5 Months with Tinnitus — Some of My Journey So Far and a Glimmer for Hope for Others

Well, it's been a while since I have been on and I wanted to come back with how I have been dealing with tinnitus after getting it around 5 months ago.

Mine started after having some impacted wax removed (See my original post for more info) by irrigation.

First, the tinnitus was a low hum like someone had left an engine running outside. I would search high and low, thinking the noise must be an appliance in the house I was diagnosed with tinnitus. I had a hearing test which told me my hearing was actually very good.

The first few weeks were hellish. The worry, the doubt, fear, anxiety gripped me as I searched for a cure online and spent so much time and money trying as many natural treatments that I could. I drove myself crazy looking for results whilst all the time listening intently to my tinnitus.

After about a month, the low hum subsided a bit and I got a new high-pitched tone that decided to come along for the ride. The tone was like being in a room when one of the old type televisions had just been switched on - A loud static type ring.

I begged and pleaded with my GP to help me and was given Lorazepam which I only used around once a week when sleeping was impossible. I also did not want to get addicted and face the battle of withdrawal that could have also made my tinnitus worse.

I got referred for CBT which has yet to happen but I remain hopeful it will soon due to long waiting list.

I came to the conclusion that I needed to start looking after myself better. It was easy to drink more when I felt stressed by the tinnitus, it was comforting to smoke or vape but these things I knew deep down were making things worse.

I was losing hope and on the point of breaking down. I have been through a lot of stuff in my life but this has been the hardest. I had to try a plan with stuff I had read online. My first course of action was to make myself feel better despite my tinnitus.

I gave up drinking beer and still have the odd gin with sparkling water here and there.

Each day I take 1000mg of Taurine, a CoQ10 tablet, some magnesium glycinate and drink plenty of water.
I also eat fresh pineapple, almonds and pumpkin seeds everyday - You can look up the properties of each. I only eat a small amount of very dark chocolate each day as my sweet treat. I feel incorporating these foods into my diet has helped me feel a lot better and more able to cope with my tinnitus.

This is not going to be a success story as I still have my tinnitus both low and high but I just wanted to say to anyone new to tinnitus that there is hope as I could not see myself where I am now 5 months ago.

My tinnitus is pretty much always still there but as well as the above and I am sure habituation things have got better. I still get spikes when I don't sleep well and work is stressful but has learned to understand what caused the spikes and this in itself lessens them. Don't get me wrong, I am not always great at coping, take last week a two-day spike set me into panic mode which looking back did not help the situation at all.

I just wanted to post this to give others a glimmer of hope during the early stages of tinnitus as I know personally, they are the toughest. No matter how small, fill the darkness with as many glimmers of light as you can and take time to rest to look after yourself, as I have learned from so many others on this forum that rest and removing stress are two of the most important things. Also, do not drive yourself mad searching for cures and reading endless posts on the forum, take some time to chill.

I still have a long journey ahead of me but after such an awful start, I feel like I am making some progress.

Sorry for the long post.