Hello! I am new to the board and struggling with chronic migraines, tinnitus and mild hearing loss. Because my mom lost the majority of her hearing as a teenager, I'm trying to be proactive and preserve my hearing now (while I'm a thirty-something cat lady and I can).
That said, my hearing loss is intermittent. There are days when I hear my soft-spoken coworkers talking to each other all the way across the room! But there are other days when I can't hear them asking questions while they're right next to me. I know this is partly because of my tinnitus. It's probably also due to the ear fullness and popping I feel; that can make it difficult to hear anything!
It's not clear to me, my general practitioner or my neurologist if the hearing loss is related to my migraines. Besides those folks, I've visited one ENT and two audiologists. The ENT/audio crowd has recommended hearing aids without giving any consideration to my migraine life. In fact, one audiologist recommended that I stop taking one of my migraine medicines because it could worsen tinnitus. Well doctor, if I've been taking this medicine since 2004 and the tinnitus just began in 2014....
The general practitioner recommended steroids (prednisone) for one week and I felt great during that treatment. I could hear everything with very little--almost no--tinnitus or ear fullness/popping. But she doesn't recommend a full-time steroid treatment, unfortunately.
Does anyone else have this migraine-tinnitus-hearing loss combination? If yes, do you also suffer from ear fullness and/or ear popping? Sometimes I have so much of this that it's painful! I'd love to know I'm not the only one, and that something has worked for someone...
I'd also love to know if I should be asking for an MRI. None of my doctors seem to think I need this (although, admittedly, I don't feel like any of them are seeing the whole problem).
Thanks -- Katherine
