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Doctors Discover the Truth after a Woman Hears Noises in Her Head for Years

A Scottish mum claims she doesn’t know what ‘silence’ is as she can hear her blood pumping through her veins and even her own eyeballs moving.

Gemma Cairns, 32, feared doctors thought she was ‘crazy’ when she complained she could constantly hearing noises coming from inside her own body.

The mum-of-one never realised it was out of the ordinary until she mentioned it to her mum as a teenager , and spent the next 14 years of her life trying to find a diagnosis.

Doctors gave Gemma medication for blocked ears and nasal problems, but nothing worked and eventually she decided she would just have to live with the knowledge that no one could diagnose what was wrong.

It wasn’t until Gemma moved to Glasgow and was referred to a specialist that she was diagnosed with bilateral superior semicircular canal dehiscence in 2016.

The condition means that the mum is missing part of the temporal bone in both her ear canals, which affects her balance as well as her hearing.

But now finally with a diagnosis, Gemma had surgery last September on her right ear and awaits a second op on her left ear in October – hoping that she could finally experience a peaceful day.

Gemma, from Glasgow, said: “I’ve never heard complete silence. I’ve always had noises. I’ve always heard my eyes moving and my heartbeat in my head.

“I’ve always heard my blood rushing, like a swooshing sound. I think it’s the eye movement thing which is the most concerning because it’s constant.

“When you do say to someone ‘I can hear my eyeballs moving’, people ask me what it sounds like and I try to think of so many things that I can describe it with but I just can’t tell you a sound that sounds even remotely similar to it.

“I’ve never heard it outside of my head. It’s not of a liquid sound, it’s more of a rubbing sound. It sounds like it’s the noise of it hitting against the side of my eyeball.

“It’s not squeaky, but it’s similar. It’s deep in the back of my head. You get tinnitus with it as well, so there are always noises going on.

“It plays with my balance as well, so because the bones are missing, if there is a really loud noise it just knocks me off balance completely.

“It makes me feel dizzy and a bit sick. I stumble about quite a lot because my balance is not great.

“I’ve had it for as long as I can remember. It got to a point where I thought it was normal until I mentioned it to my mum and she said it’s not right.

“I mentioned it to doctors and I think they just thought I was a bit crazy. They were always giving me things for my ears and trying to unblock my ears, but my ears weren’t blocked.

“A lot of the time I was on medication for my nose and my ears and I think they were trying to work around that area.

“I tried to explain to them the noises I could hear because it’s quite a hard thing to explain what you’re hearing because it’s a strange noise.

“It’s unexplainable. I can’t explain to someone what it actually sounds like.

“I’ve been seeking a diagnosis for years and years. It wasn’t until three years ago that they could tell me this was it.

“There was a point when I left it and decided it wasn’t normal but no one could help me so what could I do?

“I come from quite a small town and I’m guessing that the doctors and surgeons I saw just didn’t have the medical knowledge of it.”

Although Gemma admits that constant loud noises can be overwhelming, she refuses to let it get in the way of her daily life and still works as a customer assistant in a cafe.

Gemma said: “I still go to work and things like that, but it affects things like playing with my son, or if we go to places which are really loud or if he’s being really loud it can get to be too much.

“It’s like an overload. I have to say, ‘right, that’s enough’ and it can be quite draining.

“If there are more than a couple of noises going on at once it can overstimulate me. My ears just can’t take it.

“I quite like running but again it’s because when your heart starts to pump faster, it’s like pulsating tinnitus and I hear it and feel it.

“It gets me really dizzy and sometimes I just think it’s not worth it. Especially at work and things if I move my head too quickly to one side it will knock me off balance and vice versa.

“Even moving my eyes too quickly will knock me off balance. I am always hearing something. Even if my eyes are still, I can still hear my heart and the blood and the tinnitus.

“When I’m in bed, I will try and stay dead quiet and still. I’ve had it for so long so it doesn’t affect anything like sleep or anything like that. I don’t hear it when I’m asleep.

“Sometimes I just want to sit and be quiet and not hear anything. I feel bad saying it because it’s not like I’m dying, but it does take its toll – especially when I can’t hear as well as everybody else.

“With some frequencies, I just can’t hear at all. I really struggle with deep voices. I struggle with low frequencies.”

Despite knowing she may lose her hearing, Gemma bravely underwent surgery to correct the problem in her right ear in September last year and is currently waiting for a second operation on her left ear in October.

She claims her doctors believe she was born with the condition, as opposed to other sufferers who often experience it after head trauma.

Gemma, who works as a customer assistant in a cafe, said: “I am the only person my surgeon has dealt with who has it bilaterally in two ears.

“When I moved to Glasgow three or four years ago I was getting bad headaches. I got referred to a doctor and he referred me to another doctor who specialises in and studies this condition.

“I had scans of the bones in my head and sure enough I am missing two bones. It’s a really thin bone in the semicircular canal in the ears and I am missing them.

“They think because I’ve had this for so long I’ve just never had them.

“He said we need to operate and was doing it one side at a time. You can’t operate on both at the same time because it knocks you completely off balance for a while.

“I think the surgery itself took three hours and then I just had to stay over for a couple of days. I was good to go, but the recovery itself was quite gruelling.

“Even just moving and walking, I felt like I was drunk. I was walking around like I was drunk and it was quite embarrassing.

“Even going to the park with my son I felt like people were looking at me. I couldn’t go out without somebody with me. I couldn’t get upstairs.

“It’s a rare condition, but I think it’s more undiagnosed than anything else. I think people have it but they don’t know they can get help.

“I think it’s sad if people don’t want to mention it because it does sound strange when you say it.”