A 31-year-old woman presented with the very unusual symptom of being able to hear the movement of her eyeballs in her left ear: “I can hear my eyeballs move!” She initially described hearing a recurrent “swishing” sound that would occur intermittently. She eventually realized that its occurrence coincided with eyeball movement. In the eight months’ duration of her symptom, she had been unable to obtain a diagnosis from physicians whom she consulted and had even been referred for psychiatric evaluation and treatment. An otolaryngologist whom she consulted had a standard pure tone audiometric examination done, and this showed normal hearing acuity in both ears. A Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of the inner ear and brain likewise showed no abnormalities. Due to the peculiarity of the patient’s complaint, the otolaryngologist consulted with a neurotologist who suspected the presence of a semicircular canal dehiscence. A computerized tomographic imaging study of the temporal bone confirmed the presence of a left superior semicircular canal dehiscence syndrome.
Semicircular Canal Dehiscence ; Semicircular Canals ; Eye Movements