New Here! How I Stop Focusing on the Sound in My Head? Where Do You Seek Help?

Hello everyone, I've been reading through this forum for the past few weeks and figured I had nothing to lose in joining.

I'm a 28 year old history student from Scotland and I've been suffering from tinnitus for the past year and a half, almost two. What was initially a high pitched, but fairly quiet ringing in my left ear, has transformed into a whole orchestra in my head over the past two months following an incredibly bad anxiety episode at the end of October. I currently have a static/hissing sound in the middle of my head, that moves around depending on how anxious I am (I have the slightest hissing in my ears) and as of two days ago, I have the faintest ringing in my good ear - which is my worst nightmare, because I really was coping. When I say it hadn't been bothering me, I really meant it. The only time I ever heard it is when I lay down to sleep at night and now it's all I can think about, and it's quite possibly ruining my life. It's impacted my studies greatly, taking away my ability to concentrate on anything but the screaming inside my mind, and my desire to live life. I've been to my doctor, who has referred me to an ENT, but as I'm in the UK I know I'm going to be waiting an obscenely long time before I ever get to see anyone and even then, I'm skeptical about what they can do. I think my mental health might be exacerbating the ringing in my head greatly, I'm hoping that maybe when my mind calms down a little, I won't hear it so much. But the new ringing in my good ear is extremely discouraging.

Has anyone ever experienced this and has it ever went away?

The thing I came here to ask is... how do I stop focusing on the sound in my head, where do you seek help when you live in a country that can't really offer you much and waiting lists for specialised care is obscene. I'm truly at my wits end right now, I think this is the lowest I've ever felt in my life and I've had some pretty bad episodes. I'm not entirely sure what to do or where I go from here.

Thank you so much for reading this, haha, I hope everyone is well!

 

Have you checked out the Lenire megathread?

 

@Ashley Ann hey welcome to the forum. I have had tinnitus for 4years. If you have any questions don't hesitate to send me a message... as far as coping you honestly have to find your own way and trust me it can be difficult.

 

At this stage I'd suggest maybe try and find some kind of sound enrichment as a distraction. I have good days and bad days with tinnitus. On the bad days I've found this site really helps:

mynoise.net

There's some tinnitus specific settings there that may or may not work for you - the sound enrichment thing tends to be a bit of trial and error I've found.

Anxiety does tend to feed tinnitus, which can then form a troublesome loop. Although it probably won't cure the tinnitus, exercise, whether it be walking, swimming, jogging, whatever, can help distract and give your mind a rest. There's no "one size fits all" unfortunately, just experiment a bit to see what works best for you.

 

i, too, happen to live in a country with extremely long queues. if they don't see anything physical, it's not urgent. great focken system! so i googled stuff, found ents who take without referrals, saw a couple of them, didn't help much. they put you on pills right off the bat, no analysis made. the more doctors i saw, the more the conclusion that they don't give a f about patient's well-being became apparent. if you get to an ent doctor, don't take anything prescribed without googling or searching here first. they gave me once something that could exacerbate the loudness. to be honest, ents won't help much, see the neurologist as well (just to cross it out). try to find someone who takes without referrals.

i think there are 2 paths from here, either you distract yourself as much as you can during the day (work, entertainment, studies), or do mediation/mindfullness. now the latter is way harder, so if you're discouraged right now with the new sound, give yourself a rest first. talk it out with someone, don't hold it in yourself. i did get once a new sound but it went away. maybe it was sleep deprivation, i can't tell.

what has been going on before the new sound? new sources of stress?

 

Try something called curcumin or turmeric supplements. Take it with food, preferably right before bed. Also take several times the recommended dose.

 

@Ashley Ann
I can vouch for the second path described by beach. You will be a wreck the first week, but after that you will notice improvements in your daily life. I decided to have short sessions for a few weeks where I'd just listen to all my sounds in a quiet room for about ten minutes. That was six months ago: at this point, my sounds are usually still around all day, but they hardly bother me anymore. I'm not dependant on masking or medicines either this way.

Of course, I'd still like a true cure, but at least I can afford the patience for it in this state

 

Hi there! I actually haven't, I'm very new to all of this, despite having tinnitus for almost 2 years now.

 

Hi there, thank you for the welcome! I've had it for almost 2 years now and I've always managed, it's just this horrible new sound in my head that's driving me round the twist currently. Have you ever dealt with tinnitus spikes before?

 

I'm finding the sound I'm dealing with at the moment is a little reactive to sound so I've been steering clear of noise of any sort. It's the most obnoxious hissing sound that feels like it's coming from my head as opposed to my ears, and it appeared after a particularly bad week of anxiety, which makes me wonder if I calm myself down at all that it'll get better, haha.

I'm trying so hard to keep myself busy, but I find it's there.. distracting me from everything and anything at the moment.

 

It's absolutely horrific that something that ruins so many people's lives is of little concern to doctors, you'd really think there'd be something they could do in this age of medical advancements. It really does blow my mind, haha. I don't think it's possible for me to see an ENT or any medical professional very quickly without going private, and being a student, I don't think that's feasible at the minute. Medication is also hard to come by unless prescribed in the UK, so it really is just a matter of learning to live with it, which is pretty shocking.

The difficulty is finding someone to talk it out with who doesn't think I'm imagining things or who doesn't just completely brush me off, I think most of us can agree that non-T sufferers just don't understand what we're living with. A phantom noise in your head that only you can hear, it really is difficult to articulate just how much it affects our day to day lives.

I went back to school after taking some time out. I had a particularly bad week the new sound appeared, crippling anxiety. And from there on out, I've been stuck with this hissing/fizzing sound in my head. I definitely feel like anxiety is playing a major role in things and I'm hoping it's just a spike, though I've never had one before.. so I'm freaking out right now and fearing the absolute worst.

 

Thanks for the suggestion! I'm currently taking tumeric supplements, I'm taking almost every supplement under the sun with little improvement but here's to hoping, haha!

 

It's amazing that something I've been living with for almost 2 years now has left me completely debilitated in the space of a few weeks. I really had gotten used to the ringing in my ear for a good year and a half, until I was hit with this hissing sound in my head after a few bad weeks of anxiety. I'm really hoping it's just something that comes with my body being this worked up and as my anxiety goes down, and I notice it less, it either disappears or fades into the background. My brain is just.. so fixated on it at the minute, I can acknowledge that much. It's tricking my brain into not noticing it that's proving almost impossible right now, haha.

I'm with you on that, I understand a cure isn't realistic. But something to make things a little more manageable or to make it a little quieter even, I'd take that.

 

Hi @Ashley Ann -- I think there's a good chance you're correct about that assumption. You may want to check out the following thread: -- All the Best...

Three Supplements to Treat Severe Anxiety Symptoms

 

Ya quite a few spikes. Useally has to do with stress and whatnot