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Vertigo and hearing aids

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hi! i was born deaf and am profoundly deaf. i have been wearing hearing aids since i was two years old. over the years always updating hearing aids. last time they were new was maybe two years ago. few months ago i had a vertigo attack for the first time. i was at a kennel with 25 dogs barking. that was when i had a vertigo attack. i was rushed to the doctor. she drained my ears because thought maybe from ear wax from wearing hearing aids. she gave me the med for the dizziness. for a bit i was fine. then it starting doing that. i took hearing aids out. it didn’t make me feel dizzy. every time i’m using my hearing aids they make me soo dizzy. i rely on hearing aids. i haven’t been using my hearing aids for a while and i’m getting really upset. i need to know what to do. does it happen to anyone?? i made an appt with audiologist next week to see maybe if decreasing the levels on my hearing aids might help…. i really don’t know what to do…. hope there’s someone out there that will be able to help me understand this. thanks!

updated: few days ago i went to the hearing aid place to see if they could lower the levels of sounds to quieter. it seems to be helping alot so far. i asked my doctor about ent and said i don’t need it and said to see my audiologist. he said to try this way first so it seems working so far… wanted to say thanks everyone for leaving me messages.

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I have seen some YouTube exercise videos which claim that over time they can reduce vertigo. Hopefully one of the professionals here on the forum will have some ideas

An audiology site I recently read mentioned that overamplification of can lead to vertigo, which would fit with the circumstances of your attack… 25 barking dogs, and HAs with insufficient ability to moderated the incoming noise. I’m interested in this, as I had a similar and very scary vertigo attack a couple of years ago not long after a Costco tech made some very wrong changes in my fitting. It felt as if sound pressure coming in destabilized my balance; it took a couple of weeks to get over the feeling. Thought for a while it might be Menieres, but haven’t had a similar incident since. Hope you feel more stable soon, if not then investigate vestibular issues and ask your doc about Menieres.

my experience (never proven)

i fell skiing; I had an in the ear hearing aid, left ear. I had 5 breaks after my foot went backwards.

My colleague had lost his hearing due to a prescription.He had one cochlear implant when I met him. He had severe balance problems.
He said one hearing aid affected his balance… He said that’s what affected my balance. True or not? I don’t know. But I still have 2 plates and 14 screws in my right leg.
My take–I was a ski instructor from the age of 17 and taught for 35 years. I was a ski pro. I fell. Leg broke. Binding was not set up right (too high). and wouldn’t release.

Is it either ear or just one? Spinny dizzy or tippy dizzy? I imagine it doesn’t happen with the hearing aids in and turned off. Is it there all the time that the hearing aid is in? Even when you are still?

In reply to @cvkemp

but the problem is i don’t have any pain in my ears…. hopefully it just the hearing aids itself that might be too high after a few changes in my diet. am on a carnivore diet and have been working out. so i don’t know if it caused that. but anyway like i said i dont have any pains in my ears. hopefully will figure it out soon. thanks

In reply to @tori.naess50

that kinda makes sense… but it’s so werid i have been working there for like 10 years so why now? lol. hope to find out soon next week and see if decreasing the sounds on them will help lol.

In reply to @rsblaine

My sister had ear infections and it always gave her dizziness and it ended up making her completely deaf in one ear. She had several surgeries and nerve damage from the injections. So I am always concerned about any ear pain or dizziness.

In reply to @Neville

right now i’m good no hearing aids in. i’m not dizzy… when i put it in my ear… any sounds like talking, barking, or music it made me feel very dizzy off balance. like i’m walking drunk. i can’t walk straight. keep leaning over to my right side most of the time sometimes my
left side. i use one hearing aids dizzy and tippy both i guess.

Yeah, your audiologist may be able to lower things so that you’re not getting that effect. I’m not sure why it would suddenly start happening after a loud noise insult. But there cn be a point where the hearing loss is so severe and the hearing aid is pushing in so much sound pressure that it impacts the vestibular organ. I had a patient that was happening to and he ended up getting a cochlear implant, which resolved the problem.

@rsblaine said:

?? i made an appt with audiologist next week to see maybe if decreasing the levels on my hearing aids might help…. i really

How old are your hearing aids? Are they pr ? Are they under warranty? Perhaps they should be serviced. If they are RICs maybe is something bad in receivers and changing them to new ones could help.

I have a lot of compassion for you. I do hope your appointment gives you some insight. I have had vertigo attacks from time to time, but they seem to have abated significantly since I have been wearing bilateral hearing aids. My mother also had vertigo. It is a terrible thing to have an attack - especially when you are in unfamiliar surroudings. I hope you get some relief.

Edited

I have used exercises to combat a form of vertigo, extreme balance issues. I went to a neurologist and was sent to a therapist who used goggles connected to a computer to diagnose. One year later, I had another attack. This time, the exercises did not work. I was sent to an for testing. The diagnosis was a tumor that was affecting the auditory canal. It is under surveillance. The moral of the story. See an ENT and or a neurologist.
EDIT
I forgot to mention my daughter, who was diagnosed with severe vertigo. None of the therapy sessions would help. She would be incapacitated for days. She went to see a neurologist, the diagnosis was ocular migraines. Now, with the correct treatment,t she no longer is down for days.

In reply to @Neville

That must be so distressing. Here’s a further suggestion - and please be aware it is controversial.
When my Phonaks were updated to a pair with Bluetooth I found myself dizzy and stumbling around.
It wasn’t ‘psychosomatic’ because I had never encountered such a thing. Googling brought
up numerous examples of people getting dizzy with ear-worn - music earbuds for example.
Controversial? Well, one official explanation is the ‘changed acoustic environment’… but I would argue that my old and new Phonaks sound quite similar.
Looking a bit deeper I discovered that our inner ears operate on microscopically small electrical currents - so maybe for some of us that means disruption when gigahertz radio frequencies creep in.
Ask your audiologist - but be prepared for disbelief!

Edited
@ellisonvoice said:

Googling brought
up numerous examples of people getting dizzy with ear-worn BT - music earbuds for example.

They’re certainly case reports, which have the lowest level of evidence in science. To prove the effects of anything, you need to do double-blind prospective research (multi-centre at best) to avoid bias.

It is worth knowing that Bluetooth waves have MUCH difficulty crossing the body barrier. Many , do not have wireless features not only because of space constraints but also because of this barrier. The connectivity problem could also occur if the smartphone is not in the same side pocket as the /sound processor.

There must be excluded other more probable causes - neurologic condition? Microstrokes? Cerebellum pathology (more when it is non-spin vertigo). Heart disease? Arrhytmias? Maybe unwanted stimulation of vagus nerve?

In reply to @ellisonvoice

Fascinating. Thanks for your post!

I have been dizzy for 3 years. I became a heart patient then. I Blaim the prescriptions I have.

Coincidently my Paradise P90Rs are just over 3 years old

In reply to @Bimodal_user

Good points, . Let’s add another that’s probably not been double-blind confirmed: acoustic feedback that’s very strong but maybe an octave higher than the user can hear. Quite an onslaught on the cochlea! Been there because of an ill-fitting mould. Excellent audiologist sorted that AND rolled off the high end to match my hearing cutoff - so if ever there’s a whistle it falls within a pitch that I can hear.

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