Hiya from Illinois USA!

Hello all! I'm Pamela a 49 yr old semi-retired professional musician who recently developed unrelenting Tinnitus & brain zaps during withdrawal from Cymbalta. Aka the user name X-zinger (ex-singer lol). Sorry - no sleep from the pounding shocks of anxiety & the constant song of their people "The Tinnitus Tribe", have left my humor kinda whacked. ;p

I also have hearing loss due to young n dumb LOUD unprotected music playing, so add this in & it's TV captions & alotta "huh? what'd u says?" Lol together I feel pretty hearing handicapped.

I was told the Tinnitus was a withdrawal side effect & should be gone by now, but I think it's worsening. I have been suffering with this for a couple of months and finally decided to try to talk to others who are going through similar symptoms/feelings because this added to my other problems is literally driving me crazy! So...here I am, ready to read/learn & hopefully make some friends.

Saw my Dr. Again yesterday because he's afraid I have more permanent than situational hearing damage. I am scheduled for more testing so at this time I'm unsure of just HOW much my overall hearing is compromised. I DO know this is relentless and along with the ringing/screaming "zaps" "zings" and actual total dead silence at times I'm worried, scared, and it is really breaking me down. Hard when you can't shut it off or drown it out.

Gonna do some more reading here as soon as I can. My own situation is a bit hectic but should settle some soon. For more info on me I'll be updating profile soon. From the little bit I've seen so far looks like a nice community.

 

Well...no input so moving on... possibly not a very active forum? I was told I needed to get immediate attention or this could worsen. And possibly be permanent .. so sorry for my impatience.

 

Hi Pamela,
Have you been through the different areas of the forum? Most people on this forum have full time jobs/ families and get very busy at times. Don't lose heart this is indeed a very friendly and caring forum.

Sometimes the best thing to do is get the panick/ anxiety of the situation dealt with first. Eg go to a Gp or the like and take some relevant medication. After this has settled there are many different things that people have tried on this forum. Perhaps skim through all the great advice given and see what works for you, as tinnitus is a very individual thing. Good luck with it all and keep us all posted on your progress.

 

Hello zinger, sorry to hear about your T , don't worry the T volume goes down somewhat with time and it does get better. Click on the tab " recent activity " and you'll get to read a lot about what everyone's going through. To sleep I and many others take magnesium supplements and camomile tea, besides having some gentle white noise. Hope you feel better soon. When I first got tinnitus I took gingko biloba and zinc regularly then I started taking b12. Now I try to just eat very healthy, white sugar, gluten, red chilli , spicy food and caffeine spikes my T. Hope u feel better soon, keep us updated, best wishes.

 

Hiya guys! Sorry bout my earlier comment - I understand how busy people are. I haven't have much luck with forums lately - finding some are practically empty/closed during summer months especially.
And...
yes a bit panicked and anxious definitely describes me, add in impatient too lol. I go to get a hearing evaluation (4hrs long)? tomorrow, so that's good. Experiencing a lot of different audio problems and nurse said sounds like more than just a drug withdrawal symptom. Fullness to point of pain and some sounds are piercing while voices/tv is muffled. The super loud Tinnitus backed off some once my meds were changed but noticed it's creeping back up in volume. Anyway thanks for your responses and I do plan on reading more on here. Hope you all have a great day!

 

Hi x-zinger and welcome to the forums, it's quite active around here ! i can't remember seeing your post this weekend

by the way, did you play an instrument ? or singing ?

J

 

Hello x zinger,its ok here plenty of people about ,decent people dealing with a rubbish problem.

 

I'm an 18 year old drummer who's had this for years but in recent weeks its gotten terrible. I wish the best for you Pamela! Apparently people can live with this. I suppose we can as well.