The new Tinnitus Thread! This is My Story and I Welcome Yours.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Tinnitus (a nonstop ringing in the ears) is a horrible often debilitating condition that most people don’t even know exist. So after six months of trying to recover from this miserable thing, I decided I wanted to share my experiences in hopes of helping some newcomers in letting them know that they aren’t alone and that it will get so much easier to cope with.

I posted my story on Facebook and a few tinnitus support forums where it seemed to get a pretty good reception. I thought it would be great to have this on file at the SDMB for anyone in the future who is frantically searching for information on their new condition. I was faced with the decision of of resurrecting a zombie thread or just starting anew here and getting some fresh new perspectives from the dopers who are afflicted. I found the latter to be better suited for the situation. So without further adieu, here is my tinnitus story as I have been posting all around the net! By the way it is a bit on the lengthy side, feel free to request the clifnotes:)----

*-----This is my first time I’ve discussed my tinnitus so openly, but I really hope i can help someone. Specifically this note is for those of you who where I was 6 short months ago, Suddenly finding yourself saddled with something you don’t understand and could not make sense of.

People’s reactions to T vary wildly from minor annoyance to soul crushing depression, I’m guessing by the fact that you are here means you fall a little latter on that scale like I did. I would spend countless hours googling T and every possible combination of words I could think of.(seriously you have to stop doing this) I thought for sure they had to be a cure for this, I simply couldn’t imagine living the rest of my life like this. If only I could find out exactly the cause I could reverse it, but as many of us learned, such a fix rarely comes.

You may think that nobody can understand the pain you are experiencing. Believe me I did. The world kept moving around me and here I was constantly on the verge of a breakdown. To make matters worse it has very hard to get someone to understand exactly how debilitating T can be, most people thinking a little ringing in the ears couldn’t possibly be that bad. Congratulations for not punching them in the face, unless you did, in which case…good job.

Before I start dolling out advice like I’m some kind of expert( I’m not). I just want you, the newcomer, to trust I know what you are going through, I know what it’s like to spend hours in the shower to make the sound stop just for a while. I know what it’s like to contemplate suicide. I know what it’s like to look at my home surroundings that used to be so comfortable to me as a mockery of the happy life I used to have. I missed silence more than I ever imagined. My sense of loss was constant and profound

I felt terrified at just the idea of this being forever, I felt guilty about whatever I didn’t do to protect myself from this, I felt anger at myself that I didn’t appreciate how lucky I was before, and I was overwhelmed with a sense of regret and a deep sense of injustice. I thought I was a fairly decent person, So I didn’t believe my life should basically be over at age 26.I know these perpetually negative thoughts too well. They just cycle through your head over and over again. Until ,believe me, someday they don’t

I still remember the desperation, I would have done anything to stop the noise in my head. Including such brilliant methods of roughly banging my head of the wall (to jostle the brain a little), standing right in front of the loud speaker at a music show, and placing my ears directly under the high powered shower stream. Those of you with brains will recognize these methods are the opposite of helpful, but that’s desperation for you.

The good news is coming. To say it gets better is an understatement. When you read about people talking about their T online it’s usually because they are still in desperation mode too, those of us who have essentially moved on with our lives don’t lend our voices to the crowd enough. As a result the new T sufferer may get the impression online that they are the newest member in the world’s most depressing club. Please believe me, your T will become less and less of a force in your life until it’s only occasionally and mildly annoying, if that.

So how did I get better? Apart from the obvious force of time. You have to get ready to really grapple with yourself and exactly what are going though. Science hasn’t helped us much, the best doctors can really do is prescribe you anxiety or sleeping pills if you need them. You have to face this battle yourself, try to reason your way out of the pain as best you can, if it’s still hard for you to do it’s no biggie, in time you will.The human brain just is not wired to be miserable forever. We have this thing called neural plasticity, so the longer you live with T, generally speaking it will become less and less noticeable.

But how does all this effect you now? You can start with a few exorcises I found helpful. First, identify the sound correctly on a rational level and hope your subconscious follows. The odds are incredibly strong that the noise we are experience is a normal process in the brain and that normal people experience it too. When they stretch in the morning, when they spend a long time in a noisy environment, or if they are in a truly silent rooms. I personally remember these short bursts of the sound in my pre-T life. So what does this mean for you? Right now you are reading the sound as a foreign intrusion that is just messing up your hearing, when really we are just experiencing an amplification of a naturally occurring process. Does this make a real difference? On a subconscious level I think it does, the sound doesn’t seem quite so alien, and that at least helps to know there’s not something seriously going wrong with your hearing .

I’ve saved my most important recommendation for last,but honestly believe that masking (along with a good anti depressant) saved my life. You see most of us can mask the sound of our T with static white noise such as this

12 Hours of White Noise (Static) in Stereo. Favorite it for the future. Studying Sleep Tinnitus - YouTube

There are a million ways to alter the sound and volume to a level that suits you, but I burned a CD of just white noise and I had it constantly playing wherever I was for months. Some people will advice against it because it is only a “band aid” that does not address the real issue and help you toward habituation. Let me just tell you, that view seriously underestimates the importance of band aids. Sometimes you have to stop the bleeding before you can heal the wound.

If you are feeling stressed by the T, then the masker, while not perfect, will at least give you some control over it.

And this is an important part of it. As hard as it may be to you now to understand, the sound itself actually the problem. Objectively speaking the sound should be a small (and mostly subconscious) annoyance at most as shouldn’t interfere with any of your activities. It’s what the sound REPRESENTS to you that fills you with dread. It’s the idea that there is nothing you can do about it, we humans like our freedom of autonomy and T violates so much of what it means to us to be a free person. This is why using a masker like white noise gives a little control back to you. You can go about your routine but always know that a few feet away is a cd player that will play a sound that will let you get your relax on back for a while.

And that’s what you really need, relaxation. With most of life’s challenges at least you usually get a cool off period to calm yourself down, that’s what masking will do for the vast majority of you.

And I’m here to tell you, anecdotaly at least, that masking has long term benefits as well .I masked constantly for months, I could never imagine not having to use this noise though, until one day I just realized I could. The white noise made me perceive my sound as coming from an outside source, which is much easier to deal with. So now that I’ve stopped masking, most of the time my T subconsciously registers as background noise. It really is a miracle that I hope many of you can replicate . I do still use the masking on rare occasions when I’m watching a movie or something and I’m noticing the T, but then I just flip the masker on for a few minutes and I’m good to go again.

I have to be honest, I’m only 6 months into this so I’m hardly a guru. I think I’ve made tremendous progress in only 6 months (that feels like 6 years), but I still occasionally get a little down about it, but these moments are getting rarer and shorter lived. I have full confidence that I’ll be 100% the old me in 6 more months.

So please, know these dark early days WILL pass. I know it’s painful, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but you will get your life back. The simple pleasures. For me it’s a warm shower in the morning and the companionship of my fiance and two wonderful little dogs. Almost ever day now I have a moment when I feel happy to be alive, and honestly I couldn’t have even said that before the T.

So I hope you go to bed tonight and sleep a little better knowing that this pain, as vivid and heart wrenching as it may be, will be gone someday soon. And as an added bonus, life’s little problems won’t seem so important anymore. If a naturally pessimistic and frequently depressed person like me can find joy in life post T-pain (kinda pun?) then anyone can. If you need help please reach out to the many wonderful people around the web who have gone through the same thing you are, and if you need any clarification or have any questions for me I’ll hang around here for that too. Peace.

-Christopher
*

2

I’ve had it for a few years and have grown used to it. The main problem is that it is so loud, it covers up other sounds. I’m about 30% deaf because of it.

3

I’ve had it for years, have almost completely forgotten I had it. It never really got me cranked, as it came along with deafness in the affected ear, which WAS and IS a huge problem as I have a lot of trouble following conversations where there is a lot of background noise (common problem for people deaf in one ear). I’m sure the tinnitus doesn’t help at all. I’ve pretty much lost all respect for ear doctors … none of them were able to do a thing for either problem. They seem to be people who get paid a lot of money for looking in people’s ears, shrugging and saying “We can’t help you.” They could at least have danced around and chanted while waving some chicken feathers at me, dammit!

ETA: Thanks for reminding me … now I’m noticing it again!

4

Is it similar to the temporary ringing you get after loud concerts and the like? I only had that a couple of times before starting to use ear plugs (it drove me nuts for a day or so before fading away). I’m also quite particular about ear protection when using loud machinery. So thankfully I don’t suffer from it - yet.

5

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Yeah, it gets old.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

6

My father has had it for years, the result of being in cadets when he was younger and then doing a lot of target shooting with .303’s and no hearing protection.

A few years ago he got “hearing aides” that, as I undertand it, generate a sound that cancels out the ringing.

7

Quite similar. Back in the day when I’d get that ringing after a loud concert it would be accompanied by a slight feeling of pressure in the ears. The tinnitus I now have does not include that sense of pressure. The ringing is pretty much the same.

Is it pronounced tin-it-us or tin-eye-tus? I’ve never heard someone say it.

8

So no ‘slightly-congested’ feeling but a similar ringing? Yeah I’m not keen to suffer that.

9

I’ve had it for over 20 years. When it first started, very suddenly while I was making dinner one day, it set off the worst panic attack I ever had. I’ve gotten accustomed to it since then. I recently developed vertigo, and the tinnitus has worsened with that. It’s now loud enough that it interferes with sleep. It sounds exactly like a cicada at its highest pitch, only constant, so not really similar to concert audio hangover ringing for me.

10

I had 30 seconds of tinnitus, and it freaked me out. Cicadas mixed with static. Even when I realized it was just a passing side effect of medication, I was afraid that it would never stop.

I deal with something that makes concentration tough sometimes, and when it’s happening, I experience that black helpless feeling the OP mentions. But I think tinnitus makes my problems seem like nothing. I’ll think about that the next time I start feeling sorry for myself.

I am very glad there are some strategies for people with this problem. My father has tinnitus and I will ask him how he’s coping.

11

I have pulsatile tinnitus–I hear a whooshing sound in my right ear that coincides with my pulse sometimes. It definitely comes and goes, and positioning matters–I can make it louder by tilting my head in certain directions, and quiet it by putting pressure on the right side of my neck. I’ve had MRIs and CT scans and there appears to be no physical cause.

12

I have it, too. Also had an MRI and apparently there’s a blood vessel very close to my right eardrum, and that is the cause. It used to be very annoying, but now not so much.

13

I’ve had it since I was a teenager, and what really aggravates it is pain medication such as Ibuprofen. I thought aspirin was the only thing to worry about, but they gave me high doses of Ibuprofen without discussion even though I had tinnitus listed on my medical history.

14

Mine is not loud enough to drown out ordinary sounds, but I do find it calming to sleep with a source of white noise. (I’m not referring to my wife, but rather to a fan or the soother app on my phone).

Antidepressants can sometimes reduce tinnitus, but in some people it amplifies it. If you’re really having a hard time, it might be something to ask your doctor about. You may have to try more than one.

15

I’ve had ringing in my ears as long as I can remember, and remember thinking about it as young as 3 or 4 years old. As far as I know it stems from chronic ear infections as a baby and small child and the treatments for them.

Most of the time it can be ignored, but sometimes…

16

I’ve had it for decades. But I agree on the psychological aspects. I’ve had it so loud for so long that I’ve just accepted it.

So, I suppose you could say it’s like a friend by now…it’s part of me, and I’m used to it.

17

Both are used. I say tin-eye-tus as do most people I talk to verbally about it.

Anectdotally, I notice that British people use tin-it-us more.

18

I belong to the club.

I’ve always had a hearing loss, but I didn’t notice the ringing so much until I got older.

And as I got older, the ringing got louder. I actually have SEVERAL tones, different in each ear.

My blood pressure has been on a roller coaster, mostly up. I’ve taken many, many medications to control it.

I finally had Lap Band surgery to help me lose weight. I told my doctor I was looking forward to many benefits of losing weight, like lowering my blood pressure and getting off some, if not all, of my medications. I figured I’d regain some of my lost hearing.

Bluntly, she told me not to count on it. Whether it was by the high blood pressure itself, or the medications, or both, hearing loss and accompanying tinnitus are considered to be permanent.

Well wasn’t THAT a kick in the head?

I’m now deaf in one ear, and profoundly hearing impaired in the other. I fully expect to lose the rest of my hearing sooner rather than later. I have been recognized as 100% disabled by the Social Security Administration and receive benefits.

Bluntly? It’s the shits.
~VOW

19

The government is doing a fair amount of research into tinnitus these days, because it’s a common problem for servicemembers whose hearing has been damaged by explosives. Maybe some advances will come of it.

20

I’ve had Tinitus since some twonk screamed in my ear -very loudly- when I was 14. She screamed so loudly I actually blacked out for a second. It was a playground prank popular at the time - sneak up on someone, cup your hands around their ear and scream. Oh the hilarity :expressionless:

For many years I suffered a high pitched EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE constantly and would go completey deaf in my left ear if anyone made a loud noise, such as someone clapping their hands, or a teacher slapping a book onto a desk The volume has ‘quietened’ down over the decades, but I still cannot hold a phone to my left ear, nor tolerate loud noises to my left. If I wear headphones I have to have the type that clamp on over your head, and not the in-ear buds, so that I can pad the left side with cotton wool.

99% of the time I’m not aware of the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee any more, but it’s always there.