A Long Story, Not Only About Tinnitus

Hey there,

My name is Aurélien, I am from France and you might not be able to pronunce my name correctly
I wanna tell a little bit in this post about my life some years before and my life since I got tinnitus.

So I am pretty young man, only turned 22 a week ago. Pretty shy during high school, I have been escaping reality by using earphones pretty loud and playing video game. I had hyperacusis at a young age (16 or 17 yo) from earphones, but it was a pretty low one, it only annoyed me when putting at max volume my earphone. It fade away in a few months. I started smoking around 17 yo to be more "social" and then started partying a bit. From 18 yo to 21 yo I used to party at least once a week and kept listening to loud music through earphones.

Then as I get into PUA stuff when I was 20 and hit the clubs harder than ever (3 times a week) and of course without hearplugs. Then it happens, during one party in June, one friend of mine shouted on my left ear and I felt a horrible pain in my ear. Then back in the car to go home, I could ear a EEEEEEEEEEEEEE very very loud (could hear it throught the music) then as you might guess, it did not go away, day 1 day 2 day 3 etc.... still pretty loud and I get some anxiety through this. At first I read a lot about it and bought earplug, and kept going to clubs wearing them, but I did not enjoy it at all and decided to just not go to club anymore.

I went to an ENT, I had ear wax in my left ear, which made me pretty optimistic about my tinnitus fading away.

At first I thought it would fade away (like for many of us), and I was pretty optimistic. During this time I stopped smoking and my tinnitus got louder from the anxiety, but as I have asthma I needed to go through this because smoking was destroying my lungs.

3 months after the beginning of my tinnitus, I traveled to Russia for a month, went to party with earplugs and nothing got worse, or even better, but when the 4 months hit, I started to have huge anxiety from it. The tinnitus itself did not change but I started to have thoughts like "omg am I seriously going to live with this forever?".

Now it has been 5 month, my tinnitus did not change I believe, I have had mild hyperacusis which have had ups and downs. My mindset is not positive or negative about it, my tinnitus changes a lot, sometimes I can't hear it during day, sometimes it just fucks me up, but I try to not have thought about it thought it might happens I can't hear people as well as before because of the sound of my tinnitus. I don't go to clubs anymore and I am trying to learn new languages and build a business through the time I would spend inside. I still go to house parties where the music is not too loud, or to bar (outside). Drinking alcohol does not change my tinnitus, however stress does. And I wear earplugs in the gym or if it's somehow too loud or if I feel tired.

Now as a lot of people here I am still hoping for a cure, working hard to get the money to buy it (yea I am still student), my friends understand it and I am planning to see an ENT to know if I have had hearing loss through this proccess.
My only hope for now besides the cure is that it stays like that, I don't want this to ruin my goals, dreams and life. I am trying to see it as a scar from my PUA moment in the club and try to see it as a life lesson.

 

Welcome to the forum. You are still very young. Let's be positive that a better cure/treatment will come out soon. Even if it comes out in 10 years, you still have lots of life left. But life doesn't have to depend on that cure. Your dreams and goals can still be achieved. We have many members who suffered badly during the first few months or a year, and yet they turn around their life to pursue their dreams and goals in life. Keep positive and keep engaging in life while accepting the new normal living with T. That will help you in the long run. But T may fade in intensity over time for many people too so habituation can be easier. Keep up the hope. Take care. God bless.

 

Thank you so much for your post! It's very good to hear positive feedback like that. Of course I don't want to rely on the hope for a cure to live my life as you said.

It looks like now I could live my life till the end if it does not get louder, however I am a bit more scared about my mild hyperacusis. It does not bother me so much right now but I don't want it to destroy my life.

However I like listening to quite music while working, it goes around 40 db (without earplug ofc) when using my db tracker on my phone. This won't do any harm right ?

 

It's hard for me to imagine that it would do any harm. I actually think it could be beneficial, as whatever we can find that helps us relax is likely to support our ears and healing processes. -- I say, "Enjoy"!