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Silencing the Sounds in Her Head

A Medical Mystery Solved at Mass. Eye and Ear

Maryjane Behforouz spent years trying to ignore clicking sounds in her head.

She had seen three ear, nose and throat specialists, and none of them seemed to know why she heard nearly constant clicking (or sometimes crunching) sounds that were so loud she’d wake up in the middle of the night.

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Maryjane Behforouz, of Indiana, spent years trying to ignore clicking sounds in her head. Then, one day, she found Dr. Tina Stankovic, an ear surgeon at Mass. Eye and Ear, who listened very carefully to her story.

All three diagnosed her with sensorineural hearing loss, or a loss of sensory cells in the ear. Unfortunately, there was little they could do to bring Maryjane’s hearing back — or to stop the terrible crunching sounds.

That is, until she found Konstantina Stankovic, MD, PhD, FACS, Chief of Otology and Neurotology at Mass. Eye and Ear, who listened very carefully to her story.

Dr. Stankovic discovered that Maryjane had, in fact, broken a tiny bone in her ear. She did not have sensorineural hearing loss. She had a conductive hearing loss, which is often treatable with surgery.

Dr. Stankovic was able to quiet the clicking noises through a surgery that repaired the fracture using bone cement. She explained that the clicking was caused by two fragments of bone vibrating out of sync in response to sound.

“The important thing is you really have to listen to your patient,” Dr. Stankovic said.

Read the full story in The Washington Post.

8 thoughts on “Silencing the Sounds in Her Head”

  1. I was diagnosed with tinnitus at MEEI about 5 years or so ago. Are there any new treatments for this that work. Also, I see supplements all over the place, online and at the local pharmacies, but not sure if they really are a help. Your thoughts please. Thank You

  2. Hello, the article on Maryjane Behferouz does not state how she broke a small ear bone unless I only read the short version of the story. How did this happen to her ? If I missed it please let me know. Thank you, Kim

    1. Hi Kim, here’s the description from the Washington Post article:

      In July 2015, while driving near her home, she felt an itch deep in her left ear, as though something was tickling her eardrum. She suspected the problem was residual water in her ear from swimming, or the remnant of a recent cold. Behforouz covered the opening of her ear with a fingertip then forcefully pressed several times in quick succession to create pressure that would expel the water and eliminate the itch. Almost immediately, she realized that her hearing in that ear seemed diminished.

  3. The answer is generally NO. There are no cures whatsoever, but a lot of places sell expensive hopium, and its time to get straight with basic advice:

    PROTECT YOUR HEARING AT ALL COSTS with earplugs, avoid sustained exposure over 80 db (use app soundmeter), Use noise cancelling headsets/buds (like Sony’s latest, the highest rated) and use gentle low soft white noise or other sound to mask. Snoring? Use a AutoPAP/CPAP type device to avoid.

    CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) may help.

    Thats all there is, and anyone who says otherwise is fraudulent.

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