Lexi Grogan was a new mom and new nurse when a loud, obnoxious whooshing sound started in her right ear, making her miserable. Instead of celebrating her accomplishments and finding her way in both of these worlds, Grogan felt debilitated by the sound.
As a full-time labor and delivery nurse with a 4-month-old son, Grogan simply woke up one day with the noise in her right ear. To her, it sounded like a heartbeat in her ear. Being a nurse, she deduced some possible causes and thought she was dehydrated. She drank a lot of water and rested for the next few days. Despite the effort, the sound continued and was relentless.
Grogan explained, “If I held my breath and then let it go, the sound would intensify. Any activity that increased my heart rate, increased the sound of the swooshing and the intensity of it. After lots of time simply being upset and looking for answers myself, I found that If I put pressure on the right side of my neck, the sound would disappear, but as soon as I released the pressure, the sound would return twice as loud. It became quite debilitating.”
Grogan made appointments with various doctors and went through testing, like an MRI, CT scan and other imaging, that all were diagnostically normal. An appointment with an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist determined that her ears were fine and not the cause of the sound.
“I still remember walking to the car after that appointment and crying, feeling hopeless and lost, like I would never have anyone believe me or find a cure for this,” Grogan said. “I felt like no one could truly understand what I was going through because it was all internal.”
The ENT doctor referred Grogan to Daniel Heiferman, MD, a neurological surgeon with Endeavor Health. This is a moment and person that Grogan called “amazing.”
An initial angiogram under Dr. Heiferman’s care revealed a narrowing in a vein in her brain, or venous sinus stenosis, as the cause of the whooshing. The decreased vein size was impeding blow flow and creating a pulsatile tinnitus, or whooshing in the ear that sounds like a heartbeat.
According to Dr. Heiferman, ongoing research is looking into how common it is for people to experience this symptom. Pulsatile tinnitus differs from more traditional "ringing" tinnitus. Pulsatile tinnitus is a sound you hear in sync with your pulse. Dr. Heiferman says he sees patients when the sound is more than a nuisance and becomes debilitating.
Dr. Heiferman offered Grogan two options — to leave the narrowing vessel and live with the sound, as the narrowing was not dangerous to her in her case, or place a stent to increase the size of the vein to normalize the blood flow and eliminate the sound.
“I chose the stent because quality of life was extremely important to me,” Grogan said. “I dreamed of having my old life back. It made me realize how good you have it before you don’t anymore.”
In October 2022, Grogan had a second angiogram where a stent was placed in the narrowed vein. Grogan spent one night in the hospital to recover.
Two years later, Grogan says she is doing great and has never heard the sound again. She has occasional headaches in the area of the stent, which can sometimes happen with stent placement.
“It is rewarding to take care of people and perform a minimally invasive procedure to fix a problem that can greatly impact their quality of life,” Dr. Heiferman said. “For me to see people get such benefit and quality of life back form this is wonderful.”
With baby number two on the way, Grogan and her husband are looking forward to fully enjoying the delivery and first few newborn months — with no background noise.
Grogan noted, “I have the utmost respect for Dr. Heiferman. I would absolutely recommend him to anyone. He has called me numerous times to check in on me and was so responsive when I would call him with questions. He saved my life.”
