Full Question:
I was diagnosed with vestibular migraines or migraine associated vertigo three months ago. I was put on Nortriptyline for 12 days and my nervous system went crazy. I was told the medication aggravated a migraine. My symptoms were vertigo, ear fullness, tinnitus, s...


Dear Jenny.
I know first hand what you are going through. One day after a very bad attack of migraine I stayed with the same noise in my head I had when having a full blast migraine; pulsatile tinnitus, hyperacusis . I can count my pulse without touching my neck or wrist, I still have vertigo just looking up or moving my head sideways. I saw an ORL specialist a neurologist who could only precribed a MRI scan,an ultrasound of the neck, carotids , all looked fine. My dentist tried to help me believing that I could have a jaw problem. It was not, but when I stretch my neck the noise goes down a bit, I can't stay in that position for too long except when in bed, I sleep only on my back and try to have my neck in a way to dampened the noise. The dentist had me fitted with an appliance to try to change my jaw position at the same time it was keeping me from snoring at the beginning at least. Now I have a CPAP and sleep a lot better, the noise I thought would keep me awake helps me sleep but I still wake up sometimes because the noise is too loud . It has been 5 years now, that I don't know silence anymore.I remember the day it started . No one has a solution for me other than learning to live with it. I am person who used to love silence, I could not stand a radio or TV on all the time, I already had a sensitive ear, years ago I passed hearing test and it was shown that I really hear more than usual people. So, day in and day out during the night, I have that noise, like a cricket party in my head, at days it is so loud , it mask my hearing I afraid is going down. The theory the drs came with is ; that a blood vessel might have move closer to my hearing inners, nerves or so, imperceptible to any MIR, scans or ultrasound,
I can tell you that I am getting used to it, that will be lying, With the years, I
I kind of made peace with it. Thinking that : as long as it is there I am alive ! I do a lot of meditation, guided imagery, and self-hypnosis, call it the way you want try to find a way to find peace. It is possible to do it's just like people who live in a big city with the train and highways in their backward, they almost don't hear it anymore. Only one change from my past picture of migraine, not related is that I don't have anymore banging head pain but some of the other symptoms plus severe pain in my back in one spot. I am lucky triptans helps a lot for the other symptoms but not for the noise.....
If you need to talk more about it reply to me, I'm a good listener.
Marie