Fresh with Tinnitus, but Onto a Solution

Hello friends.

It's been two days since I woke up to find that I, like many others will have to live with this incessant noise.
Of course it's only been two days and I still do hope that perhaps it can potentially fade with time or even return to my normal state.

To begin, a mate and I went out clubbing on a friday night to see one of our favourite hard trap Dj's whose music was so excessively loud that it hurt. Making matters worse was how little the space was that we were in, and certainly my friends that attended the club are now going through the same thing. For me it is a high pitched hissing sound in the right ear, and thank goodness that at least it is only one side. I don't know how I'd respond if my entire head was wrapped in such a tortuous scream. For the most part, as I go about my day I barely notice it, and it did get slightly better today. If I'm at the dinner table having a normal conversation the sound is only slight and I will hear it if i pay attention, and finally it is most prominent when I'm in my room without any external noise.

Initially this freaked me out, and I spent a bit of time rushing through all sorts of scenarios in my head and worried if it might even be the end of me. One can never understand the gravity of a suffering until it finally happens to them, but by that stage it's too late to do anything. Such terrible irony indeed.

Fortunately I've found my mental resilience better than I expected and have been able to calm down at a reasonable level. Of course it does still bother me particularly in the morning when all I want is to wrap up in my blankets undisturbed. HOWEVER I FEEL THAT I MAY HAVE AN ANSWER FOR EFFECTIVE HABITUATION. (sorry about the caps, it's highlight my main point). Everyone is different however, so the disclaimer is that take this advice upon your own discretion. Nonetheless, the approach is simple enough.

When reading about tinnitus and habituating to it, people talked about distracting yourself with other business, adjusting your reaction, and masking with more pleasant noises (but at a level where the tinnitus can still be heard at a background level). I thought that since i play piano (I've been playing since 5 and am now 21), i could try to use that to help me deal with this thing. I put a normal set of foam earplugs in to mute out the piano to a degree so that I can still hear the ringing as I was playing. The earplugs only muted the piano enough so that I could still hear myself play of course. As usual i get carried away playing the piano and enjoyed this alternative way of playing, and eventually completely forgot about the ringing in my ears. The result was that for a period of time after I stopped playing the tennitus was much less bothersome and a little quieter. In conclusion I found that playing an instrument while muting it helped to immediately rediscover my pleasure in sounds even with the incessant ringing in my head. I believe that with practise, this could eventually bring me out of this problem completely if I don't naturally recover otherwise.

I know this may leave out some other people who don't play instruments, but perhaps this could be a very good reason to start learning an instrument and find greater pleasure in life as a result. I apologise for such a big post but I hope I can help at least one other person under the same circumstances.

 

I havent read all of it, and I dont know if its too late, but since its obviously noice induced go to an ENT and get a steroid injection ASAP. It may help a few days after onset