Vitamin deficiency or something more sinister?

[roseopose]

I have finally gone to the GP after 3 years of dizziness and heart pounding on standing/exertion, and feeling short of breath sometimes. This started after I gave birth to my daughter, I lost a lot of blood and was prescribed iron tablets which I took, presumably to prevent anaemia.
As the years have gone by, these symptoms have got a little better, or I have just got used to them, but they tend to be worse when I am very tired or stressed. I developed pulsatile tinnitus mainly in one ear about 18 months ago, when lying down or experiencing the heart pounding and am very conscious of my heartbeat in my neck on the same side. Most days I feel extremely stressed and irritable and have quite high anxiety.
In the last couple of months I have started to get a strange tingling in my cheek/ear area on the same side as the tinnitus and also scalp tingling at random, like when you feel fear.
The GP is sending me for bloods to check for a vitamin deficiency and I'm having an ECG but she also mentioned pulsatile tinnitus on one side can indicate inner ear cancer so I am rather worried!
Has anyone experienced anything like this before?

I have had pulsatilla tinnitus on one side on and off for a few years, the doctor had a look and said the eardrum is damaged from tears so that could be why. I do get your other symptoms too, on and off, plus tingling in my fingers and down my chin. My iron, b12 and folate are often low when I get tested for anything.

Thank you. Yes mine is down into my chin too, very strange.

I get this just on one (left) side and gets worse if anemia gets worse.

@Chestnutz the tinnitus or the tingling? I mainly get the tinnitus in the evenings or at least that's when I notice it. Much worse if I'm stressed or been crying/very tired.

The tinnitus mostly. Although also tingly and restless legs.

Internal jugular vein compression.. look i up eagles syndrome. Could also be inflammation .

Have you had your iron levels checked? I would get all of your symptoms when I had low ferritin levels, they became so low I needed iron infusions.

Sadly, It hasn’t helped the tinnitus though, that’s something I’ve had to learn to live with (difficult as it is so loud in the evenings). I also have pulsatile tinnitus in my right ear which drives me insane.

Are you sure your GP didn’t say a tumour rather than cancer?
Sometimes pulsatile tinnitus can be as a result of a tumour called an Acoustic Neuroma, they are always benign but need checking. I had to have a MRI to make sure I didn’t have that.

She might have done to be honest, it was a long name but I don't think it was an acoustic neuroma.
I had my iron levels checked about a year after all this started and apparently they were satisfactory so no treatment needed. Wondering if it might be POTS.

I get that pulsing tinnitus I thought it was normal to hear your own heartbeat until I read on here its a thing!

I had low folates and was told it was pernicious anaemia and then had folic acid. All the tests since then (few years back) have come back ok and Im not on the supplements specifically for folic acid now. I noticed when I was on the supplements the pulsing disappeared

I am now on an all in one supplement for everything, its a bariatric supplement and my blood tests recently showed no deficiencies in anything, yet I still have the pulsing. I cant really remember when it came back, its worse at night, Im not sure I can hear it now in fact.

Its a puzzle.

Have you had your b12 levels checked? I developed a deficiency after giving blood a few times and had injections from the GP. My symptoms were as you describe, except I didn't get tingling in my face (it was in my hands and arms).