Alex Carson
A Song Stuck In Your Head
Most people can say that at one point or another, they had a song stuck in their heads. For most, it stops on its own. Some people need to do more to get the song out of their heads. You can listen to the song until the craving to hum it dies down. You can also drown out the song with another. A woman in England had a song stuck in her head one day, and it never left. She tried all of the tricks to get it out, but she couldn’t. Finally, she turned to doctors to figure out how to get the song out of her head after four long years.
Susan Root
Susan Root is from Coggeshall, Essex, and worked as a custodian at the Honywood Community Science School. Because of this, she was used to auditory overload. She often heard doors slamming, bells ringing, and kids talking in the hallways. She was used to these things. In 2013. She began to experience something she couldn’t explain.
How Much Is That Doggie In the Window
In 2013, she thought that the school started to play the ’50s hit faintly, How Much Is That Doggie In The Window over the loudspeaker. For the 63-year-old Susan, it was a pleasant blast of nostalgia. She loved the Patti Page song when she was growing up. She listened to the song with her mother, and the song reminded her of her home. When she mentioned the music to her coworkers, she was shocked to hear that there was no music coming from the loudspeakers. She was told that there was no sound at all coming from the PA system. This led Susan to one conclusion; the sound must have been in her head.
Driving Home
When Susan got in her car, she turned down the radio all the way, but still heard the song playing. It started to scare her. Usually, when people have a song stuck in their head, it is their voice that they hear singing it. For Susan, it was Patti Page’s voice. She went home to tell her husband about the songs in her head. When she tried to speak to him, she became frustrated because they could barely hear what her husband was saying. The song in her head was so loud that it drowned out his voice.
Ear Problems
Throughout her life, Susan always had trouble with her ears. She suffered from chronic ear infections, a perforated eardrum, and had balance issues. She had to have surgery twice for ear issues and assumed that the singing in her head was just another ear issue she had to deal with.
Years Pass
Years passed, and Susan still heard the song. Day after day, night after night, Susan heard the song. Over the years, she did find some relief. Eventually, the song was replaced by other songs that brought Susan back to her childhood. A few of the songs that she heard included Good Save the Queen, Happy Birthday, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and Auld Lang Syne. Susan tried everything to make the music stop. She would play white noise in the background when she tried to sleep, such as waves crashing, wind whistling, and whales calling. None of this helped, and Susan would lie awake a night, praying that it would stop. She says that it was driving her crazy.
Tinnitus
Finally, Susan couldn’t take it anymore, and she went to the doctor. She was diagnosed with tinnitus. This condition occurs when you hear a sound that seems to be generated externally, but only you can hear it. It often is a ringing in the ears, but Susan’s case was more extreme. They also said that it could be musical hallucinations, which as short fragments of simple melodies, often mistaken for real music. According to experts, only one percent of tinnitus cases cause musical hallucinations. The doctors believed that her symptoms were a symptom of hearing loss, which was why she couldn’t understand her husband.
A Hearing Aid
To help treat her condition, Susan’s doctors have her a hearing aid. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, and Susan accepted the fact that she would have this condition forever. She lived with the condition for four years. Her friends would laugh when she told them about her condition, but they didn’t understand that for Susan, it was hell. Finally, she had hope that she could quiet the song.
Gemma Cairns
Gemma Cairns is a woman who suffered the same affliction as Susan. Throughout her whole life, she heard a whooshing noise, static, or squeaking in her head. She had never experienced silence before. Gemma says that she could hear her eyes moving and her heartbeat. She tried to get used to the constant noise while she was growing up.
In 2016, she went to see a specialist. The doctor told her that she had Bilateral Superior Semicircular Canal Dehiscence. Finally, she had hope. The doctor told her that her condition was caused because she was missing a part of the temporal bone in both ear canals. Only 1 to 2 percent of the population has this condition. Gemma would need surgery to repair the issue, and each ear would need to be done separately. Finally, she experienced silence. Gemma’s case gave Susan hope that she could be treated too.
Getting Help
Doctors have no answer for woman that has had one song stuck in her head for 4 years, and there may be hope. Since Susan’s condition didn’t begin at birth, it was unlikely that she was born without the bone. However, Gemma’s case gave the doctors answers to some questions, and they began checking her inner ear for the solution.
