A New Tinnitus Kid in Town

Hello there,

my name is Pavel and I’m a musician. I play the guitar (not in a band), I produce music and I am a DJ as well, that gets me regularly into areas with high noise levels. I have ALWAYS had tinnitus as I remember, but it never felt like a problem. My brain was just filtering it out for good and I noticed it only the morning after a hard party or occasionally when going to sleep, but still, it happened really rarely (once per two months for example) and I very quickly forgot about it every time I noticed.

But recently, something bad happened. Three days ago I suddenly started to notice the sound all day long. I can’t tell if it’s louder than it has ever been or is it at the same volume level but my brain just decided to stop filtering it out. It seems suddenly i got stuck in “the loop” as it got very hard for me to stop thinking about it, it’s almost impossible to be honest.

Strange thing is that it didn’t happen after some party with loud music playing. It was after a really hard work week followed by even harder weekend. I work as an frontend developer / graphic designer, so my job is mostly sitting in front of a computer screen, and I usually don’t work on weekends, but we had a strict deadline for a product release this time.

Combined with other stuff (feeling guilt that I can’t be with my girlfriend on her first free weekend after a long study run for the masters degree, being pissed off by missing the half of my roommate birthday party and attending the other half, plus several things on my TODO list with approaching deadlines), it resulted in a really, really stressful weekend.

Before the weekend I was okay as far as I can tell. After the weekend, shits started to rain in my head. My T is a constant, very high pitched sound that some people are even unable to hear (it’s around 18 000 Hz, that kind of almost unhearable high pitched sound some TVs make when turned on). It’s not too hard to mask with music, but I’m now literally afraid of silence.

I noticed something I may refer to as “full ears” with the right one slightly “fuller” (maybe there is just some filth in my ear that’s too deep to get out with standard cleaning sticks?) and I also noticed a slight tension on the back of my neck. There are no other physical symptoms I could point out, except rather unusual increase of tiredness (which could be easily explained by the hard weekend).

I really hope this is a stress related issue, but it scares the shit out of me so far. Today I’m gonna buy myself some vitamins and I guess it would be wise to set an ORL appointment ASAP. I am also considering some lifestyle changes - dropping the cigarettes (although I’m more like an occasional smoker), buying a pair of ear plugs to protect my ears on the parties, starting to exercise on a regular basis and adjusting my diet in the more healthy way.

If there is anything more to consider, please, let me know. I believe I can fight it, but right now the situation seems pretty grim to me. At least I'm not alone

 

Join the club @2Nine! Your symptoms - and their causes - sound pretty similar to mine. Unfortunately I can't say I have any answers, but at the very least you can know that we're in this together.

 

Members here often recommend some good supplements, such as NAC, Magnesium, Zinc, B12, D3, etc., and reduce intake of salt, sugar, MSG, caffeine, alcohol etc. You may also want to help yourself to get more sleep. Sleep deprivation is one sure way to fire up T. Get some bed time masking such as a sound machine or a sound pillow etc., so you can fall asleep better.

Instead of sleep meds from the doctor, you can try natural alternatives such as Camomile tea, Hops, Valerian tablets, Melatonin etc. Check out this site on using natural herbs for sleep problem:

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

Stress is definitely a known cause for T, particularly prolong stress which you seem to have. So do anything to de-stress the body, such as leisure walk, exercise, yoga and meditation, abdomenal breathing, outdoor life, travel and vacationing etc.