All the Good Stuff Tinnitus Brought to My Life!

Hi everyone !

When I was younger I was very into music, and I moved to London to start a music career. My band got relatively big on the underground scene and we were giving concerts 3 times a week in average. As a trained musician I was very well aware of the damages sound could do on the ears but one night, I guess I had too much of alcool/drug and forgot to wear protection. Ahaha (#fail)

And I got tinnitus ! I was so depressed and had so many related health problems for 1 year... After a while I accepted my fate and this experience made me so much stronger.

Of course I had to stop music, but it got me to go to the University and I was so determined to be successful. Everytime I had doubts, I was feeling lazy, or I was about to give up, that fucking ring in the ear was here to remind me where I was coming from. Sometimes it even conforted me

I ended up going in top Universities, and became a very well known researcher in my field. This strengh help me to be speaker in many conferences accross the world (including a TEDx talk ), and do what I love.

My condition also helped me to get closer to my family and also my girlfriend who is now my wife.

My Tinnitus remained stable but got worse 2 times this year because of noise at some social event... It's ok, it's not going to kill me, it's not changing what I am doing with my life.

The recent research and progess make me very positive and I strongly believe that a cure is going to be available in the next 3 years max.

As I always say, when I will tell my kids that when I was younger there was no cure for tinnitus, they will think I am coming from stone age. ^_^

Tinnitus is just nothing but a TEMPORARY part of your life.

The cure is coming and make sure to build up your life until then to go for a fucking fresh start !

Stay positive ! Stay strong ! Stay yourself !

Ben

 

@benryu thanks for the inspiring post always good to hear success-stories.whats your field if I may ask?

 

@benryu

Its very nice reading your post man. Congratulation and keep going ...

 

What band were you a part of? I love my music so I'm intrigued! Congratulations

 

Congrats posts like this really make me feel better and have hope!

 

I am into applied math, more precisely behavioral modeling. (basically predicting human behavior with math )
Most of my work is related with virtual worlds & video games.

 

I tried to google it, I did not find anythin haha. I was part of punk/rock band, playing the guitar & singing. The myspace page was closed after my acoustic trauma ^_^ Let say that it was part of the therapy. We were very bluesy in our music despite the punk/rock genre, I guess it was very close the black keys, but much more energetic & aggressive (in the good way).

 

Hey man its great to hear about people who not only beat t but have excelled in life after t. I have three questions ; about the spikes was it dangerously loud events that caused the spikes and how did you deal with them? Also I love ted talks videos any chance your talk is on youtube. Again happy you have joined us and I hope you can continue to contribute to this forum it will do a lot of good for people to see how good life can be after t .

 

Thanks man for your comment, for the spikes, it was not so loud, I would say a regular loud bar sound level, but bear in mind that more than 15 min above 100db is going to damage your ear, for T. people with acoustic trauma, the threshold is around 80/90db. I always have earplugs with me in case and I try to protect my ears as much as possible, the two times I did not after the initial acoustic trauma I paid the price

Now I dealt with the trauma as usual, I started blaming myself, then I kept 3 things in mind:
- Not too panic, stress is the last thing your body wants to heal after the trauma. Sleep a lot too, it's important.

- It will ALWAYS fade a little over the time (generally 3/5 months). Your brain is going to do the adjustment & the potassium channels that were affected slowly regulate themselve.

- I won't have it all my life, the cure is very near. (There has never been so many trials, so much money invested and since we now know the cause: potassium channels deregulation, we've done a GIANT step toward a cure)

For the TEDx talk, I'll send a link to you through the chat for privacy reason, I don't want to put my name on a public page haha

 

@cullenbohannon I am still under the newbie restriction, I cannot send you the video link in a private message unless you start the conversation I think. Can you do that ?

 

hello math! I'm also from Montreal!!

 

Very inspiring to read. One of the reasons I joined this board is because of the optimism found here after several days of reading nothing but horror stories on the Internet.

 

- It will ALWAYS fade a little over the time (generally 3/5 months). Your brain is going to do the adjustment & the potassium channels that were affected slowly regulate themselve.

I respectfully disagree with this statement - it will not always fade over time, sometimes the brain cannot readjust itself and its progressive as the tiny potassium channels are fucked.

- I won't have it all my life, the cure is very near. (There has never been so many trials, so much money invested and since we now know the cause: potassium channels deregulation, we've done a GIANT step toward a cure)

I agree with that, the cure may be near, if Autifony's phase 2 is successful. If it fails, I don't see any more drugs on the near future whatsoever. So you're lucky you have it mild that you can live with it.

 

- There is no "always" with health, I agree, but it's MUCH more likely that it fades away than stays the same or get worse.

- Have a look to the latest research news threads, there are a lot of stuff going on for T. at the moment, if it's not autifony, then it might be some stem cell therapy or whatever drug will come next. Many labs are massively investing because there is a market, and we achieved more in a few years for T. than in decades. Let's be patient a lil more, and keep positive! Try to enjoy your T. while you can, it might be cured sooner than you think

 

Try to enjoy your T. while you can, it might be cured sooner than you think... Haha, I really love your sense of humour ! But seriously, what makes you think a cure will be available within the next three years ? The Hearing Restoration Project (http://hearinghealthfoundation.org/curing_hearing_loss) assumes it'll be ten years.

 

benryu. Im just wondering did you had some hearing loss?

 

Quite important in the begining, my audiogram was really bad, but for some reason, it got back to pretty normal.

 

Benryu! Might you add this to the success section? You are needed there

 

'ass/u/me/s it'll be ten years' Is that the 10 years from 20 years ago? I worked at a company with a 5 year plan. It is on the third 5 year plan but they are only 5 year plans. I say they are in the 2nd year of their third 5 year plan.

 

Have a look to the research news section, things are moving faster & faster. What's happening at the moment was not even imaginable a year ago. For sure most NGO will be super conservative, but we can't ignore the numerous projects trying to tackle our problem.

I have faith, and I'll do wathever I can to help to find a cure!

 

Thank you for your success story!

I'm really depressed, and the fact that you uses your tinnitus too succeed your studies is incredible!

I'm struggling at night to sleep with T, and in september i try a very hard school, and as i'm depressed i doubt i can succeed.

But your story really gave me hope

 

I hope you're right. I'm not so positive. But I do hope you're right and I'm wrong (referring to a cure)

 

Thank you benryu, for this thread. Best wishes to you.

 

You are inspiring benryu. Thank you!

 

I appreciate your detailed approach towards this problem and even your ideas that are more on the far-fetched side seem to have logic behind them, can you please extend your attention towards a large part of the tinnitus cause by dental infections, missaligements and similiar, like this link provides: http://murrayhenningsdmd.com/neurological-diseases/

I already sent you a PM so I would be grateful if you replied.

 

Hi! I'm new here. I woke up with ringing on my right ear one Sunday morning, June 8 of this year to be exact. I tried my best to cope but it was always on my mind, always searching for it, if it's still there or not. I thought I was coping quite well because I can still sleep although it was always on my mind. Then on the night of July 21, after taking a shower and blow drying my hair. As I put my head on the pillow, I heard a high pitch ringing on my left ear too. It really scared me, thinking that now both my ears are ringing, because of the loud blow dryer and it really freaked me out. Since then, I haven't been able to sleep. It's as if something switched on and now I have insomnia and anxiety. I went to the doctor, I was prescribed to take .5mg of Ativan in the morning and .5mg-1mg at night to help me sleep. Started taking it only at night on July 25. To count the days, I've been on it for 17 days because there were days when I tried my best to sleep even without it. After the blowdrying incident, I checked my left ear and I didn't hear any ringing, I guess I was just paranoid that night. But now, after 17 days on ativan, I hear ringing on my left ear too! Now, I don't want to take ativan anymore. Can I just abruptly stop taking ativan? Anyone taking supplements to help you sleep? I'm starting to feel anxious now just thinking how will I be able to sleep tonight. Melatonin doesn't work for me, valerian doesn't work either. I will really appreciate if anyone of you will reply. Thanks in advance.

 

Hey, welcome here, Activan is not a cure for T., it just help you sleep, you can stop it if you are not confortable with it. You should consult an ENT if it's not already done, there is something causing the T. you have to figure out what it is. Consider a MRI too if available.
I suggest you to create a thread to ask your questions, this is a section is for introduction and you will have a bigger audience in the adequate section of the forum to find answers.

 

Hi, @fatz1126: First, your experience gives me a chance to share something with all:
If you blow dry your hair, wear ear plugs. I didn't in the beginning and then one day it dawned on me: this thing is noisy! I measure it on my decibel meter: it was 95 dbs that I was holding right up next to my ear. So keep a pair of foam plugs in your bathroom and use them.

As far as sleep: You could try Rozerem, which is a pharmaceutical grade of melatonin. Its not cheap and you do need to get it from a doctor. Others here have done well with Remeron.
You haven't been on Ativan for long, and sounds like you have been taking it on and off anyway, so you probably would be OK to stop. But again, ask your doctor.

There are lots of threads here regarding sleep and anxiety, and you might want to post on those. It's really common, if you are anxious due to your tinnitus to begin with, to start getting anxious about if will be able to sleep (which makes you more likely not to sleep. Frustrating!) You'll get more answers, as you are off topic on this thread. Good luck!

Some sleep talk here but there are other threads. Just use the search field on the main page. Also search "anxiety"
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/5-days-of-sleeping-without-a-masker.5704/#post-59559

 

Thanks LadyDi and benryu. I guess I have to figure out how to create my own thread. Can I just repost this?