I was in a T-bone accident where another car hit me centered right in between the driver and passenger doors. My left ear now has tinnitus, and I too have a hard time hearing conversation in large groups of people. However, after the wreck, I visited hearing specialist several times. I always passed their tests of the faint frequencies. They cannot explain where the ringing originates.?!?! It's one of those things it is hard to get a doctor to believe you since they can't actually see anything wrong. No broken bones, no lacerations, not bruising, nothing. Just ringing that they cannot hear.
TMJ can cause tinnitus; specifically there is a nerve connecting your jaw to the areas near your ear. Damage to this nerve, e.g., caused by years of unmitigated clenching/grinding at night or by an injury, can cause this. A neurologist may help suggest some tests. In the case of TMJ, there's a specific CT scan that will identify damaged cartilage below the ear that is typically linked to tinnitus.
TMJ was the cause of about 7% of my migraine.
Watched a few YouTube videos, self massages for a few days. Found a spot that was super painful. Once it released, Migraines mostly gone.
When you say “unmitigated” do you mean via a mouth guard or something else?
I clench, have a mouth guard, but still clench. Don’t know of other treatments but would love to find one. I have tinnitus either as a result or from a bike accident which hurt my jaw and started the clenching.
I have mild tinnitus. When I move my jaw forward the sound intensives strongly, and then fades when my jaw relaxes. So there is definitely a connection for me.
On the off chance that this helps: I get tinnitus when my neck and/or jaw are clenched. This is a known phenomenon, you can google it. In fact, the onset of tinnitus is sometimes the only thing that makes me aware of how tense my neck is. If you were in a collision, it's possible your nervous system as adopted a pattern of muscle tension to compensate, or in anticipation of trauma, or something. Anyway, perhaps try relaxing your neck/head/jaw when this happens?
I appreciate the suggestion. I do have a bit of aftershock (I avoid calling it PTSD) where if I'm sitting waiting for a left turn where will I suddenly get a weird flinch feeling without actually flinching.
For me, the ringing is only noticeable when it is quiet, so bed time is annoying. I run a small fan for the white noise to compensate. Other times of the day, music is playing while I'm working (not headphones).
Just because it's not been mentioned in the other comments thus far: Car crashes are loud. And it's worse if you don't see it coming (so that you could "prepare" your ears).
Yeah, totally blind sided by it, so I never saw it coming. Someone tried to pass me on the left while I was turning left with my turn signal on (it was still flashing after the fact according to the police report). It was a 2 lane FM road in a double solid line. I also had a side impact airbag that deployed, so no telling how loud that was as well. Thankful for it, as it prevented all of the shattered glass from flying into the car and my face.
For me it was using a nail gun once after forgetting to put on the ear protectors. That was 10 years ago. The ringing in the ear closest to the nail gun is constant and sometimes annoying, but mostly which I can subconsciously filter out.
