Expert: Dina Q Goldin, Ph.D. - 8/9/2008

Question
Hi

I am a male 33 chinese and I have this right facial numbness from the cheek, lip and under the eye.

it was numb for a few weeks about 2months back probably after waking up with a stiff neck. My posture isnt good in that i tend to spend a lot of time doing work and surfing the net on the bed with a laptop. This forces me to raise my neck at an awkard angle.  stopped doing that and the numbness went away. last week or so, i started lying down on the bed to surf the net and i have this right facial numbness return after 2 - 3 days of surfing.

I just noticed that i have a Very high pitched, yet very distant, Crickets" but not the throbbing kind of critter you hear at dusk, more along the constant unbroken shrill of the late night variety. It is most obvious  during the quiet of the night but is hardly noticeable during when i do not focus on it or in the day when busy. it seems there only when i try to focus on it especially in a quiet room.I am thinking if it could be psychological as i noticed it today after some reading.

I dont know... i am under quite a bit of stress as i am probably relocating in a month to another country, i got anxiety and panic problems too. I seem to have noticed the ringing after I came across some "an" topics. Being easily anxious, i do no wish to see a specialist for every problem not being very well off. I have read somewhere that all these could be due to stress or bad posture. what di you think?

Answer
There are inexpensive tests that can determine if your high pitched noise (called tinnitus) is from stress and bad posture or from a tumor.  It's called BSER (Brainstem auditory evoked response audiometry).

You will lie on a reclining chair. Electrodes will be placed on your head and you will listen to clicking noises through earphones. This test does not hurt and you should feel no aftereffects.

If you prefer to avoid all tests altogether, you need to remove stress and improve posture, so you can make sure that your problems then go away. Exercise, change your habits -- whatever it takes. If you can make the tinnitus and numbness go away, with no new additional symptoms, then I guess you have nothing to worry about.