Advice Appreciated — Spike Fears, Lack of Sleep & Really Struggling

Hi all,

I apologise if this is long, but I feel like I need to get all of this out.

It's not often I post here, I think this is only my third time, as I try and use this as a last resort and stay away from places like this when I'm doing okay, no offense intended. I've had T for over 3 years now, I was diagnosed when I was 21. I have maybe 4-6 different sounds in my ears and head, all varyingly high-pitched and tonal. Was given no T therapy, I was just told by an ENT, in a five minute appointment, to use hearing protection when I went to restaurants, pubs, was on noisy public transport, walking next to busy roads, when I was out in the city centre of where I live (Liverpool) and to "try and ignore the noises". So that's what I tried to do.
For much of my time with T, after the initial 3-6 month adjustment period, I have lived a content and habituated life. A maintained 100mg dose of Sertraline helped that. I live a realistic life with T, I know my limits now and I accept them. I haven't been to a club, concert, cinema or excessively loud bar since my initial T-inducing events. A lifestyle choice I struggled with at first but became very comfortable with surprisingly quickly, I don't even miss things like clubbing anymore.

My only real issue before now was a cold which blocked my sinuses last January, causing me to focus and grant stress and anxiety to my T. After a couple of months, and a brief return to my cognitive behavior therapist, either my T went back to it's normal level or I re-habituated, I still don't know because I refused to give it attention.

All of this brings me to now. At the beginning of December I had a run of three out of four days where I was in semi-loud environments, all of which would have felt manageable to me if they had not been so close together. One of these days included walking near (maybe 15 yards?) a pretty loud speaker system while wearing hearing protection for maybe 30 seconds to a minute. I became very concerned that I was going to have made my tinnitus worse, stating as much to my girlfriend and mother at multiple points during that 4 day period, something they keep pointing out to me. More than 24 hours after walking past the speaker I had a moderate spike in one ear, it made me panic and gave me a lot of stress and anxiety. I became pretty sensitive to sounds and reluctant to go outside.

Over the next couple of days I managed to bring my stress levels down and with it the T became manageable, returning to it's normal level. However, I remained stressed about going outside and exposing my ears to any harmful noises. It was at this point that I had to walk to the nearby train station to pick up my girlfriend. I was stressed about it, so I figured I would put in my earplugs for the entire journey to just get through it. As I was walking, I could feel pressure and tension gathering in my ears and a couple of minutes after we got back home the spike started again, along with fullness in my ear. Since then things have gone from bad to worse.

After a week of trying to deal with the spike, I was starting to become less bothered by the spike and my brain went looking for new noises. I started second guessing noises that I'd been habituated to for two years, I got incredibly stressed and started to feel a piercing hiss, mostly in my head and sometimes my ears, along with overwhelming head tension. During the brief moments that my stress is at a low level, I sometimes notice that the overwhelming hiss is either gone, quieter or manageable. Of course when i notice this it usually just shoots straight back up.I know that I've described a high- pitched hiss before, as I can see myself complaining in my inbox messages on here when I was last stressed by my T in January 2017. The hiss and my stress have made it impossible to sleep. Either the hiss has kept me awake or my heart beats uncontrollably and I feel ill. I think I've experienced REM sleep maybe once in the last week, during which I had a nightmare about more tinnitus noises!!!!!

From my own (admittedly subjective) memory, I don't ever remember having this much discomfort with my T before. I have felt sensitive to sound and after reading about hyperacusis, that sensitivity has increased significantly. My own voice and conversations with other people bother me. Part of me thinks this is psychosomatic after reading about H properly, I haven't had any real problems with sensitivity since the first few months of T. But my worry is that I have brought all this on myself by overprotecting my ears and now even the smallest noises will make me uncomfortable and make my T worse. I don't even know if that's possible and hope this is an irrational thought brought on by stress.

The bottom line is this, I know that stress is having a major impact upon my body, but I'm struggling to regain rationality. I have restarted my Sertraline at 50mg and I'm even worried about the damage it could be doing to my T, despite taking 100mg of the stuff for over two years and it having no negative effects on my T volume. Any advice people have about coping with situations like this would be greatly appreciated, I could really do with some help here.

Thank you for taking the time to read this,

Michael x

 

Sorry, that you feel so bad. Your stress levels DO make an impact on your tinnitus and can bring on and keep a spike going. I highly suggest, that you let what happened in the past, stay in the past. The anxiety of re-living the past, simply makes you feel worst. I do not take meds, if you have to take it, then take it. Meds can help out a lot, but they can also cause side effects as well.

You can still manage to cope and move forward, just take it easy and don't be so hard on yourself. Things can better, but a busy/stressed mind can keep you from getting better. Overprotecting your ears is not healthy, you cannot block out every sound you hear. This just trains your mind to be unhealthy and every little noise can trigger negativity.

Take care

 

That sucks man.. the bad cycle of stress -> lack of sleep -> increased ringing -> stress -> etc was really hard for me a few weeks back. If you can, try to exercise and force yourself to sleep and relax as much as possible. The spike from the train station sounds like it could have been pure anxiety and not any actual sound making it worse. And since then you haven't been able to relax. Now your body is full of stress hormones which is why your heart is beating like crazy and your feel sick.

 

I find that exercising (even though I don't want to) helps. I used to run with earbuds in, but no more. Now it is just the "music" between my ears. As for sleep, like you, I am missing REM sleep because I wake up at 2 AM or so and once I am awake it begins. I hate to do it, but I take half a xanax tab to help me quiet down and get some more rest.

All any of us can do is hang in there and do what we can. Best of luck.

Dan