A disorder of the inner ear called superior canal dehiscence syndrome causes every sound within the body to be amplified, even the movement of one's eyeballs, all the time. Sounds strange, but it is true (and treatable)

It sounds like something out of an Edgar Allen Poe tale of horror. A man becomes agitated by strange sounds only to find that they are emanating from inside his own body—his heart, his pulse, the very movement of his eyes in their sockets. Yet superior canal dehiscence syndrome (SCDS) is a very real affliction caused by a small hole in the bone covering part of the inner ear. Such a breach results in distortion of hearing and, often, impaired balance.

The human ear consists of three parts. The outer ear includes the ear lobe and external auditory canal, which funnels sound waves toward the eardrum (or tympanic membrane) allowing it to vibrate. The middle ear converts sound waves that vibrate the eardrum into mechanical vibrations for the cochlea, the hearing part of the inner ear. This area, however, also includes of a system of three fluid-filled semicircular canals in each ear—superior, posterior and horizontal—responsible for giving the brain information about angular motion of the head. SCDS can occur when some part of the bone protecting the superior semicircular canal is missing.

( Stephen Mabbutt, a 57-year-old Englishman who suffered from SCDS for six years, described 'hearing his eyes scratching like sandpaper every time they moved in their sockets.'Collapse )

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