2 Years On. Living with Tinnitus & Hearing Loss (Positive Story)

So I'm hoping to make this a yearly thing (if I remember to keep it up) to update you all on how I'm getting on with my Tinnitus and Hearing Loss. I know it’s not going to just “Go Away” or “Get Better” but I wanted to share my story/progress so that those new sufferers that end up on this forum (after trawling the internet for a cure) will hopefully find this helpful. There so many horror stories on the internet about Tinnitus and the web is one of the first places people will look for an answer, I know that’s what I did. 95% of what I read just scared me even more and made me feel like I’d never feel “normal again” but there was that small 5% of people that had habituated to the Tinnitus/Hearing Loss and had come back to share their story and that definitely helped give me hope.

Firstly I just wanted to start with a brief overview of how my hear has gone. I’ve now lived with Tinnitus and Hearing loss for exactly 2 years to the date. I won’t go into detail about how it started and my first year as I already have a post about this which you can see in these below link - https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...earing-loss-and-tinnitus-positive-story.9802/

The last year
Since my last post life has been a bit mad. As mentioned in my last post, I was renovating a house with my then partner. We renovated the house in just over 10 months which was a huge achievement, however it was a hugely stressful time. I thought the amount of noise and stress would affect my Tinnitus but actually I can’t remember ever being overly bothered by it. I think because I had something to focus on it took my mind of the Tinnitus or it could be that because my Tinnitus just doesn't really bother me any more I was subconsciously still ignoring it. I’m still in my current job (have been for 6 years now) and I’m loving it! I get to travel all around the UK and Ireland visiting different customers, the amount of mileage I do each month is crazy and whereas when my Tinnitus first started I hated being in the car because listening to music in a confined space was so painful on my ears now I have the music up full blast singing my head off… people on the motorway must think I’m mad! I go out a lot, to clubs, music festivals, I drink, I smoke (I started smoking again 2 years ago when this first happened and I keep saying ill give up… I really need to) I basically do everything I did before the Tinnitus started and probably even more now as I want to enjoy life as much as possible. I also travelled a lot I went to Canada and New York both amazing places, I’d love to go to New York again. As a lot of you know on TTalk and Facebook I did get engaged in New York however I’ve now split from my then partner. It was a very difficult time for both of us as we had to sell our house, our pets where uprooted from their normal life and what we had known for the past 6 years was over. Again, I don’t remember any of this effecting my Tinnitus in any way at all. So anyway the last 6 months I’ve been on my own having lots of fun with friends and family, settled into my own lovely little home, absolutely loving how busy my job has become and recently have a new boyfriend who I’m besotted with. Life at the moment for me is pretty perfect… Even with only one working ear and Tinnitus.

What’s helped me
There are a few things that I believe have helped me. Firstly my friends and family. Everyone has been so accommodating to my needs, friends, people at work, family, everyone knows to stand to the left of me so I can hear them and if they forget and I quickly run round the other side of them we just make a joke out of it. I get the off “she can’t hear you shed deaf” joke but I just find them funny to be honest.

A HUGE thing for me this year is I no longer sleep with noise at night. I used to have to sleep with a fan on every night it was costing me a fortune! But now I go to sleep very peacefully with no artificial noise at all, this was a massive thing for me as that was the last thing that constantly reminded me of my Tinnitus every day. I think the reason I stopped using the fan is because of my boyfriend, it sounds silly but I sleep so peacefully when he’s there I have just naturally stopped needing the fan, even when I’m staying away with work now I can just drift off to sleep naturally. It’s so great!

As I have mentioned before STOP looking on the internet for a cure, I’m sorry to say there isn’t one, definitely not for Tinnitus and not for the type of hearing loss I have. The most important thing to habituating to Tinnitus, and I say this to everyone that asks for my advice, is acceptance. You need to accept what has happened to you and what you have to live with. I know that’s really hard to tell someone who has just developed Tinnitus because to a lot of people it seems like the end of the world, I mean how can you live with constant ringing/screaming in your ear 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year!!! Well you can live with it as long as you accept it, then you can move on and learn to live with it and you can’t move on while constantly looking for a cure that just isn’t there. That is honestly my best advice and I can’t stress it enough, Accept and move forward.

I’m a huge believer in helping yourself which is why I didn’t take Anti-Depressants while going through all of this. I know they do help some people and I would never judge anyone for using them but for me it was again part of the acceptance. I wanted to be able to overcome this on my own without the help from any tablets to “take the edge off” I do believe that it’s all in your head (no pun intended) and you can make yourself stronger without having to reply on tablets.

I did try a hearing aid to both combat the hearing loss and the tinnitus but unfortunately I didn't get on with it very well. I tried it or 3 months and I just found that the sound was amplified too much and I still couldn't understand speech in my right ear. The hearing aid also didn't mast the tinnitus at all (my Tinnitus is that loud NOTHING will mask it)

Next 12 Months
Well I’m a busy bee over the next 12 months, I have god knows how many holidays to go on with Freddie (the boyfriend) and my friends. Im also planning on buying another house once the right one comes up and generally just to have A LOT of fun! You only get one life so go out and LIVE IT! I’m still ignoring my tinnitus on a daily basis and rarely think about it and when I do think about it, it doesn’t bother me or make me feel anxious like it did to begin with, it’s just a normal art of life and to be honest I think it would be really weird to not have it any more, it just seems normal to me. It does bug me sometimes but bugging me is putting it mildly. All I can say to anyone that’s reading this who has just developed Tinnitus or is that it WILL get better, be strong, even though you may not feel strong now you will do and you will live a normal life again (whatever normal may be)

I don’t get on to TTalk as much as I would like to these days but I want to thank all those members that helped me when I was finding things really hard. I'm more than happy to speak to anyone that needs support or has any questions. My email is –Catherine-clifton@hotmail.co.uk or find me on Facebook - www.facebook.com/caff.clifton

 

Hello Cath!
Such an inspiring story... I feel I should really learn from you. Our stories are similar, I also went suddently deaf with T and am having a hard time with things. I long so much for my former self and grief my loss daily. Does the grief get better? Can you honestly say you dont think about your hearing loss anymore? Right noe I feel as I cant live to my true potential and feel so much regret for not getting proper care for my Sudden hearingloss...
I am really struggling with these feelings...

 

Oh this is such a great story! Your first post really helped me and was so happy to read this one! I totally agree on thinking that super stressful times will make it worse...when in reality...it's the farthest thing from your mind congratulations on your continued success!

 

Caff!! i honestly love your story,
some how i think im there too...
and i relate to you, because i recently broke up too, and things get complicated.
life just doesnt stop not even if you have T, and i agree you have to enjoy life even more!!!

i honestly dont know the cause of my ringing (mostly in my left ear)
but ive been avoiding social events, cinema, traveling, parties, clubs etc.
and this has been even harder than tinnitus itself to be honest.
how do you do it?
i mean my fear is that the ringing would get worse, what do you recommend?

thank you caff, i hope everything is alright <3