3 Weeks In

Hi, I have been dealing with tinnitus for 3 weeks so far. I am a mom of 2 and have had some trauma preceding the onset.

I delivered a baby as a surrogate mother at 34 weeks and the baby unexpectedly did not make it. And two weeks after that had my first ocular migraine which scared me senseless. Now I have this and it's left me sleepless and full of anxiety and depression.

Any words of wisdom would be appreciated. Im suffering.

 

Hi!
I'm 36 weeks pregnant and 4 weeks in......from what I have read it is pretty common during and after pregnancy. Will it go away......from what I've been told by Drs and specialist highly likely. But if you're like me you are focused on the possibility of living with it.

Today is the first day I haven't cried.....i had some moments when I didn't think about it....that's progress as I have been obsessed the past few weeks.

My husband and 5 yr old are my strength....I worry that I will lose my joy to this but you know what....I smiled today....laughed....cuddled with my son and talked with my mother in law. There is hope....hope that it will go away and hope that I can live my life if it doesn't.

Please reach out if you need to....private message me.

 

It sounds like your tinnitus is caused by a combination of pregnancy as well as stress. Stress can make tinnitus immensely worse unfortunately. So it's that vicious cycle of needing to stop the stress to stop the migraines to stop the tinnitus to stop the stress and so on. I know it's easier said than done. I would also suggest possibly speaking to a therapist either privately or together with the family you were being a surrogate for. It may help to talk about how you are feeling about it. I'm very sorry to hear of the loss of the baby.

 

Hello to both of you. I can't figure out how to reply to you both individually help lol. But thank you for the kind words, I am definitely caught up in a cycle of needed to get out of anxiety but remaining here because of all the upsets I have had recently. I had actually tried to start lexapro to calm my anxiety I was on it for 6 days when I got T. I have no idea if it's related, but it scared me enough to stop the medication. I feel like I would really do better on some type of anti depressents anti anxiety medication but am now terrified it will make it worse. Not sure what to do.

 

Benzo's are known to make tinnitus worse but at the same time, are often used to treat the insomnia, depression and anxiety that come from having tinnitus. In the end you'll have to decide what works best for you.

 

Welcome to the forum. You can send private message and start a conversation to them if you don't want your reply to be public, or if you want to reply them within the thread, then you can quote their post or highlight some sentences (like I did above) and reply to them respectively. If you don't like to quote their post, then just type their posting ID with a @ prefix and this will cause system to send them an 'alert' about your reply to them.

If the T is causing much anxiety, perhaps try masking T. If you don't know how, here are some suggestions:

1) Mask at bed time so you can sleep better. Find whatever sounds/music that are soothing to you. You can use a sound machine or sound pillow for this, or a computer with speakers.

2) If you need masking on the go, try load an ipod with nature sounds or music using itune. If you have a smart phone, you can download free APPs for soothing or T-masking sounds.

3) If you have computer and speakers, you can try these excellent masking sounds too:

TT's audio player: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/audioplayer/

or this online sound library, particularly the self-mix nature sounds: https://mynoise.net

or download free sound generator ‘aire freshener’: http://www.peterhirschberg.com/mysoftware.html

or search youtube with words like 'tinnitus masking sounds', 'white noise', 'rain sound' etc.

Finally about the drugs, yes some drugs are ototoxic and can aggravate or trigger T. If you want, perhap try the natural alternatives, such as Melatonin, Lemon Balm, Valerian, Hops, Catnips, Passion Flower, Chamomile, Lavender, Kava, etc. You can do google search or check Amazon.com for each of them to know how people review these products, and see if you can take them as a supplement. Check out this site on using natural herbs for helping to sleep or to calm the nerves.

http://www.christopherhobbs.com/lib...ealth/herbs-and-natural-remedies-for-insomnia /

 

Tinnitus is pretty common. It's stressful only until you get tired of dwelling on it. Then it becomes just another background noise. The more important matters of the day will take over, just like before. Your old self is still in there, and she'll come back to the surface.