I have had tinnitus for 18 months or so and recently had an MRI scan. Luckily this came back clear but my tinnitus is always worse around 3 or 4 in the morning and always wakes me up and it is difficult to get back to sleep. I have sometimes thought it is worse when I am trying to lose weight and noticed when I was on 5.2 diet that it seemed to be worse on fasting days. Does anyone else have a similar problem? Would be great to hear from you.

I have had a dramatic experience related to increased night time tinnitus and blood sugar. Hopefully the medics have now found the answer. Although I have had mild tinnitus for many years, over the last six months I have had at least five episodes of extremely loud noises and a feeling of very high pressure in my ear. On at least three occasions I have been woken around 3 in the morning by the abnormal tinnitus. Then it happened again one mid afternoon, but was accompanied by paralysis of one side of my face. Everything went back to normal after about 20 minutes. I was eventually diagnosed as having had a mini – stroke (or TIA), although MRI scans, heart tests and various other tests could find no other symptoms. I was also told that the tinnitus was probably a coincidence. Then earlier this week the tremendous tinnitus happened again, accompanied by Facial Paralysis. I was rushed to hospital, but on the way my blood sugar was tested. It was found to be extremely low and the hospital confirmed that the Facial Paralysis had been caused by Hypoglycemia. Evidently this can be a rare but convincing mimic of a TIA. Following further research I’ve found that hypoglycemia should be eliminated as a possible cause of any suspected Stroke, as it is often responsible for misdiagnosis. However the most relevant fact that I have unearthed is that hypoglycemia is especially common in the middle of the night when blood sugar levels fall to their lowest. In some people (and it would seem including me) the body produces too much insulin which exhausts the sugar in food 3 or 4 hours after a meal. Sugar levels drop below normal tolerances before the body can adjust. It seems to be one of those areas not yet fully understood, and in my case missed by three GP’s and several specialists, until I was “lucky” to have been taken ill in an emergency situation, when the hospital solved the mystery of apparently unrelated symptoms. This has all happened in the last week whilst I have been on holiday in Switzerland, I’ve therefore yet to follow up with my own medics back home, but Googling “Hypoglycemia stroke mimic” and “Tinnitus blood sugar” has produced some interesting reading. I’d be intrigued to know others experiences in this area.