

I would start with an ENT. Then a neurologist. And if everything checks out fine physically, then go see an OT to work on sensory integration issues.

6/12/2009 10:43:13 AM

^^ haha was there a TV in the room? One of the classrooms I used to teach in, if the TV was in standby power mode, you could still hear this high pitched noise coming from it. I thought I was crazy until a student sitting near the TV one day was bitching about it.

6/12/2009 11:02:19 AM

Odd, I always hear high-pitched noises coming from TVs. It's really obvious when they're muted.

Mindstorm, my wife has tinnitus in one of her ears. It's a bitch because doctors can't fix it.

6/12/2009 12:43:54 PM

ENT first

6/14/2009 11:11:09 PM

^^ Most people tend to have some form of tinnitus. Sit in a very quiet room. Very quiet. I mean there's absolutely no sound. Most of the time you won't notice it unless you sit there and go "Wait, are my ears ringing? Holy shit my ears are ringing!"

Now the severity of it varies greatly among people, and the younger you are the less likely you are to experience such a thing (less hearing damage, it's gotten worse as I've gotten older, gone to concerts, and had massive sinus infections that screwed up the pressure in my ears). It used to just be annoying when I would get ringing when sitting in a quiet room (i.e. when reading as a kid/young teen), but then (last fall, before I dropped out of grad school) I couldn't hear a fucking word the professor was saying half the time because the ringing got so loud. Went to an ENT, figured out that I had significant hearing loss in my right ear and was terribly allergic to everything but mold (literally. pollen, trees, cats, dogs, fescue grass, etc).

Motion sickness + Vertigo + Tinnitus = Problem with them tiny little bits and pieces in your ears. Could be something as simple as allergies that you never picked up on because how do you pick up on something when that's been the status quo in your life for all 23 years of your existence? That's what got me. Now that I've treated it and generally take steps to remove allergens from my environment my life sucks a little less.

Also, the ringing in TV's that you're talking about is common with all CRT's (including tube TV's, computer monitors, and, well, everything else that falls under the category of having a CRT). Here's your answer to the why: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyback_transformer

Quote :

"Unlike mains transformers and audio transformers, an LOPT is designed not just to transfer energy, but also to store it for a significant fraction of the switching period. This is achieved by winding the coils on a ferrite core with an air gap. The air gap increases the reluctance of the magnetic circuit and therefore its capacity to store energy. The primary winding of the LOPT is driven by a relatively low voltage sawtooth wave, which is ramped up (and sweeping the beam across the screen to draw a line) and then abruptly switched off (and causing the beam to quickly fly back from the right to the left of the display) by the horizontal output stage. This is a ramped and pulsed waveform that repeats at the horizontal (line) frequency of the display. The flyback (vertical portion of the sawtooth wave) is extremely useful to the flyback transformer: the faster a magnetic field collapses, the greater the induced voltage. Furthermore, the high frequency used permits the use of a much smaller transformer. In television sets, this high frequency is about 15 kilohertz (15.734 kHz for NTSC), and vibrations from the related circuitry can often be heard as a high-pitched whine. In modern computer displays the frequency can vary over a wide range, from about 30 kHz to 150 kHz."

Sometimes when equipment gets older or gets ready to shit the bed these sounds will become more pronounced. With computer monitors, sometimes (at least with the pieces of shit I used to own), you can adjust the refresh rate to a higher level and might cause the sound to go away (at least out of the audible range).

When you get older you will have a harder time hearing such noises, and such noises may become eliminated entirely by the advancing and miniaturization of modern electronics. For example: Does your LCD TV emit a high pitched whine like your old CRT? I doubt it.

6/15/2009 2:53:50 AM

Did anyone else read the title to this thread and think to themselves "Witch doctor to go to?" Awesome, I'm clickin this.

6/18/2009 2:26:47 PM