Devastating Loss of a Parent or Other Loved One Prior To Onset?

I have recently encountered a number of tinnitus sufferers who relate that their tinnitus began fairly soon after the devastating loss of a parent or sibling.

I cannot help wondering if there is any statistical significance to this?

Have you lost a parent, sibling, or other love? Or a much-loved pet?

Have you any other losses that caused great emotional distress in relation to your tinnitus?

Please comment or explain if your tinnitus has been affected in any way by such a loss.

Thank you,

Dr Charlie
Charles Smithdeal MD, FACS

 

Dr. Charlie
I didn't experience a loss of a loved one; but you hit the nail on the head -- loss. Obviously, there can be great (even chronic) pain and anxiety associated with the loss of a loved one that can lead to a stressful state and resultant depression.

At the onset of my T, I was experiencing great stress (and resultant depression/burn out) in the form of severe career and familial issues.

Depression, I believe, is a loss of well-being. I believe a chronic loss of well-being has negative physiological impacts; T is one of them.

Mark

 

Stress is a common trigger in bringing on increased volume of t at the very least, so yeah it only makes sense that a life changing event would be a factor...

 

It's already known that any sort of traumatic event or a prolonged stress, can trigger a number of psychological disorders such as depression, GAD, insomina, etc. and even neurological such as tinnitus, tremor, vertigo, etc.
Often people think "I am strong, it cannot happen to me", but as Dr.Charlie posted earlier, the human brain can only take so much psychological punishment.
Did you know during World War II, up to 20% of soldiers suffered shell shock on both sides, and military psychologists estimate this is the number of soldiers who will inevitably succumb to incapacitating psychological illness in a major war.
The rest of those who witnessed horrifying events or experienced them, will be psychologically scarred for life and many of them may suffer from PTSD later in life.

 

Absolutely agree. The last 12 years (after our first child was born; we have now two boys 7 and 12) was very stressful. My wife runs her own business, I have a demanding job, two kids. Besides that, cared for others. After 12 years, I was "burned out". Vertigo, migraines, exhaustion. No T until then. But those symptoms caused high anxiety for me. This was then too much. My brain switched on T like crazy. A psychologist would say: T was my alarm system. Others would have got heart attack or something else.

So definitely losing a a loved one that causes anxiety/stress can cause T, like it did for me. T on top of all the other symptoms was a nightmare. All other symptoms are gone, T stayed and brought depression. Or maybe burnout/depression brought T for me. I still don't know.

Currently facing another stressful phase. My wife is seriously ill (cancer) and I don't know how this all ends. Oftentimes I have the feeling my life is over with 45 and the future does not have much good for me. I am working on challenging those thoughts with realistic ones. But what is realistic? Sorry, going off-topic.

 

I did loose someone very very close to me about 5 months before onset, but to be honest I never really put the 2 together. I guess it's very possible the stress and grief plates a part in bringing my T to the surface

 

@Martin69 -I know - your depression is 100% due to tinnitus.

 

My t came on at a time when I was as close to a breakdown as I've ever been.

 

@Dr Charlie I lost my dad back in march from dementia lewy bodies. It put my depression in over drive watching him go from strong person to a nothing in a year time. I'm sure all the sadness made my T worse even after all the years I have suffered (40+) with it. For me the feeling of uncertainty is a major blow to my many different sounds of T.

 

I was living the best days of my life prior to the T nightmare.

No stress, no loss. Nothing.

 

@dan
I think the same. When I was in the T clinic at the beginning, I had no signs of depression. Anxiety was ultra high.
My anxiety is lower, although always present and sometimes still high (in stressful phases).
I think that living with chronic sh... like T causes depression for many.

 

My tinnitus started about 1 month after I lost my mom in May off this year. I was so overwhelmed looking after mom that I didn't look after myself and overwhelmed seeing her suffer so much daily. I was overwhelmed with grief and sadness and almost fainted while driving, out for a walk, shopping, dinning and assumed it was an anxiety attacks. After several episodes of nearly fainting, dizziness, headaches, etc I notiiced a load hissing or buzzing sounds in my left ear and some hearing loss as well. I was keeping faith the T would go away on its own by now but the souind has only increased in volume. Waiting for MRI in December.

So it seems to me that a major loss of someone extremely important in your life can bring on T and many other issues if you don't take time to sleep and look after yourself a lesson I learned to late in life.

Teresa

 

Amazing responses. Thank you each for sharing your experiences. I asked the question because of personally encountering a number of T sufferers recently with the history of severe loss within a few weeks to months of their T onset.

I don't know the answer. But I suspect there is a strong connection that goes beyond "ordinary" anxiety-generating situations.

Let's all keep asking ourselves about possible common denominators.

Bless you,

Dr Charlie

 

@dan,
Here's a page from one of my general anxiety relief websites. It deals with energy psychology methods used for PTSD, and references a few of the published studies:

Post Traumatic Stress – also known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD) – is commonplace today among military men and women who have faced horrific wartime conditions and situations.

The human psyche is not able to experience such extreme physical or emotional traumas without suffering significant damage.

Until now, neither the military establishment nor conventional medicine has had an effective solution to offer. Meanwhile, the energy techniques described here have proven highly effective to relieve the suffering and reverse the symptoms ofPTSD.

As an example, Mr. Gary Craig demonstrated his technique [Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)®] a few years ago in a Veterans Administration Hospital in Los Angeles. Fortunately he videotaped all sessions while teaching his techniques to veterans suffering from severe cases of PTSD.

It is my understanding that Craig extended an open invitation for all staff psychologists, psychiatrists, and residents in training to observe his sessions. He and an assistant conducted sessions several times daily for one week. It is also my understanding that not one staff member – M.D., PhD, or R.N. – showed up to find out what Craig was doing.

I have personally watched the videotapes of these recorded sessions. The results experienced by these tortured veterans were astounding. Many obtained more relief following a few hours of applying this method than from all of their prior years of conventional treatment and brain-altering medications.

Our personal results confirm the effectiveness of these methods for victims ofPost Traumatic Stress or PTSD.

Isn’t it time to embrace new methods to relieve the suffering of these brave men and women and their families who have sacrificed so much to keep our country safe?

Even civilians worldwide are now being exposed to horrific acts of terrorism. Thank God we finally have an effective means to deal with the psychic trauma and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that results from such inhumane acts.



PTSD Experience & Studies


For lack of a more descriptive term, ART, EFT, TFT, and TAT are often grouped together under the category of “Energy Psychology” (EP.)

Respected EP researchers Drs Joaquin Andrade & David Feinstein reported a multicenter study of 31,400 patients followed in 11 allied clinics in South America over a period of 14 years. 36 therapists were involved. Once study involved 5,000 patients diagnosed with Anxiety Disorder. Of these, half were treated with Energy Psychology alone, and the other half were treated with conventional Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT – psychotherapy) plus conventional medications.

Results:

Patients who showed some significant improvement:

CBT + medication = 63%.
EP = 90%.

Patients who demonstrated complete remission of symptoms:

CBT + medication = 51%.
EP = 76%.

Average # of sessions required for reported results:
CBT +medication = 15 sessions.
EP = 3 sessions.

Comparison to conventional acupuncture:

Positive Response with conventional acupuncture (Needles) = 50%.
Positive Response with EP = 77.5%.


PTSD STUDIES


Case studies of 337 post-disaster victims in Kosovo, Rwanda, the Congo, and South Africa demonstrated significant improvement from EP in 334 victims (99%.) Details below.

The Green Cross, a humanitarian relief organization formed after the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995, recently adopted Energy Psychology techniques as a standard therapy in its post-disaster missions.

In Kosovo, approx 100 people were followed for 18 months after using one form of EP for “problematic emotional effects of 249 horrific self-identified memories.” Of these, 247 (99.1%) were not merely improved, but reduced to “no emotional distress” on a scale of 0 to 10. The horrific memories, of course, remain, but are no longer emotionally disabling.

January 21, 2001, Dr Skkelzen Syla (Chief medical officer of Kosovo—similar to our Surgeon General, and a well respected MD and psychiatrist) investigated the treatments and then reported:

“Many well funded relief organizations have treated post-traumatic stress here in Kosovo. Some of our people had limited improvement, but Kosovo had no major change or real hope until we referred our most difficult trauma patients to Dr Johnson and his team. The success was 100% for every patient and they are still smiling to this day.” (Carl Johnson PhD is a clinical psychologist, a diplomat of the American Board of Professional Psychology, and a retired PTSD specialist with the Veterans Administration.) Dr Johnson made 9 trips to Kosovo between Feb 2000 and June 2002. His later trips were primarily for the purpose of training local physicians

Dr Johnson’s records indicate the following results:

COUNTRY # VICTIMS SUCCESSFUL # TRAUMAS FULLY RESOLVED

KOSOVO 189 187 547 545

SO AFRICA: 97 97 315 315
RWANDA 22 22 73 73
CONGO 29 28 78 77

TOTALS: 337 334 (99.1%) 1016 1013 (99.7%)

Dr Johnson wrote that his results “… feel embarrassingly too good to be true,” but affirms that they do indeed reflect his experiences, and that he “recorded them exactly according to what happened.” His results have been confirmed by the Chief Medical Officer and local physicians who worked with Johnson at the time.

The Humanitarian Committee for the Association of Comprehensive Energy Psychology has reported similar results working with over 300 tsunami victims. They report: “Strong rapid responses to the psychological aftermath of the disaster, including alleviating anxiety, depression, and anger as well as the successful resolution of earlier traumatic memories activated by the tsunami experience.”

Green Cross founder Charles Figley, Ph.D., psychologist and leading figure in trauma treatment says, “Energy psychology is rapidly proving itself to be among the most powerful psychological interventions available to disaster-relief workers for helping the survivors as well as the workers themselves.”

Rather than continuing to prescribe ineffective and often dangerous medications to our suffering military heroes, isn’t it time that the U.S. Armed Services and Veterans Administration adopt these revolutionary methods as the primary therapy for victims of PTSD?


Bless you,

Dr Charlie