Hi, I am having palpitations and constant feeling of heart beat in my ears. GP ruled out heart problems and said palpitations are a symptom and not to worry, but a symptom of what, to which she replied she did not know. So I with no help from GP am left googling and just wondered it was related to a really bad bout of vertigo I had a couple of years ago where I was hospitalised as I could not stand up. When I think back I have not felt right since then, I am constantly woozy and quite often when walking lurch to the left, I also get dizzy when walking for long periods and feel like I am in a lift, I suddenly feel like I am dropping down as if walking down a hole, I also feel faint and a bit sick. My vision is a bit off and I get a lot of headaches at the base of my skull and on the top, which my GP said is probably being caused by migranes, I do not believe I have them, I do have arthritis in the top of my neck due to many years typing, also a bit strange but I put my finger in my hear and pop it I feel a bit better, so am now left wondering if the heart banging is due to my ears and not heart. I am 57 female and live in UK. Any thoughts appreciated.
Hi Youngatheart. I used to get it. My dr said it was from low iron. Also magnesium was my issue.
Hearing your heart beat inside your ear could be due to a number of things. There may be a venous mass on the other side of the eardrum, usually noted when one looks into the ear with an otoscope. Or, an artery may have moved closer to your inner ear or an opening has occurred in bone (superior semircircular canal dehiscence). The latter two are usually seen with a CAT scan. An ENT doctor is usually the best person for all of this.
Eleftherios S. Papathanasiou, PhD, FEAN
Clinical Neurophysiologist
Fellow of the European Academy of Neurology
I use to hear the blood pulsing through my damaged ear-I think this is called pulsatile tinnitus
Hi, yes I have heard about magnesium and I had too much iron so maybe that is also causing it, my GP knows this is happening and is just shrugging his shoulders, sad that some GP are better than others at listening and putting two and tow together. Thanks.
Do you have high blood pressure?
Hi, all of that sounds really scary, masses to me mean cancer and that is worrying, trouble is I have to convince my GP to send me for these tests and they are not being helpful at the minute, I will need to convince them to check my ears after all the tests on my heart, I have the pounding in chest and left ear so it is hard to work out what is causing it. Thanks
Hi, how did you cure it? having googled this, it sounds similar, mine comes and goes did yours?
Sorry to ask more questions, but I have very bad arthritis in neck due to many years typing, could my posture be making it worse or the fact that I what looks like a hump where my head it quite forward due to this.
Hi, my GP say's I have white coat syndrome in that it is high when first checked but is normal the second time. The trouble is that when you only get 10 minutes with the GP it is so hard to put across what you are experiencing, then you see a different GP and it all starts again. I have had tests on heart so now will have to go and try to get some more done on ears etc. Thanks
I didn't cure it, it just stopped after a few months. It was pulsatile for a time, then tinnitus with a noise for a period, then back to pulsatile. It use to freak me out as i could feel it also! It was like having a minature steam train whooshing and chugging away in my ear!
Thanks, sorry for so many questions, but when you look it up it say's it may be a tumour causing it, especially as like mine is it more one sided, so hence I am freaking out. I almost wish I hadn't asked. Did you ever find out what caused yours.
I have Vestibular Neuronitis. I had the tinnitus at the start of the illness. I'm guessing whilst I was in the acute stage, when the vestibular nerve was being damaged, it unsettled things in my ear.I also lost a bit of high frequency hearing in my bad ear. I was taken ill in Poland, they gave me medication to increase bloodflow to the ear and brain which I think would have helped the tinnitus? But i'm not sure? This medication was stopped once I returned to the UK as things are apparently done differently here, but I wish i'd carried on taking them as they may have helped? The doctors here didn't appear to bothered by my complaints of tinnitus. But then I had so many other things going on which may have been more of an interest (dizziness, brain pressure, fatigue, vision problems, imbalance etc).
Did,you feel the meds you had in Poland helped ? If so can you remember the name, as sometimes there are equivalents here, but a different name.
most,drs,i've seen over he years also not interested in Tinnitus, so annoying. I had it first, and only 'developed' overnight, the vertigo problem a few years later. Most,of your symptoms are like mine, the fatigue especially!
I wouldnt freak out about the 'mass thing'. What you are feeling is probably pressure. Also the popping of yr ear, I have that too, Is to do with your Eustation tube. There are a good few things your symptoms cld be and a 'mass' is probably the lowest on the list. I say this to everybody, but if you haven,' t look on the VEDA website, Vestibular Disorders Assoc. It is a wealth of info,on all types,of dizzy, vertigo symptoms, causes,,treatment etc etc. Cant recommend it enough as it answers so many of our questions.
Hi, thanks for your reply, I will have a look at the website you recommend. Funny today now pounding at all, but yesterday all day long it is so weird. Take care
Yes it is intermittant,mdepending on all sorts of things, including barometric pressure!
I'm not sure if they helped as I had only been taking them for about a week before I managed to get back to England and the GP stopped them. I couldn't really communicate with the consultants in Poland due to the language barrier but I just felt that my treatment there was excellent (I was admitted to an ENT ward for 8 days). When I returned to England, they weren't interested in what had happened in Poland and just thought I was making a fuss. The medication I had been given in Poland was 'Pentoxifylline' . I also had Serc and Nootropil which protects the brain and nervous system against a shortness of oxygen. Apparently in the UK you would not be prescribed Pentoxifylline or Nootropil. I do wonder if I had continued the Polish medication (as they really seemed to know what they were doing) whether the outcome would have been better for me? It may not have made a difference?