Tinnitus, Deafness and Ear Problems Support Group
This group is for those coping with Tinnitus (ringing ears or ear noise), hearing loss, and all ear issues. Join to find support and get advice from others.
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
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KaOrSuWZeM
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 ion 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 the 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
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
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KaOrSuWZeM
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 ion 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 the 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
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My 6mo twin DD's are EBF and just started rice cereal on the first. Everything has been going fine except this morning one of them had a diaper rash (lots of redness around her anus). I read this as one of the signs of an allergy. BUT I did just buy a different brand diaper yesterday (which they have used randomly before w/no issues). Do you think its the cereal or the diaper? Im ready to start...
At that time I could barely go five minutes without thinking about it, and when I thought about it, it was always negative thought. So yea at that point the T essentially runs your life, your suffering seems to define you.
Currently though I can go several hours without thinking about it, and only some of those times I notice do I respond negatively, usually I just move on and think about something else.
So when you get to this point where you think about it only a few times a day, it doesn't define you anymore. It's just an annoying thing you have to experience occasionally.
And I'm still less than seven months in, I know it will just become an increasingly less important part of my life as my brain continues to adjust.
Just know that you are still at the part where your brain has no way to categorize this sound, so it is constantly reading it as a threat. Obviously as time goes on you aren't going to always feel like this.
Ask someone who lost a limb years ago. Devastating at first, but how much do they think about it now? Our brains adapt to permanent changes and we structure our lives around it accordingly. At that point most people stop posting online about it.
If you take one thing away from all this make it this, your suffering, however profoundly deep, is extremely temporary. You will have your normal life back before you know it.
Your words do help, though. I'm so glad you're doing so well; it gives me hope! And I do hope to have my normal life back. Right now, I would give anything to have that.
I too can testify that it does get better. I am also 6 mos into this journey and I really do not know what caused my Tinn. It was triggered by a concert, but tests have shown that I have absolutely no hearing loss. To quote my ENT "You have the hearing of a bat" I suspect that TMJ and a past neck injury were the underlying reasons. Chiropractics and accupuncture were what seemed to turn it around for me.
Unfortunately, I turned to sleeping pills and anti anxiety drugs that I now realize may have made the situation worse. I am currently 3mos post withdrawal from benzodiazepines. (That's a whole other journey in itself, but one that I feel also contributed to the continuance of my Tinn).
These days it fluctuates from a low grade hiss to the odd day of complete and blissful silence. Today and yesterday it has been more persistent and noticeable. The point is, it DOES get better. And Christopher is so right when he speaks of the role that fear and adrenaline play in this crazy game. Once I had some reassurance (certainly NOT from my doctors) that my tinn was not a permanent life sentence, I was able to calm down and have hope. Things really did turn around for me then.
I swore that I would not go onto any tinn forums because quite frankly they scared me. BUT, if I ever got better, I promised myself I would give others hope. So, that's why I am here.
To all of you out there who are in the first few days or weeks of this frightening experience, please do anything you can to calm down. I personally do not advocate prescription drugs, only due to my own horrible experience, but of course one should always listen to their own feelings on that. Some days you just need that little pill to get through. No one gets that more than me. But for me, now that the sound is less intrusive I find that yoga and meditation are very helpful. So hang in there. There is definitely better days ahead.
Mony
Having these sorts of true positive experiences does do a lot in helping the people in those terrifying first few weeks. It may seem like we are just talking to other here but really we are broadcasting to the world of T sufferers. People like Mony and myself who lurk until they finally get the nerve to tell their story. But there are dozens more still who only read these things but don't feel they can or don't want to jump in.
If the key message of my original post a month ago were "just know that it will get better", even that sounds like a low bar to me now only a month later. T is playing less and less a part in my life so I have no problem imagining a time where it will not at all. Just today It took me half the day to even remember I had T. Now that is progress.
It's a tricky line to walk because cross though because some people just can't get habituated to this level in such a short time frame, and I fear that I'm sending an unintended message to those people that there is something wrong with them or that they will never be habituated. Different people just do it at radically different rates, and some people are eluded by it for years. In an extreme case like that there is often some sort of underlying psychological issue that is keeping the brain from doing its natural thing, and they should seek out CRT or the wealth of options available. And that is way beyond my skill set..
For anyone new to this though, yes its unbelievably terrible for quite a while, and then gradually it's not. I've discovered in my personal life that many people struggled with T for several months and now they never even think about it. Just keep that positive framing in your mind you will get there.
As far as medication is concerned, it's hard because many of the most effective medications like benzos and ambien also unfortunately have a potential for addiction. Unlike Mony, I do still recommend you get on some meds like this in the beginning at least since most people are able to take as directed. The exception is if you have a history of alcohol or substance abuse then it may be wiser to avoid these scripts and rely on more natural ingredients like Valerian for anxiety or Melatonin or dyphenhydramine for sleep. If you are depressed feel free to ask for anti depressants as they have little no potential for misuse
Your general attitude DOES matter. I know it sucks trying to be happy when you clearly aren't, but the quicker you get to that ok emotional place the quicker the habituation will happen.
Also,get a new puppy. That advice pretty much goes for everything though. So just throwing it out there.
-Christopher