3 Weeks of Suffering

Hi! So I just joined about three minutes ago after only having read like 3 posts on here but I thought I'd post-

I've probably have had tinnitus for much longer, but in the past I would literally only hear it during routine hearing tests where I'd have to listen for noises of similar pitch. (I've had a hearing loss since birth) Once the test was over, it'd go away, and that would be that. I literally never thought it was tinnitus though, rather just my brain mimicking the sounds as sort of a coping mechanism for my hearing loss. Three weeks ago though, it hit me. Over the span of a few days with no apparent prompting, it went from quiet and annoying but always present, to loud, obtrusive, impossible to ignore and often painful. It's also in a tone that I have a severe hearing loss in so I'm in no way accustomed to this sound, and it's drowning out everything I do. Maskers as of yet have done nothing, the ringing drowns out background music in movies, the only thing that provides relief is being completely focused on a good game or something (but even then, if I start to think "what a relief!" it kicks right back in again). When I don't hear it as strongly, I just have a painful pressure in my head/ears that's just as bad as the noise itself. I even had masking program put on my hearing aids, but that just makes me listen to multiple noises at once which gives me headaches from just too much noise input. So far nothing seems to be doing anything and I'm kind of falling apart.

It's also just so awful having something that my hearing aids don't affect. I took absolute delight it taking off my HAs at night and just having everything be chill and calm and quieter, but tinnitus doesn't care about those- it quiets for no device.

Priority one for me is figuring out how to stay sane with this- I've been doing a real bad job at it so far, but I figure some people here have gone through the same thing here and I am here to steal your secrets! Any successes or knowledge anyone has would be greatly appreciated!

Now off to go read some more posts

 

Welcome to the forum. Before people can respond in number to your post, the best thing is to read up as many success stories as you can. You will learn good insights how to get better from people who have walked the talk. You are obviously going through a spike.

There are many causes which can trigger or aggravate tinnitus including drug reaction or side-effects, ear or Eustachian tube infection, ear wax build up, ear drum injury, fluid build-up feeling pressured, TMJ, high blood pressure or blood circulation problem, loud noise exposure or acoustic trauma, neck muscle problems, hearing loss, Meniere's, barotrauma from flight, grief for the loss of love ones, untreated sleep apnea, elevated stress, anxiety & panic disorder, etc.

 

Hi Emarie,

Welcome aboard!

My first suggestion for you would be to schedule an appoint with an ENT so that you can get a professional evaluation of your ears/sinuses. Also, if he does not offer, ask him to do a hearing test. There is always the possibility that your hearing changed since last check.

Has anything happened to your health recently? Been sick, taken meds with potential side effects, stress, tension headaches? The ENT should go over all that with you.

Outside of the clinical realm, what I can tell you is that your mind is coping with a new sound and gradually, your mind will deem it as non-threatening, thus not causing you to react in a stressful and anxious manner. The whole "secret" is to stop fighting it. I know it is not easy because as humans, our bodies are conditioned to fight off intrusion. However, in this case, the sooner you let it win, the faster it will help you to habituate. Good luck!

 

I'm waiting on my insurance card to come in the mail and once that happens I am for sure getting myself to an ENT. Seeing that nothing real big has happened to me the past three weeks, I'm halfway certain that it's just a new thing I have to deal with thanks to the hearing loss I was born with. The other half of me is thinking the pain that has come with the tinnitus might be indicative of it being part of an infection or something. I'm not certain. Is pain a common thing to go with tinnitus? I haven't seen many people talk about it here.

I have also struggled to find some good coping mechanisms for people with LOUD tinnitus. A lot of advice and whatnot I've seen from people are like turn on a fan or some white noise, neither of which I can actually hear because my condition right now is too loud. I've been trying to find what other people have already talked about as to not repeat the same questions over and over, but I'm still struggling finding some options for this one. Anyone have any insight?

 

Not sure if these will help, but there are many choices of sound in these sites. Perhaps you will find one that will help you mask your T. Even a soothing nature sound that does partial masking will help ease the stress of hearing T front and center.

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

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